Casuistry and Social Category Bias
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2004
Keywords
casuistry, social category bias, social group memberships, decision making, gender bias, racial bias, specious reasoning, employment decisions, college admission decisions
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.6.817
Abstract
This research explored cases where people are drawn to make judgments between individuals based on questionable criteria, in particular those individuals' social group memberships. We suggest that individuals engage in casuistry to mask biased decision making, by recruiting more acceptable criteria to justify such decisions. We present 6 studies that demonstrate how casuistry licenses people to judge on the basis of social category information but appear unbiased--to both others and themselves--while doing so. In 2 domains (employment and college admissions decisions), with 2 social categories (gender and race), and with 2 motivations (favoring an in-group or out-group), the present studies explored how participants justify decisions biased by social category information by arbitrarily inflating the relative value of their preferred candidates' qualifications over those of competitors.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Social Psychology, v. 87, issue 6, p. 817-831.
Scholar Commons Citation
Norton, M. I.; Vandello, Joseph A.; and Darley, J., "Casuistry and Social Category Bias" (2004). Psychology Faculty Publications. 2285.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/psy_facpub/2285
