Hiring decisions often reflect not only candidates’ merit but also social class bias, i.e., the tendency for candidates with greater access to economic, social, or cultural resources to receive more favorable evaluations than candidates with less access (Côté, 2022; Durante et al., 2017; Rivera & Tilcsik, 2016; Thomas, 2018). However, empirical evidence of the extent of social class bias and the conditions under which it is at most risk of emerging remains inconsistent.
Drawing on signaling theory, we test an environment-characteristics boundary framework, examining how organizational exclusivity and the job-relevance of social class signals shape evaluators’ responses to candidates’ social class. Our focus on organizational exclusivity builds on prior studies grounded in the culture-mismatch perspective, which suggests that lower-class candidates are perceived as lacking the skills, dispositions, or familiarity with elite culture that are seen as necessary for success in professional environments (Rivera, 2012; Rivera & Tilcsik, 2016). We further distinguish social class signals based on whether the signals convey job-relevant or job-irrelevant content. Here, we define job-relevant signals as those that convey information about a candidate’s competence and experience that align with the requirements of the position for which they are applying. By contrast, job-irrelevant signals convey information unrelated to the job requirements.
Through three pre-registered experiments, we found a complex picture of social class bias. In one study, candidates signaling a lower class were shortlisted less frequently in high-exclusivity organizations, while they had equal opportunities to candidates signaling a higher class in low-exclusivity organizations. However, this pattern was not replicated in our remaining two studies. We also found mixed results regarding the job relevance of class-based signals: one of two studies showed that higher-class signals were evaluated more positively when the signals contained job-relevant content; however, this pattern was not replicated in the other study examining signal job relevance.
Our research advances understanding of when and how social class signals influence hiring evaluations, offering a more comprehensive account of class-based disparities in the hiring context.