The DSC is partnering with the Marketing Department at the Fisher College of Business to host Dr. Gal Zauberman on May 2-3. Dr. Zauberman studies human judgment and decision making, the nature of experiences, financial decision making, time perception, and memory for emotions and choice. He has published articles in leading marketing and psychology journals on topics that include factors that affect individuals’ evaluations, preferences, and choice, with specific interest in the role of time in decisions and experiences.
Talk 1 (May 2, 4-5:15pm, Psychology 35)
Stress Testing Your Theory: When Does Unequal Representation Reflect Bias?
We examine judgments of bias in distributional outcomes. Such judgments are often based on imbalance in distributional outcomes, namely the under- or over-representation of a target group relative to some baseline. Using data from 26 studies (N = 14,925), we test how these judgments of bias vary with the target group’s characteristics (traditionally dominant or nondominant) and the observer’s political ideology (liberal or conservative). We find that conservatives set a higher threshold for recognizing bias against traditionally nondominant targets (women, Blacks, immigrants), as compared with liberals. Conversely, liberals set a higher threshold for recognizing bias against traditionally dominant targets (men, Whites, native-born citizens), as compared with conservatives. However, these relationships between political ideology and judgments of bias significantly diminish when the targets are unknown or ideologically irrelevant. These findings emphasize the context-dependency of bias judgments and underscore the importance of stimulus sampling and appropriate selection of controls. If time allows, I will also present data exploring whether people understand the extent of inequality using a common elicitation method and demonstrating the importance of testing the direct implications of your theory.