A longer shortlist increases the consideration of female candidates in male-dominant domains

Brian J. Lucas, Zachariah Berry, Laura M. Giurge and Dolly Chugh

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Making it onto the shortlist is often a crucial early step toward professional advancement. For under-represented candidates, one barrier to making the shortlist is the prevalence of informal recruitment practices (for example, colleague recommendations). The current research investigates informal shortlists generated in male-dominant domains (for example, technology executives) and tests a theory-driven intervention to increase the consideration of female candidates. Across ten studies (N = 5,741) we asked individuals to generate an informal shortlist of candidates for a male-dominant role and then asked them to extend the list. We consistently found more female candidates in the extended (versus initial) list. This longer shortlist effect occurs because continued response generation promotes divergence from the category prototype (for example, male technology executives). Studies 3 and 4 supported this mechanism, and study 5 tested the effect of shortlist length on selection decisions. This longer shortlist intervention is a low-cost and simple way to support gender equity efforts.

Keywords: full; text; requested (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 7 pages
Date: 2021-06-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Nature Human Behaviour, 1, June, 2021, 5(6), pp. 736 - 742. ISSN: 2397-3374

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/115244/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:115244

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().