If You Are White, North America Calls You

Pulse

oi-Staff

By Staff

Wednesday, August 19, 2009, 13:38

A new study suggests that customers in North America are more likely to be satisfied when white males provide them with any service, instead of a woman or minority.

University of British Columbia researcher Karl Aquino revealed that in anonymous customer feedback surveys, female and minority employees who exhibited the same behaviors as their white male counterparts were found to be rated lower. On this, the Globe and Mail quotes him, as saying, "We had thought there would be some bias going on in the sense of people who were males or whites would be rated more positively.

Of the study, to be published in the Academy of Management Journal, he also adds: "But we didn't anticipate that for performing the same behaviors, the women and minorities would actually be rated lower." He further revealed that it was not just that female and minority physicians were rated less favorably for providing similar service, but that the harder they tried, the lower they scored. He corroborates: "It seemed like doing more actually penalized them."

As to why they observed that finding, the researcher guessed that it might be possible that white who exhibited certain behaviors were considered attentive or conscientious, while someone who didn't fit the prototype of a doctor was considered overbearing and annoying.

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