It’s easy to imagine that an employer might judge an applicant’s appearance and then see the traits he/she expects from this appearance. For example, because you have long hair, the interviewer finds you creative and individualistic (whereas if you’d gotten a close snip before the interview, the same person would find you detail-oriented and conscientious). This is stereotyping—we tend to make judgments about an individual based on a person’s group. As you’ve probably heard, this is true to the point that an ethnic name can influence an employer’s evaluation of an applicant’s résumé.
But imagine this employer learns the information needed to stereotype (race, appearance, etc.) only after making individualized judgments—perhaps only after reading John Doe’s résumé and exploring John’s LinkedIn profile does the employer learn in an interview that John has long hair.
A 2009 study found hope for the human race in that our stereotypes are rarely able to change the judgments we make based on fact—as long as we make these fact-based judgments before getting the information needed to stereotype someone. In other words, finding out a candidate’s race rarely changes the opinion an employer first created based on his or her résumé. But check this out: When stereotypes then confirm these fact-based judgments (i.e., when the stereotypes of a candidate’s race support an employer’s opinion of his résumé), they combine to create a nearly unbreakable evaluation.
All Work and No Play Makes Jack’s Brain Dull
Do you work more than forty hours a week? If so, your brain’s at risk. A study of 2,214 British civil servants found that work in excess of forty hours is associated with worse short-term memory and word recall.
It’s as if a college football coach said, “I liked the look of that 14–0 record at Oaks Christian, and now that I know he’s Joe Montana’s son, he must be good!” (Author anxiously awaiting the future of Washington Huskies football.)