The Sundarban 
In experiments, other folks are seemingly to associate the word kiki with the shape on the left, and bouba with the one on the apt. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
Imagine you are hiring any individual for a job that requires a very kind, agreeable and co-operative particular person. You have two candidates and all you already know about them are their names: Renee and Greta. Who accomplish you think may be a better match?
For these who are treasure the other folks in our latest survey on hiring judgments, you probably chose Renee. We stumbled on that smoother-sounding names treasure Renee were most popular to harsher-sounding names treasure Greta for certain kinds of jobs.
The idea that the sound of a word can make it a better match for particular meanings or qualities is diagnosed as sound symbolism. And it suggests that even something as small as the phonemes in a name can carry surprising weight in how other folks are judged.
The energy of sound symbolism
The handiest diagnosed example of sound symbolism is the bouba/kiki accomplish. Across languages and cultures, other folks are seemingly to match the made-up word “bouba” with round shapes and “kiki” with spiky ones.
Why this happens is gathered debated. Various explanations exist, including the physical sensation of pronouncing the words or the way the sounds of the words imitate the features of round versus spiky objects.
Several years ago, we tested whether the bouba/kiki accomplish prolonged beyond invented words to real first names. In one part of that survey, we confirmed participants silhouettes that were either round or spiky and asked them to match them with names.
Now not simplest accomplish other folks associate names treasure Bob with round silhouettes and Kirk with spiky silhouettes, nonetheless other folks also associate these names with totally different personality traits.
Smoother-sounding names treasure Liam or Noelle were judged as more agreeable and emotional, whereas spikier-sounding names treasure Tate or Krista were judged as more extroverted.
Importantly, this did no longer mean that the Liams were actually more agreeable than Tates. In fact, when our survey looked at the personalities of more than 1,000 other folks, we did no longer find any tag these patterns existed in the real world. Nevertheless, other folks gathered make associations based on the sounds of names.
Names and hiring decisions
In our latest survey, we were unusual to inspect how these associations may affect judgments in a real-world context: hiring. Of direction, employers usually have rather more to promenade on than a name, nonetheless there are many instances in which candidates are screened based on simplest miniature information.
There is also a great deal of proof that socio-demographic cues in a name—such as race and age—can affect who gets a callback. The sound of a name itself may probably be another potential source of bias.
We designed job ads that looked for a candidate excessive in one of six personality factors: honesty-humility, emotionality, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness (how organized or hard-working any individual is) and openness to journey. For example, one ad looking for an agreeable candidate read: “An organization is looking to hire a new employee. The ideal applicant for this job should be: Co-operative, Peaceful, Not aggressive.”
A sample of adults recruited online were then given a pair of names and asked to want who sounded treasure a better match for the job. One name in the pair contained what are called “sonorant” consonants (l, m, n) that sound especially gathered and continuous.
The other contained what are called “voiceless stops” (p, t, okay) that sound especially abrupt. For example, they may have to make a want from Liam and Tate.
The other folks in our survey made decisions for many totally different pairs of names, and the overall finding across three experiments was that smoother-sounding names, treasure Liam and Noelle, were judged as better fits for jobs looking for any individual excessive in honesty-humility, emotionality, agreeableness and openness.
When more information is available
We also tested what happens when additional information was introduced. For example, what if participants saw Liam in a characterize or watched a video of him answering questions about himself?
We stumbled on that when other folks saw photographs of candidates (randomly paired with names), the influence of name sound decreased. When other folks saw a videotaped interview of the job candidates, the sound of a name now no longer had an accomplish on their judgments of personality.
We also asked participants how well a given name match the job candidate in the video. When other folks felt a name suited a candidate—regardless of sound—that candidate was judged more positively on almost every measure, including warmth and competence.
In other words, there seems to be a encourage of having a name that fits, although it’s now no longer yet diagnosed why some other folks’s names seem to suit them better than others.
Taken together, these outcomes point to the sound of a name may probably be one additional source of bias in hiring decisions. When other folks make now no longer have a lot of details about a candidate, it seems that there is far in a name.
This article is republished from The Conversation beneath a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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What’s in a name? How the sound of names can bias hiring decisions (2025, August 31)
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