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Who's Watching the Race? Racial Salience in Recruitment Advertising 1
Author(s) -
Avery Derek R.,
Hernandez Morela,
Hebl Michelle R.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb02541.x
Subject(s) - race (biology) , salience (neuroscience) , psychology , social psychology , white (mutation) , attraction , gender studies , sociology , biochemistry , chemistry , linguistics , philosophy , cognitive psychology , gene
A recent finding (Thomas & Wise, 1999) suggested that the race of organizational representatives may be more important to minority applicants than to White applicants. Consequently, this study empirically examines the impact of race in recruitment advertising on applicant attraction. Participants ( N = 194) were recruited in 3 field settings and were exposed to recruitment literature varying the race of a depicted organizational representative. Results indicate that Black and Hispanic participants were more attracted when minority representatives were depicted; White participants' reactions were unaffected by representative race. Moreover, the extent to which participants believed themselves to be similar to the representative fully mediated the effect for minority participants.