The disadvantage advantage The goal of affirmative action is to give more opportunities to disadvantaged groups. According to a new study, though, hiring applicants from such groups into sales positions might be purely strategic. In one experiment, commuters at a train station were asked by a researcher sitting in either a wheelchair or a regular chair whether they would pay $1 for a smiley-face “awareness pin” for one of four randomly selected charities: to help the disabled, to help victims of the Myanmar cyclone, to help Chinese suffering from a rice shortage in China, or to help middle-class Americans suffering from a rice shortage in China (the last one was intentionally silly). Around 80 percent of commuters bought pins from the researcher in the wheelchair, compared to around 60 percent from the nonwheelchair researcher, regardless of charitable cause. Likewise, after white students listened to either a white or black student arguing in favor of instituting comprehensive exams, white students reported being more persuaded by the black student, but only if the argument was delivered face-to-face and not by video. The fact that whites nodded and expressed agreement more in front of blacks suggests that the act of trying to look sympathetic to ostensibly disadvantaged groups causes real changes in opinion.
Uncommon Knowledge
Surprising insights from the social sciences
Norton, M. et al., “The Persuasive ‘Power’ of Stigma?” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (forthcoming).
A land where boys are behind in math Spatial reasoning ability is thought to be one reason men do better in math, science, and engineering. Now, there’s a study that even Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard who infamously suggested the importance of “innate differences,” might appreciate. In a sort of natural experiment, there are two adjacent, genetically similar tribes in Northeast India, but with a key cultural difference. One is patrilineal: Women are not supposed to own property, which is inherited by the oldest son; while the other is matrilineal: Men are not supposed to own property, which is inherited by the youngest daughter. Men and women from both tribes were offered money to solve an unfamiliar four-piece puzzle. Men solved the puzzle significantly faster in the patrilineal tribe but not in the matrilineal tribe. In fact, the median time for females in the matrilineal tribe was faster than the median time for males in either tribe.
Hoffman, M. et al., “Nurture Affects Gender Differences in Spatial Abilities,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Sept. 6, 2011).