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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

#81

Post by flavius29663 »

metiscus wrote: post #71
flavius29663 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I see the problem, but I fail to see what you're suggesting? Are we supposed to let criminals go free? Don't deal drugs, is it that hard?

If black people wouldn't deal drugs, they wouldn't be targeted by police officers. Think of the east Asians, they are discriminated and mocked maybe even more than black people, but they are less likely to commit crimes, so police doesn't target them.

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

#82

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: post #8
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…

There once was a study where they eloquently demonstrated this by putting the same white actor into two situations: one had him lay down acting like he was dying from a hear attack in front of Wall Street wearing a suit. The other had him doing the same thing but wearing worn out sports clothing. They found that people responded more favorably to the actor when he appeared to be of the same social class.

We can thank the wars against poverty, drugs, homelessness, and crime for this. These all serve as foils against considering ones own class and how easy it is to move downwards in America without any support for those not in abject poverty nor consideration for the disappearance of community building locations, events, and organizations, in large part due to union busting.

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

#83

Post by selimthegrim »

flavius29663 wrote: post #81
metiscus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I see the problem, but I fail to see what you're suggesting? Are we supposed to let criminals go free? Don't deal drugs, is it that hard? If black people wouldn't deal drugs, they wouldn't be targeted by police officers. Think of the east Asians, they are discriminated and mocked maybe even more than black people, but they are less likely to commit crimes, so police doesn't target them.

If I’m Muslim I should be OK with being profiled because some reprobates think it’s still the 7th century AD? It’s a little more complicated than “Was drugs your dealer?”

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

#84

Post by shannifin »

>"They discovered that speech adhering to subjective standards for English as well as digital standards — i.e. the voices used in tech products like the Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant — is associated with both actual and perceived higher social class."

I'd be interested in learning exactly what these "standards" are. I have a harder time understanding slurred speech and when people leave off the end consonant sounds, for instance, and will likely have a bias against that. (I'm reminded of this profound elocution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzHIs7j1CCs ) Good diction is just easier and more pleasing to listen to.

I think I've only experienced actual diction / speaking lessons in a theater class, but it's a useful skill in general.

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

#85

Post by flavius29663 »

lucian1900 wrote: post #79
flavius29663 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

not when accounting for a higher level of crime. In fact, whites are more than half of police victims, while causing way less than half of violent crimes.

There are 32 million traffic stops each year. In 2019 the police shot 14 unarmed black Americans. I think every death is unforgivable, but let's not pretend that going to work and back as a black person you're putting your life at risk when meeting the police.

There is a bias, sure, but it's just that, a bias. I fail to see the evidence for widespread discrimination.

Police should do more stops and preventive interventions, look at Baltimore https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015

Look at pre-2015 and post-2015. The homicides increased from 200s to 300s. All because of a police crime and BLM protests in 2015. Now you have 100 extra people each year losing their lives. US needs more police, not less. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltim...

I'm deviating, but my point is that police is not a suppressor for the black community, but a helper and an enabler for the honest working people. It can be intimidating and demeaning interacting with the police, but it's still 100x better than interacting with the gangs of Baltimore.

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

#86

Post by wincy »

bitwize wrote: post #9
Clubber wrote: post #4

It would be nice to get a transcript so we could identify what speech was declared to be lower socioeconomic speech. It's important to be able to speak and write proper English for a job interview, even though most speak in an informal English most of the time.

This doesn't take into account things like accent, which does count. Many people native to the Boston area looking to get high-paying jobs (esp. in tech) work on breaking their Boston accents to sound higher class.

I know a woman who now works at Google who is from Boston. I had no idea until she told me, as she had no accent at all. She laughed and said "oh only poor idiots have the Boston accent, they actually have to practice to sound like that".

She had a pretty dim view of the Boston accent, and she was from Boston.

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

#87

Post by RHSeeger »

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.

There are many vectors by which one can measure privilege: race, class, money, educational opportunity, parental guidance/availability, physical ability, and many more. It is entirely possible to benefit from one of those things without another.

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

#88

Post by chrisseaton »

wincy wrote: post #86
bitwize wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't take into account things like accent, which does count. Many people native to the Boston area looking to get high-paying jobs (esp. in tech) work on breaking their Boston accents to sound higher class.

I know a woman who now works at Google who is from Boston. I had no idea until she told me, as she had no accent at all. She laughed and said "oh only poor idiots have the Boston accent, they actually have to practice to sound like that". She had a pretty dim view of the Boston accent, and she was from Boston.

> as she had no accent at all

Everyone has an accent.

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

#89

Post by axiosgunnar »

indymike wrote: post #49
jpxw wrote: post #16

> 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. What if applicants from higher social classes actually are better fits for the job?

> What if applicants from higher social classes actually are better fits for the job? What a perfect example of social class bias. Change "from higher social class" to "from purple descent" or "from a Pastafarian background" and you have racial or religious bias.

No, because higher social class = access to better learning resources, e.g. tutors, and given everything else equal, better learning resources will lead to higher proficiency at a particular skill, on average. Therefore, if you do not know anything else about a group of candidates, hiring the person from the highest social class is the only rational choice. This study was doomed from the beginning.

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

#90

Post by mavelikara »

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…

> So it's not testing for anything real.

You are too quick to dismiss the study, I think. What the study shows, I think, is that other things being equal the person who sounds to be from higher class is likely to get the job. The study simulates the other things being equal scenario by eliminating all other avenues for the hiring manager to judge.

Here is the quote from the TFA, lightly edited for emphasis:

  The study, ... , demonstrates that:

    (a) people can accurately assess a stranger’s socioeconomic 
    position — defined by their income, education, and occupation
    status — based on brief speech patterns and 

    (b) shows that these snap perceptions influence hiring managers 
    in ways that favor job applicants from higher social classes.
> The solution is to just apply the interview and not judge based on a few seconds of dialogue.

Agree, but ALSO be aware of such biases and try prevent those.

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