Temporal distance and discrimination: an audit study in academia

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Organizational Behavior
• Higher Education Studies

Background:

• Discrimination based on race and gender persists in academic settings.
• Construal-level theory suggests psychological distance influences judgment and decision-making.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of temporal distance on discrimination in faculty hiring decisions.
• To examine how the timing of a requested meeting influences faculty response to prospective students of different races and genders.

Main Methods:

• A large-scale field experiment involving 6,548 professors in academia.
• Fictional prospective doctoral student emails varying in race, gender, and meeting request timing (same day vs. 1 week).
• Analysis of faculty response rates, speed, and access granted.

Main Results:

• When meeting requests were for 1 week later, Caucasian males received 26% more access than women and minorities.
• Caucasian males also received more and faster responses compared to women and minorities for distant requests.
• These disparities were eliminated when meeting requests were for the same day.

Conclusions:

• A temporal discrimination effect exists, where decisions about distant future events exacerbate race- and gender-based biases.
• Psychological distance, as predicted by construal-level theory, plays a role in discriminatory patterns.
• Subtle shifts in temporal context can significantly alter discrimination in academic recruitment.