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Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

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Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#71

Post by metiscus »

flavius29663 wrote: post #69
anigbrowl wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you can. You're less likely to be pulled over in most of the US than a black person driving the same car and wearing the same clothes.

I was stopped too by police and one time briefly searched, so what? Being stopped by the police is not a game changer. If you haven't done anything wrong you'll walk away and go to work and back home. Why is being stopped by police such a big deal? I think the police should do more of that in the US, it would reduce crime considerably.

Let's work through a hypothetical. Say that drug use is evenly distributed regardless of race across a group of people. If orange people get searched more frequently, even if every search is equally justified, then the number of orange people being prosecuted for drug infractions would be disproportionate.

Note: I am not making a statement about the propriety of this, but merely working through an example of applied statistics.

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#72

Post by Enginerrrd »

rsa25519 wrote: post #32
hellbannedguy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have wished for a system like this forever. I have no qualms over a test. We all need to take tests. Give all applicants a few written tests on the job they are hiring for. The people who do well on the test are given the job on a probationary basis. I might even exclude references, and schooling?

> The people who do well on the test are given the job on a probationary basis. This sounds terrible. Not everyone can take tests well (even if they strongly understand the content), and few people can afford to accept a job that's probationary.

I've met plenty of average people / mediocre performers that probably test worse than their other performance, but I've never met an exceptional performer that was a poor tester. I have met some exceptional testers that were poor performers due to personality issues.

Tests have issues, but in general, the statement: "if you're a "bad tester" you're not an excellent performer" is pretty true.

The caveat being that, IMO, most of the time, institutions are using the wrong test.

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#73

Post by intergalplan »

motoxpro wrote: post #45
throwawayboise wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but this illustrates that it's possible to make changes in how you present yourself to overcome potential class biases. This levels the playing field a lot. And why shouldn't people seeking higher status jobs or education be expected to present and conduct themselves accordingly?

"Don't speak like you, speak like me"

"Don't speak like you, or like me some years ago, speak how I learned to speak in order to signal that I'm both perceptive and capable, but also not so rich that I can wisely choose not to signal those traits".

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#74

Post by open0 »

throwawayboise wrote: post #44
hn8788 wrote: post #34

Doesn't suprise me. My wife is from a rural town in NC, and was told by her high school teachers that she needed to lose her southern accent if she wanted to be taken seriously in college. When she was working on or master's degree in Maryland, a writing professor commented "you speak and write so well, I never would have guessed you're from the south". That kind of discrimination is very prevalent in academia and me…

Yes, but this illustrates that it's possible to make changes in how you present yourself to overcome potential class biases. This levels the playing field a lot. And why shouldn't people seeking higher status jobs or education be expected to present and conduct themselves accordingly?

"And why shouldn't people seeking higher status jobs or education be expected to present and conduct themselves accordingly?"

Because accent has nothing to doing with "conducting oneself accordingly". Why is the onus on the victim of discrimination to align with your bogus, outdated way of thinking?

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#75

Post by beaner »

fishtoaster wrote: post #35

Key bit here: > Devoid of any information about the candidates’ actual qualifications, the hiring managers judged the candidates from higher social classes as more likely to be competent for the job, and a better fit for it than the applicants from lower social classes. Moreover, they assigned the applicants from higher social classes more lucrative salaries and signing bonuses than the candidates with lower social s…

Yeah, the point taken from the study is really designed to stoke tension when it is not really reflective of anything meaningful when it comes to job applicant filtering.

It reminds me of a learning from one of Thomas Sowell's books. There were communities that thought that background checks for employees in certain industries were racially discriminating by their very nature. They moved to ban them. Race disparities in those industries consequently went up, not down. The reason? Without an impartial and indifferent scan of a person's background, employer's were left to use the signals they could pick up on in person, filtered through their own biases. The solution was to allow background checks again.

It sounds like this study is basically saying that without the background check (in this case, actual interviews assessing qualifications), that people are more likely to filter through whatever biases they have at their disposal. Sounds like no surprise... That's the whole point of the interview, to be the impartial and indifferent filter that anyone would be judged by. The solution is to just apply the interview and not judge based on a few seconds of dialogue. Which nobody does anyway. So it's not testing for anything real.

(Cue many knee-jerk anecdotal counterpoints to "nobody does that anyway." Please. You're not getting that software engineering job by being an artist with no prior experience who flashes high-class speech for 10 seconds.)

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#77

Post by sopp »

flavius29663 wrote: post #48
vmception wrote: post #3

I think US-bias is more so class bias than race bias and this comes with a 99% correlation to racial discrimination due to the half millenium of directly ensuring certain races could not access the economy or capital or literacy. Racial discrimination also occurs. A lot of support for racial equality is lost because it is too reductive and invalidates the experience of potential allies in the majority power who exper…

as a white that grew up very very poor, I can't possibly understand why so many black people try to convince me that I'm guilty of white privilege, when most of them had many more resources growing up.

> accused of being guilty of white privilege

Maybe "accused" and "guilty" are not the right framing here - you inherit white privilege because of your ethnicity, it doesnt necessarily make you guilty of anything, but you benefit from it whether you want it or not.

You can think of it in the same way that the wealthier people you mention have inherited a better social class by just being born. They can profit from the privilege of their wealth, while suffering from racial discrimination. You can suffer from poverty, while not being hindered by your skin color. People are multi-dimensional.

I think a fairer way to compare would be to compare people from the same social class when looking for privilege and inequality here. Is a poor white person doing better than a poor black person? Is a rich black person doing better than a poor black person? Is a white rich female doing better than a white rich male? Etc...

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#78

Post by [deleted] »

beaner wrote: post #75
fishtoaster wrote: post #35

Key bit here: > Devoid of any information about the candidates’ actual qualifications, the hiring managers judged the candidates from higher social classes as more likely to be competent for the job, and a better fit for it than the applicants from lower social classes. Moreover, they assigned the applicants from higher social classes more lucrative salaries and signing bonuses than the candidates with lower social s…

Yeah, the point taken from the study is really designed to stoke tension when it is not really reflective of anything meaningful when it comes to job applicant filtering. It reminds me of a learning from one of Thomas Sowell's books. There were communities that thought that background checks for employees in certain industries were racially discriminating by their very nature. They moved to ban them. Race disparities…

[deleted]

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#79

Post by lucian1900 »

flavius29663 wrote: post #69
anigbrowl wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you can. You're less likely to be pulled over in most of the US than a black person driving the same car and wearing the same clothes.

I was stopped too by police and one time briefly searched, so what? Being stopped by the police is not a game changer. If you haven't done anything wrong you'll walk away and go to work and back home. Why is being stopped by police such a big deal? I think the police should do more of that in the US, it would reduce crime considerably.

Black peoples in the US are far more likely to be summarily executed when interacting with police.

Re: Study shows class bias in hiring based on few seconds of speech

#80

Post by DenisM »

vmception wrote: post #3

I think US-bias is more so class bias than race bias and this comes with a 99% correlation to racial discrimination due to the half millenium of directly ensuring certain races could not access the economy or capital or literacy. Racial discrimination also occurs. A lot of support for racial equality is lost because it is too reductive and invalidates the experience of potential allies in the majority power who exper…

I must say it also looks rather beneficial to some - while the lower classes are duking it out over a divisive issue the upper classes are safe from social reform. Divide and rule.
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