Data from: Ethnicity- and sex-based discrimination and the maintenance of self-esteem

The psychological underpinnings of labor market discrimination were investigated by having participants from Israel, the West Bank and Germany (N = 205) act as employers in a stylized employment task in which they ranked, set wages, and imposed a minimum effort level on applicants. State self-esteem was measured before and after the employment task, in which applicant ethnicity and sex were salient. The applicants were real people and all behavior was monetarily incentivized. Supporting the full self-esteem hypothesis of the social identity approach, low self-esteem in women was associated with assigning higher wages to women than to men, and such behavior was related to the maintenance of self-esteem. The narrower hypothesis that successful intergroup discrimination serves to protect self-esteem received broader support. Across all participants, both ethnicity- and sex-based discrimination of out-groups were associated with the maintenance of self-esteem, with the former showing a stronger association than the latter.

本研究旨在探究劳动力市场歧视的心理学基础，招募了来自以色列、约旦河西岸及德国的205名参与者（N=205），令其在程式化雇佣任务中扮演雇主，完成对求职者的排序、薪资设定及最低努力要求划定等操作。该任务中，求职者的种族与性别均为显著特征线索。研究在该雇佣任务实施前后，分别测量了参与者的状态自尊（state self-esteem）。本次研究的求职者均为真实个体，所有参与者的行为均设有货币激励机制。研究结果支持社会认同理论（social identity approach）的完整自尊假设：女性的低自尊水平与向女性求职者支付更高薪资的行为存在显著关联，且此类行为与自尊维持密切相关。关于“成功的群体间歧视可起到保护自尊作用”的细化假设获得了更广泛的支持。在全部参与者中，针对外群体（out-groups）基于种族与性别的歧视均与自尊维持存在关联，且基于种族的歧视与自尊维持的关联强度显著高于基于性别的歧视。