Sex-Linked Bias in Promotion Decisions: The Role of Candidate's Career Relevance and Respondent's Prior Experience

Abstract

To investigate the idea that information about relevant career experience has an effect on the degree of sex bias in promotion decisions, an analogue study was conducted in which sex of candidate and relevance of prior jobs were varied. The effect of respondent's experience of subordinacy to a female manager was also investigated. A within-subject design was used with two response formats, ranking and rating. As predicted, relevance of career experience was a primary consideration in the promotion decision. Respondents who had worked in the past under a female manager showed a profemale bias in choosing among candidates with relevant career experience. No sex-linked bias was identified in the treatment of the candidates with irrelevant prior experience. Additional results suggested that the ranking format was more sensitive to the effect of sex-linked bias than was the rating format.