Research Article
Constructed Criteria
Redefining Merit to Justify Discrimination
Eric Luis Uhlmann and Geoffrey L. Cohen
Yale University
ABSTRACT—This article presents an account of job discrimination
according to which people redefine merit in a
manner congenial to the idiosyncratic credentials of individual
applicants from desired groups. In three studies,
participants assigned male and female applicants to gender-stereotypical
jobs. However, they did not view male
and female applicants as having different strengths and
weaknesses. Instead, they redefined the criteria for success
at the job as requiring the specific credentials that a
candidate of the desired gender happened to have. Commitment
to hiring criteria prior to disclosure of the applicant’s
gender eliminated discrimination, suggesting that
bias in the construction of hiring criteria plays a causal
role in discrimination.