Moral commitment to gender equality increases (mis)perceptions of gender bias in hiring

TY - JOUR

T1 - Moral commitment to gender equality increases (mis)perceptions of gender bias in hiring

AU - Xiao, Hualin

AU - Marie, Antoine

AU - Strickland, Brent

PY - 2024/10

Y1 - 2024/10

N2 - Exploring what modulates people's trust in evidence of hiring discrimination is crucial to the deployment of corrective policies. Here, we explore one powerful source of variation in such judgments: moral commitment to gender equality (MCGE), that is, perceptions of the issue as a moral imperative and as identity-defining. Across seven experiments (N = 3579), we examined folk evaluations of scientific reports of hiring discrimination in academia. Participants who were more morally committed to gender equality were more likely to trust rigorous, experimental evidence of gender discrimination against women. This association between moral commitment and research evaluations was not reducible to prior beliefs, and largely explained a sex difference in people's evaluations on the issue. On a darker note, however, MCGE was associated with increased chances of fallaciously inferring discrimination against women from contradictory evidence. Overall, our results suggest that moral convictions amplify people's myside bias, bringing about both benefits and costs in the public consumption of science.

AB - Exploring what modulates people's trust in evidence of hiring discrimination is crucial to the deployment of corrective policies. Here, we explore one powerful source of variation in such judgments: moral commitment to gender equality (MCGE), that is, perceptions of the issue as a moral imperative and as identity-defining. Across seven experiments (N = 3579), we examined folk evaluations of scientific reports of hiring discrimination in academia. Participants who were more morally committed to gender equality were more likely to trust rigorous, experimental evidence of gender discrimination against women. This association between moral commitment and research evaluations was not reducible to prior beliefs, and largely explained a sex difference in people's evaluations on the issue. On a darker note, however, MCGE was associated with increased chances of fallaciously inferring discrimination against women from contradictory evidence. Overall, our results suggest that moral convictions amplify people's myside bias, bringing about both benefits and costs in the public consumption of science.

KW - gender bias

KW - morality

KW - myside bias

KW - science consumption

KW - STEM

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85194064650&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/ejsp.3071

DO - 10.1002/ejsp.3071

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85194064650

SN - 0046-2772

VL - 54

SP - 1211

EP - 1227

JO - European Journal of Social Psychology

JF - European Journal of Social Psychology

IS - 6

ER -