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Stereotypes, Bias, and Personnel Decisions: Strange and Stranger

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2015

Frank J. Landy
Frank J. Landy*
Affiliation:
City University of New York and Landy Litigation Support Group
*
E-mail: Frank.Landy@LandyLSG.com, Address: Landy Litigation Support Group, 195 Hudson Street, Apartment 2D, New York, NY 10013
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Abstract

Research on stereotyping as related to workplace evaluations and decisions has been going on for more than 30 years. Recently, implicit association theory has emerged as a less conscious manifestation of stereotyping mechanisms. In this article, I review the relevance of research on both stereotyping and one of the more popular tests of implicit associations, the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Claims have been made that both stereotyping research and, more recently, IAT research provide theoretical and empirical support for the argument that protected demographic groups (e.g., ethnic minorities, women) are the victims of biased personnel decisions and evaluations. My review of the literature suggests that both stereotyping and IAT research study designs are sufficiently far removed from real work settings as to render them largely useless for drawing inferences about most, but not all, forms of employment discrimination.

Type
Focal Article
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , December 2008 , pp. 379 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2008 

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Footnotes

*

Baruch College, City University of New York and Landy Litigation Support Group

I gratefully acknowledge the suggestions of Kevin Murphy on earlier drafts of this article. In addition, I acknowledge the assistance of Kylie Harper in the preparation of the final draft of the article.

My discussion of stereotyping research is based on a chapter (Landy, 2008) I prepared for a book by Borgida and Fiske (2008).

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