A Suppression-Justification Approach to Prejudice in Resume Screening The Role of Time Pressure and Organizational Diversity Climate

Even though ethnic discrimination after resume screening has received much research attention, it is not well understood under which conditions it is particularly likely to occur. Biased resume screening is often based on prejudice. However, prejudice does not always translate into discriminatory behavior. Building on the Justification-Suppression Model of Prejudice, we examine two moderating factors of the relationship between prejudice and biased evaluations of job applicants. First, we propose that making selection decisions under time pressure hinders the suppression of prejudice. Second, we propose that a diversity-unfriendly organizational climate acts as a justification for prejudice expression. We conducted two studies to test these expectations. In the first study, 482 Dutch participants evaluated a resume of a Dutch-Moroccan or Dutch job applicant while we experimentally manipulated time pressure. We then assessed participants' prejudice towards Moroccans or Dutch and their current organizations' diversity climate. For Dutch-Moroccan applicants, we found that more prejudice was associated with a lower self-reported invitation likelihood only under high time pressure or in a climate that is relatively diversity-unfriendly. For Dutch applicants, we found no association between prejudice and invitation likelihood. Unfortunately, data from the second study (n = 255) failed to replicate these results. While the replication study indicates that more research is needed, the results of study one suggest that organizations might be able to prevent biased resume screening of minority applicants by creating an environment that supports prejudice suppression and removes opportunities for prejudice justification.