It Pays to Be Herr Kaiser Germans With Noble-Sounding Surnames More Often Work as Managers Than as Employees

Raphael Silberzahn and Eric Luis Uhlmann
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Raphael Silberzahn: Judge Business School - CAM - University of Cambridge [UK]
Eric Luis Uhlmann: GREGH - Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC - HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: In the field study reported here (N = 222,924), we found that Germans with noble-sounding surnames, such as Kaiser ("emperor"), König ("king"), and Fürst ("prince"), more frequently hold managerial positions than Germans with last names that either refer to common everyday occupations, such as Koch ("cook"), Bauer ("farmer"), and Becker/Bäcker ("baker"), or do not refer to any social role. This phenomenon occurs despite the fact that noble-sounding surnames never indicated that the person actually held a noble title. Because of basic properties of associative cognition, the status linked to a name may spill over to its bearer and influence his or her occupational outcomes.

Keywords: Germans; noble-sounding surnames; organization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-12
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published in Psychological Science, 2013, 24 (12), pp.2437-2444. ⟨10.1177/0956797613494851⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00980265

DOI: 10.1177/0956797613494851

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