|
Working Paper
| HBS Working Paper Series
| 2012
When Performance Trumps Gender Bias: Joint versus Separate Evaluation
by
Iris Bohnet, Alexandra van Geen and Max H. Bazerman
|
Abstract
We examine a new intervention to overcome gender biases in hiring, promotion, and job assignments: an "evaluation nudge," in which people are evaluated jointly rather than separately regarding their future performance. Evaluators are more likely to focus on individual performance in joint than in separate evaluation and on group stereotypes in separate than in joint evaluation, making joint evaluation the money-maximizing evaluation procedure. Our findings are compatible with a behavioral model of information processing and with the System 1/System 2 distinction in behavioral decision research where people have two distinct modes of thinking that are activated under certain conditions.
Keywords: Selection and Staffing;
Groups and Teams;
Performance Evaluation;
Behavior;
Decision Making;
Prejudice and Bias;
Gender Characteristics;