Distinguished Research Scholar Lecture Series
Date: November 5, 2007
Time: 12:00pm - 1:30pm
Location: 409 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA
Speaker: Louise Marie Roth, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona
Topic: “The Myth of Meritocracy: Unconscious Bias, Performance-Based Pay, and Gender Inequality”
While conscious action may produce some inequality, most discrimination occurs through cognitive processes that are automatic and unconscious. Using data on 76 Wall Street professionals, Louise Marie Roth examines how stereotyping and homophily preferences influence gender inequality in the securities industry. She argues that these general cognitive processes produce the effects of “tokenism” originally identified by Kanter, and lead to differences in the experiences of male and female tokens. The compensation system in this industry, which bases rewards on performance evaluations, aggravates the effects of these cognitive processes. While this reward system is ostensibly merit-based, it permits discrimination to occur because performance evaluations are partially subjective and evaluations are made within a male-dominated industry culture.
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