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I think a simpler and better claim would be that: When managers are faced with stack ranking employees, they will often decide based on factors not purely rela
by mfoy_ 9y ago
I think a simpler and better claim would be that:
When managers are faced with stack ranking employees, they will often decide based on factors not purely related to the productivity or value of the employee.
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That, and as an employee in a stack-ranked organization, you know you need to be competitive. Not in terms of productivity but in terms of "in the eyes of your manager"-- Perception is more important than performance.
Studies have shown that men compete more aggressively than women, on average. So it's certainly plausible that men enjoy a gender-driven advantage that isn't purely due to gender-discrimination. Rather, it is the system that is biased.
This reminds me of that "racist algorithm" debacle.
- pwinnski 9y agoThat's one possibility, but a recent HBR study[0] suggests that we lean on "reasons" like that more quickly than we should. [0] https://hbr.org/2017/10/a-study-used-sensors-to-show-that-men-and-women-are-treated-differently-at-work https://hbr.org/2017/10/a-study-used-sensors-to-show-that-me...
- mfoy_ 9y agoSo you're saying it's not the system, or at least not solely the system, and that the managers are almost certainly biased? I can appreciate that. It's almost certainly true. Most people are biased. The point of my comment wasn't argue differently, or to defend Uber or their managers, but to show how choosing a sexist system is the same as being sexist, in effect.
- LeoJiWoo 9y agoI'm highly skeptical of your links explanation. People have good reason to be doubtful of social sciences, and the replication crisis has only gotten worse now affecting biological science. https://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-fail-reproducibility-test-1.18248 https://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-... http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778 http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778
- sidlls 9y agoThe systemic bias you describe is gender discrimination.
- alasdair_ 9y ago>Studies have shown that men compete more aggressively than women, on average. Studies have also shown that when women exhibit identical "aggressive" behavior as men, they are labeled more negatively than their male counterparts.
- contergan 9y agoWow, it's almost as if men and women are different and therefore different standards of behavior apply to each gender. Who could have possibly foreseen that?
- mfoy_ 9y agoSo in a company that uses stack-ranking: Damned if you do; damned if you don't.
- AlexCoventry 9y agoStudies have also shown that social psychology is a morass of irreproducible results, so without links to detailed descriptions of their methodologies and hostile verifications, it's reasonable to be skeptical of these claims.