The impact of non-native accentedness on evaluations of job applicants.
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2021-06-24
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en
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The present study attempted to establish whether non-native accentedness influences evaluations of job applicants during an interview for an HR position and whether the potential negative effect can be reduced by employing prejudice control, i.e., by informing listeners about the bias in speaker evaluations that non-native accentedness may cause. In order to achieve this goal, an experiment was conducted, in which 122 Dutch participants evaluated a job applicant speaking English with either native British or French accent (with or without prejudice control). The speakers were evaluated on their suitability for the job and along three other dimensions, namely, dynamism, status and solidarity. The results show that the non- native speaker was evaluated as positively as the native speaker on a scale that assessed the applicant’s suitability for the job. Furthermore, it was found that the more similar the participants perceived the speaker to be to themselves, the more positive were these evaluations. No difference was found between the native and the non-native speaker with regard to status and solidarity ratings. Since no difference in evaluations was found, it was not possible to test whether the prejudice control method is effective.
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