Status-based discrimination (part 2 of 2)

(continued from part 1 of 2)
Here are some questions for my further exploration:

Additional mechanisms:
In the workplace, could the status-based discrimination occur in additional ways than proposed in the current paper to explain motherhood penalty (at the point of hire, in subsequent group interactions, crucial junctures like promotion, etc.)?

Actual work-effort:

Since status beliefs are consensual, the biases might additionally have an effect through less actual work-effort from mother; mothers might be less confident and energetic in their interactions at workplace (Ridgeway, 2013). They might also withhold efforts or not go too far in proving their worth for following additional reasons: 

• They are aware of normative discrimination  
• They may also be aware that when they engage in assertively dominant actions, they are perceived by others to be challenging status hierarchy and hence are met with hostile backlash reaction (Ridgeway, 2013).
• Note: This “supply side” effect is different than Becker’s (1985) work-effort hypothesis 

Associational preference bias:

Note: Associational preference biases influence who people prefer to be associated with. Since status spreads through association, actors in high-status groups show in-group bias, whereas actors in low-status groups have divided interests in association preferences (Ridgeway, 2013)

• Hiring evaluations might be affected by in-group bias by nonmothers and due to undermined-associational-solidarity by mothers in decision-making situations.

Biased structures/processes:

• Cultural status beliefs associated with parenthood might have also resulted in biased organizational structures and processes. This might perpetuate motherhood penalty even when the employer/manager might not want or even be aware of motherhood status biases resulting from his/her decisions.  

Therefore, the following might be some additional discrimination pathways in which motherhood status beliefs might result in motherhood penalty:  

Figure 1: Discrimination explanation for motherhood penalty

Lab study design

• Salience due to context: Research shows that status beliefs about social distinction become salient either when people differ on social distinction or when the beliefs are seen to be relevant to the context (Ridgeway, 2013). In the current study, did the midlevel marketing position make both gender and parenthood salient? Is marketing job more gendered due to horizontal occupational segregation  (due to associated incompatibility of the women role conception with “ruthless competitive/dominating” role that marketing might demand)? If so, does parenthood, as an additional piece of consistent status information with gender, have a lesser impact on overall expectations? 

Salience due to participant

• Would parenthood status beliefs be equally salient to both parents and nonparents? Does salience of status belief depend on the perceiver? For instance, would cultural status beliefs of race (American vs. African American) be salient for an Asian participant?
• Parenthood of participant: Would the parenthood of the participants affect motherhood penalty differently? Would they be indifferent in their performance evaluations of mothers and nonmothers? According to Ridgeway (2013), mothers, as low-status group members, might have divided interests between supporting mothers and others (fathers or childless male/female) perceived as high-status. So, would mothers be less biased in their evaluations due to perspective-taking or more biased due to preferences for high-status associations?

Status of participant

• Recent research indicates that status is positively associated with enactment of procedural and distributive justice (Blader & Chen, 2012). High-status actors are also targeted with a greater scrutiny and judged more stringently for any self-interested behavior (Graffin et al, 2013). So would manipulating status of participants result in less or no motherhood penalty?
• Cultural beliefs: How do we know what cultural beliefs did lab participants hold about ‘ideal worker,” “good mother” and “good father” roles? Do we know to what extent the participants perceived compatibility/tension amongst these schemas?

Audit study

• Since the applications were sent to employers one day apart, how do we know if motherhood was a salient status characteristic for the employer?
• The study does not control for organizational context (organizational status, organizational policies, hiring structures/processes, number of applicants received etc.) and job requirement specificity.
• It is not known whether the pair of applicants was seen as equivalent by the actual employers. Since the sample used in the experiment to measure equivalence was drawn from student population, it may not be truly reflective of equivalence in the field. Could some individuating information be weighed more or less by actual employers than by students?
• Parental status was manipulated in the cover letter by indicating that he/she was relocating to hiring city with his/her family. For nonparents, relocation with family was not mentioned. But could mentioning relocation have resulted in the employer perceiving possible relocation issues that might hamper productivity and/or also lack of geographical knowledge that might be critical for certain marketing positions. Could these perceptions have disadvantaged applicant pair sent by researchers and affected the magnitude of the motherhood penalty?     

Explanation for findings

• There appears to be inconsistency in status-based discrimination effects in the hiring. Childless women received more callbacks than equally qualified childless men. If gender is a status characteristic, then why did cultural status beliefs associated with females not disadvantage them?

Similarities/Differences Of Status Beliefs 

• Do cultural status beliefs associated with gender, parenthood, race, class, religion and disability influence workplace discrimination in similar ways?
• The cultural status beliefs about motherhood both at work and nonwork domains are biased against employed mothers; choosing to work, let alone aspiring to be an “ideal worker” appears to be in tension with the normative conceptions of “good mother” in many cultures. For the fatherhood though, the “ideal worker” and “good father” are seen as compatible. Hence the translation of the cultural status beliefs on workplace outcomes as motherhood penalty and fatherhood premium is strong. But, could the effects of status beliefs associated with other groups (e.g. class or religion) have different effects (i.e. less or more strong), work through different mechanism (e.g. association preference biases, instead of status biases) or be more variable across situations? 

