A statistical view of reverse discrimination

Dear Bob …

I’d like to propose a (serious) hypothetical case for a moment [on the topic of diversity, introduced in the most recent two Keep the Joint Running entries: “Managers who have discriminating tastes,” 5/12/2008 and “Diverse views,” 5/19/2008 – Bob].

Consider a perfect workplace where no bias is demonstrated by management due to common interests, race, religion or otherwise, and all employees are of equal capability. Let’s say for argument’s sake that there are 10 employees in the department and an opportunity for promotion arises. If all employees are equally capable of doing the job and all apply for the promotion, apart from the headache presented to the manager who has to make the decision, there will always be 9 disappointed employees.

Being an ideal world, their responses may well be congratulatory towards the lucky one and introspective to see where they could improve themselves.

Now, let’s change the parameters just a little. Let’s leave the manager as still the perfect unbiased individual but change the employees to a little more representative of humans with varying emotional responses but without any race, religion, or age differences (it could be argued that the emotional responses might themselves be enough to prevent all employees having the same capability but we will ignore that for now).

The choice for the manager continues to be difficult, but the reactions of the employees who missed out may well be quite different due to the various mixes of mood at that point in time (maybe influenced by an argument with a spouse over breakfast, traffic jams, or finding a $20 note on the footpath).

Mix in also the predisposition to envy, low/high self esteem, maybe humility (for the selected candidate), etc. and the responses could well be “I didn’t deserve it anyway,” “Joe is the ‘golden child,’ he always gets the opportunity,” to “maybe I should quit and try teaching instead,” “I should take up additional training/study to improve my chances.”

I guess what I am trying to point out here is that even by eliminating all bias, the human condition will most likely produce a negative response for all unsuccessful candidates and depending on their perception of their own situation and their predisposed ability to handle negative outcomes will determine whether blame is apportioned to others (I think transference is the term) or whether introspection results in an improved strategy for mounting a more successful campaign next time. When you look at it, they only had a 1 in 10 chance to begin with.

At the end of the day, you can’t control the behaviour of others, only of yourself and only you can choose how you will react to a given scenario and thereby choose to take steps or not to improve the situation or move on (or hold a grudge).

Now this all gets very murky in the real life situation where managers are biased and employees come from very diverse backgrounds. Add in a dash of unrealistic comparisons with fellow employees and perceptions based on inaccurate assumptions and we end up in a right mess (round abouts where we are right now).

I think the comment by your “Orthodox Chassidic Jew” contributor (sorry but a name was not supplied) sums it up pretty well. They are obviously a survivor and have the right attitude to keep moving forward.

Hopefully some food for thought.

– Statistician

Dear Statistician …

The question isn’t whether sour grapes plays a role in this discussion. The question is whether sour grapes provides a complete explanation.

I’m pretty sure the answer is no. I’ve heard too many “she must have PMS” conversations, too many “that’s because men are naturally more aggressive and competitive” conversations and too many “it’s okay for men to cheat on their wives, but not the other way around because that’s how men are wired” conversations (especially nonsensical because of the gender with whom the men are cheating) to think disparaging attitudes toward women aren’t prevalent in the workplace.

Not all that many years ago I attended a reception thrown by a local company. About a hundred people were in attendance — about half from the host company, the rest from its customer community. I heard at least three separate conversations that consisted of how awful it was that white males are subject to reverse discrimination these days.

Nobody who overheard any of the conversations was likely to be personally offended, of course, because every single person in the room was a white male.

What are the odds?

– Bob