Thank you very much for your participation.
We are studying how people use information – like physical attractiveness – to inform their decisions.
You completed a task called the Judgment Bias Task (JBT). In the JBT, you made accept or reject decisions on a number of applicants, and were told to accept half of them. The pool had candidates with slightly better and worse credentials. Within these more and less qualified groups, half were accompanied by photos rated by previous participants as physically attractive; half with photos rated as relatively less attractive. With the qualification information, we can estimate whether decision-makers are equally likely to accept a more or less physically attractive candidate with the same credentials. Do you think attractiveness influenced your judgments?
It is not so easy to tell what is influencing judgment when we have to make lots of decisions with complicated information. Efforts to be accurate or fair may not be enough to override a preexisting bias favoring one quality compared to another. Alternatively, decision makers may 'overcorrect' for a bias and actually end up favoring certain groups unintentionally.
Here are your results on the decision-making task:
When applicants were more qualified, you correctly accepted <%= global.test2.acceptMore%> of the applicants that were more physically attractive, and correctly accepted <%= global.test2.acceptLess%> of the applicants that were less physically attractive.
When applicants were less qualified, you correctly rejected <%= global.test2.rejectMore%> of the applicants that were more physically attractive, and correctly rejected <%= global.test2.rejectLess%> of the applicants that were less physically attractive.
Disclaimer:
These results are not a definitive assessment of your attitudes or behavior. The results may be influenced by variables related to the test (e.g., the particular items used to more or less qualified people) or the person (e.g., how tired you are). The results are provided for educational purposes only.
How Does The JBT Work?
The JBT measures how lenient people are towards members of different social groups. We assigned each applicant an overall score based on the values listed in their qualifications. We made sure that half of the applicants are on average more qualified, and half are less qualified. Within each level of qualification, we also divided the applicants equally between those shown with a photo of a more physically attractive face and a less physically attractive face. We can then see how, even when more and less physically attractive people have the same overall qualifications, people may be more lenient towards one group. For example, people may be more likely to give 'accept' decisions to relatively less qualified applications if those applications are paired with a more physically attractive face.
Any single JBT is unlikely to predict behavior well for a specific individual. In the aggregate, measures like the JBT could predict behavior such as discrimination in hiring and promotion, medical treatment, and decisions related to criminal justice.
I Still Have Questions About The Study.
If you have any questions or comments about the study, please email the lead investigator Jordan Axt at jordan.axt@mcgill.ca.
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