Following are three possible reasons the effect/mechanism of discrimination could be different: 

• Mobility: For instance, class, in contrast to gender or race, is believed to be changeable (i.e. higher class is believed to be achievable). Parenthood is similarly achieved (i.e. childless men/women can choose to be fathers/mothers) though status mobility is mostly unidirectional (i.e. parenthood to childless status is less possible).  Categorization based on class is more “loosely bound” and higher status attributes will need to be continuously adapted and changed to maintain hierarchical differentiation (Ridgeway, 2013).
• Roles: The “ideal worker” does not seem to have either compatible or incompatible with any “class or religion roles.” So would status beliefs be less reinforcing across work and nonwork domains, unlike in the case of gender or parenthood?  
• Cross-category interactions: Are gender and parenthood, due to greater degree of cross-category interactions in both work and nonwork domains, more susceptible to status-discrimination than others (race, disability or sexual orientation status)? 

Evaluations

• While the perceived commitment is explained by differential performance expectations, why are mothers also perceived as less competent, more emotional and more irrational (Cuddy et al., 2004)? How do cultural status beliefs shape competence, emotionality and irrationality? Why is lesser ability associated with motherhood status?
• Why did the authors not consider perceived emotionality or irrationality as additional mechanisms to explain status-discrimination?  
• This article proposes that cultural status beliefs influence evaluator’s perceptions unconsciously. But how could one establish this experimentally or in field?
• What mechanisms come into action when mothers, who are overqualified for a job post (e.g. in nonprofit settings), apply? 

Status concealment 

• A classic study by Goldin & Rouse (1997) found that orchestras were significantly more likely to hire women if auditions took place behind a curtain. Could similar identity concealment effects be expected for motherhood? 
• What influences whether one conceals his or her non-visible status characteristics? (e.g. sexual orientation or disability) 

Social network/Recommendation/Referee 

• Is it possible that recommendation providers of applicants nullify or accentuate discrimination? 
• When do the recommendation providers become relevant for assessment and when do their status characteristics become salient? 
• How would the perceived status of referee influence participants evaluation of the referee?

Elite targeting

• A recent article shows that high-status actors face greater targeting by various audiences such that they are held more accountable than their lower-status counterparts for similar offences. In order to avoid this status hazard, do organizations that are increasingly criticized for their self-interested actions and pressurized to adopt greater social responsibility and ethical standards, favor people (with qualifications) from discriminated groups (e.g. gender or ethnicity) for important positions that are publicly visible (e.g. CEOs) ? For instance, could gender stereotypes (e.g. women are more emotionally expressive/responsive, and empathetic, while men are less sensitive to others ) an organization that has been increasingly targeted for poor “concern” to stakeholders/society might prefer women to men (with equal qualifications) for a CEO post.

Norms

• How do “ideal worker” norms get shaped and how could they be altered?  Is the norm itself gendered? Is face time” less entrenched into “ideal worker” role in some organizational and cultural contexts? 

Others

• Experience of discrimination: How does one’s own experience of being discriminated affect one’s enactment of discrimination?
• Psychology of legitimacy: Why do mothers tolerate the injustice at workplace? 

References

• Anderson, D. J., Binder, M., & Krause, K. (2002). Motherhood Wage Penalty Revisited: Experience, Heterogeneity, Work Effort, and Work-Schedule Flexibility, The. Indus. & Lab. Rel. Rev., 56, 273.
• Benard, S., & Correll, S. J. (2010). Normative discrimination and the motherhood penalty. Gender & Society, 24(5), 616-646.
• Berger, J., Cohen, B. P., & Zelditch Jr, M. (1972). Status characteristics and social interaction. American Sociological Review, 241-255.
• Blader, S. L., & Chen, Y. R. (2012). Differentiating the effects of status and power: A justice perspective. Journal of personality and social psychology, 102(5), 994.
• Correll, S. J., Benard, S., & Paik, I. (2007). Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty? 1. American Journal of Sociology, 112(5), 1297-1339.
• Cuddy, A. J., Fiske, S. T., & Glick, P. (2004). When professionals become mothers, warmth doesn't cut the ice. Journal of Social Issues, 60(4), 701-718.
• Fuegen, K., Biernat, M., Haines, E., & Deaux, K. (2004). Mothers and Fathers in the Workplace: How Gender and Parental Status Influence Judgments of Job‐Related Competence. Journal of Social Issues, 60(4), 737-754.
• Goldin, C., & Rouse, C. (1997). Orchestrating impartiality: The impact of" blind" auditions on female musicians (No. w5903). National Bureau of Economic Research.
• Graffin, S. D., Bundy, J., Porac, J. F., Wade, J. B., & Quinn, D. P. (2013). Falls from Grace and the Hazards of High Status The 2009 British MP Expense Scandal and Its Impact on Parliamentary Elites. Administrative Science Quarterly, 58(3), 313-345.
• Ridgeway, C. L. (2014). Why Status Matters for Inequality. American Sociological Review, 79(1), 1-16.