Shelley Correll Tamar Kricheli-Katz Stanford University
Research suggests that people assign responsibility and moral judgments to undesirable events and traits that are believed to be within the control of individuals. That is, if we perceive that people have chosen a path that has led to unfortunate life circumstances, e.g. illness and poverty, then we are more likely to view them as responsible for their condition, and thus to judge them, reject them, dislike them and treat them negatively. But what are the consequences of assigned responsibility, moral judgment and stigma for the social structure? Do they affect discrimination and inequality? While the negative reactions associated with the perceptions of choice and controllability were documented by social psychologists, the relationship between such reactions and discrimination against those who are perceived to have made these choices, has not been addressed by scholars. This research studies the phenomenon of choice- based discrimination. The study predicts that the perception of a situation as controllable generates discrimination against those who are perceived to have chosen it. The co-investigator studies this hypothesis using a mixed method research design. The first component of the research is a quantitative analysis of the motherhood wage penalties associated with the perception of motherhood as a choice women have. The second component is a hiring experiment in which the relationship between the perception of choice and discrimination is assessed, using the examples of homosexuality, obesity and motherhood. The third component is a qualitative analysis where employers are interviewed in an effort to learn about the ways in which the relationships among choice, responsibility and discrimination are conceptualized.
Broader Impacts: Research findings will contribute to the general literature on discrimination. This project examines a choice-based discrimination at the labor force that has not been studied before. Findings could potentially help us to understand how perceptions of choice and controllability may lead to discrimination against those who are perceived to have ?chosen? motherhood, obesity and homosexuality.
In this project, I show that perceptions of choice and controllability generate discrimination. People tend to discriminate more when traits are perceived to be controllable. Therefore, for example, gay people not only provoke more negative emotions but also are discriminated against more when homosexuality is perceived to be a "lifestyle choice", rather than a biologically based trait. Similarly, obese individuals not only are disliked more but also are discriminated against more when obesity is believed to be affected by choices people make, rather than biologically based. In one part of the project, I used a hiring experiment to provide evidence for choice-based discrimination against obese men, gay men and mothers. First, ideas about choice and control were activated so that for some of the participants in the study the argument that homosexuality, obesity and motherhood were choices was activated, while for others the argument that these traits were not choices was activated. Later, the participants were asked to make hiring decisions and salary recommendations for two fictitious, equally qualified job applicants who differed solely in their sexual orientation, their maternal status or whether they were overweight. Specifically, one of the two applicants was presented to the participants to be an obese man, a gay man, or a mother, while the other applicant was presented to be a man of an average weight, a straight man or a non-mother, respectively. The results provide strong evidence for a causal relationship between perceptions of choice and labor force type discrimination against obese men, gay men and mothers. When the traits were presented as voluntary, obese men, gay men and mothers were penalized compared to their equally qualified counterparts in terms of hiring, salary recommendations and competence evaluations. The second part of the study was a quantitative analysis of the wage differences between mothers and childless women. It built on recent work in sociology and economics that has documented substantial wage penalties for women associated with motherhood and has suggested that discrimination plays an important role in producing them. In this part of the study I showed that the degree to which motherhood was conceptualized as a choice affected the wage penalties associated with making this choice. Data from the 1988–2004 Current Population Survey and hierarchical linear models were used to explore this question. This statistical procedure allows for the estimation of the effects of state and state-year characteristics on individual-level wages while controlling for variations at all three levels. Three measures were used in the analysis as proxies for the perception of motherhood as a choice in a given state in a given year: The first measure taken was the percentage of women who are not mothers, as this reflects attitudes toward motherhood being a choice women have. The greater percentage of childless women, the more that motherhood is perceived to be a choice. The second and third measures were the rate of legal abortions and the existence of state funding for abortions for low-income women. Pro-choice attitudes and policies are justified in the U.S by the notion that women should have the right to choose motherhood. Thus, greater abortion rates and the existence of liberal abortion funding policies reflect a society in which women are perceived to have control over their reproductive decisions. In other words, higher abortion rates and the existence of state funding for abortions for low income women suggest a cultural climate in which motherhood is perceived as a woman’s choice. The analysis revealed state-by-state differences in the wage penalty associated with motherhood; in states where there were greater percentages of childless women, more abortions per capita and liberal abortion funding policies, there was also more discrimination against mothers. The third part of the study was qualitative. Employers in the San Francisco Bay Area were interviewed in an effort to learn about the ways in which they conceptualized the relationships among choice, responsibility and discrimination. In the interviews, all employers expressed a very clear moral intuition – when people chose their traits, it was appropriate for employers to take the choices they made into account when making employment related decisions. The respondents also expressed sympathy for people who did not (and could not) choose their devalued statuses and explained that in these cases employees should not be penalized. Very often, employers raised the traits of sexual orientation, weight and motherhood themselves as examples for life-style choices that appropriately generate employment outcomes. When they were asked to further explain why they thought that such choices appropriately affected employment, they talked about responsibility. They explained that they respected people’s life-style choices whatever they were, but at the same time believed that people should bear the consequences that follow. It was therefore appropriate, in their view, for employers to take seemingly voluntary characteristics into account when making employment related decisions.
