This study investigated a possible mechanism behind employment discrimination. Participants completed a recruitment task where emphasis on cohesion (employees should "fit in") versus fairness (everybody should be treated equally) was manipulated by describing the norms of a fictitious company differently. There was a comparatively stronger preference in the cohesion condition for traits and interview questions related to social competence (e.g., friendliness, gregariousness, empathy). Furthermore, participants in the cohesion condition primarily pictured socially competent employees, whereas those in the fairness condition primarily pictured employees possessing productivity-related characteristics (e.g., education, experience, and talent). The norm effect was moderated by participants' awareness of the applicants' ethnicity. When expecting applicants with foreign backgrounds, participants in the cohesion condition showed increased preference for selection methods related to social competence. Implications for recruitment practices are discussed.

Employment discrimination causes problems at the labor market, and is hard to combat. Can increasing the degree of structure when selecting applicants increase fairness? Students were asked to perform a computerized selection task and were either provided with tools for systematizing information about the applicants (structured selection) or no such tools (unstructured selection). We hypothesized and found that a structured process, where employing recruitment tools rather than the recruiter’s impressionistic judgment is key, improves the ability to identify job-relevant criteria and hence selecting more qualified applicants, even when in-group favoritism is tempting (e.g. when the outgroup applicants are more competent). Increasing structure helped recruiters select more competent applicants and reduced ethnic discrimination. Increasing the motivation to carefully follow the structured procedure strengthened these effects further. We conclude that structure pays off, and that motivational factors should be taken into account in order for it to have the optimal effect.

Abstract. Three experiments on professional recruiters explored how applicants’ ethnicity affects questions prepared for a job interview and the implications of this. Study 1 revealed that outgroup applicants prompt recruiters to focus more on whether applicants have integrated cultural norms and values fitting the ingroup norms (person-culture fit), as well as the match between the applicants and their would-be work team (person-group fit). When applicants were from the ethnic ingroup, recruiters focused more on questions pertaining to the match between the applicants’ abilities and the specific demands of the job (person-job fit). Studies 2 and 3 revealed that questions prepared for outgroup applicants were rated as less useful for hireability decisions, and that summaries emphasizing person-job fit were perceived as more useful.

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Objective The purpose of the study was to investigate the associations between client socioeconomic status and the therapeutic alliance. Methods Data on socioeconomic status and different aspects of the therapeutic alliance were obtained from participants currently or recently in psychotherapy and analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results The results provided support for a structural equation model where socioeconomic status was positively related to the therapeutic alliance. The study also found that the associations between socioeconomic status and therapeutic alliance was significantly stronger among clients who had received psychodynamic therapy compared to those who had received cognitive behavior therapy. Conclusions The results are discussed in relation to research suggesting that clients of lower socioeconomic status are estranged from the psychotherapeutic context, reflecting experiences among the clients both of not being understood and as inferior in relation to their therapist, as well as possible perceptions that such client are less suitable for psychotherapy.