African-American females have good odds to get a loan

University of Iowa study shows hypothetical lenders view them as industrious and hardworking

2013-08-12

(Press-News.org) Need a loan? You appear to have an advantage if you're an African American female. According to a study by University of Iowa sociologist Sarah Harkness, lenders perceive African-American women just as favorably as white males, and would lend them as much money. The reason: African-American females are generally perceived as single mothers who are industrious and hardworking.

Harkness will present her study, titled, "Status Effects in Lending Markets: The Importance of Gender and Race," at the American Sociological Association annual meeting in New York. Her presentation is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 12.

The study is based on past research suggesting that lending markets tend to work against certain groups. "Evidence shows that disparities in funding outcomes are partially due to the actions of lenders," says Harkness. assistant professor in sociology, a department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. "I wanted to know what borrower characteristics lenders were picking up on."

Harkness decided to test the theory by assembling hundreds of undergraduate students and alumni from West Coast universities, some of whom were in the banking or financial industries. Harkness then gave the participants a hypothetical $1,000 and asked them to look at fictional loan applications and determine how much money to loan. The gender, race and education of applicants varied, but their financial profile was the same.

As predicted, the study showed that education factored prominently into how lenders viewed borrowers and thus their decision to lend. However, "it didn't wipe out the impact of gender and race," said Harkness. Some cultural stereotypes consistently influenced how much money the study participants were willing to lend.

For example, African-American men were viewed as least competent and received the least amount of funding, followed by white women. In comments, the lenders reported they had held these two groups to a harsher standard, and perceived them more negatively. This meant being less forgiving of small errors such as typos. It also meant making unfavorable assumptions about the nature of the applicants' employment (whether it was temporary versus permanent, for example) and their level of intelligence.

Yet the lenders' perceptions of African American females and white males were predominately positive, albeit based on stereotypes. "There was an assumption that the African-American woman was on her own raising a family and was therefore a motivated, hardworking and self-confident breadwinner," Harkness explains.

In this case, a common stereotype caused the lenders to view the African American female borrower as more capable and trustworthy than many of her fellow applicants. That pre-conceived notion was enough to convince study participants that she would make her best effort to repay the loan.

In contrast, when evaluating a white female borrower, the lenders tended to be distrustful. Harkness explains this could be due to the fact that the hypothetical lenders were focused primarily on gender stereotypes (e.g. women are less capable and assertive than males) and less on race.

Despite the study's finding that assumptions and stereotypes directed lenders' decisions at least in part, Harkness contends a thoughtful and well-crafted loan application helps a borrower's chance at success. Her study found that all borrowers' chances were hurt – though not always equally – by typos and grammatical errors in the loan application, and that this held across race and gender lines.

"You want to present yourself in the best way possible," Harkness explains. "Small missteps like typing too fast can send big negative signals to evaluators."

INFORMATION:

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

'Fifty Shades of Grey' perpetuates violence against women

2013-08-12

EAST LANSING, Mich. — "Fifty Shades of Grey," the best-selling novel that's promoted as a tale of erotic romance, actually perpetuates the problem of violence against women, a new study finds. Reporting in the Journal of Women's Health, Amy Bonomi and co-authors conclude that emotional and sexual abuse is pervasive in the novel, with the main female character, Anastasia, suffering harm as a result. About 25 percent of women are victims of violence by intimate partners. "This book is perpetuating dangerous abuse standards and yet it's being cast as this romantic, erotic ...

Study finds better-performing elementary students receive disproportionate attention from parents

2013-08-12

NEW YORK CITY — An Indiana University study found that higher-performing elementary school students received a disproportionate number of resources from their parents, compared to their lower-performing peers. Lower-performing students received resources geared toward improving their academic performance, said study author Natasha Yurk, a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at IU Bloomington's College of Arts and Sciences. Higher-performing students received greater and more diverse resources, such as shared meals or enrollment in extracurricular activities. ...

Thinking about family matters linked to stress for working moms, not dads

2013-08-11

NEW YORK CITY -- Although working mothers and fathers are almost as likely to think about family matters throughout the day, only for mothers is this type of mental labor associated with increased stress and negative emotions, according to new research to be presented at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. "I assume that because mothers bear the major responsibility for childcare and family life, when they think about family matters, they tend to think about the less pleasant aspects of it -- such as needing to pick up a child from daycare ...

Study finds more tweets mean more votes for political candidates

2013-08-11

NEW YORK CITY — An Indiana University study found that the percentage of votes for Republican and Democratic candidates in 2010 and 2012 races for the U.S. House of Representatives could be predicted by the percentage of tweets that mentioned those candidates — and it didn't matter whether the tweets were positive or negative. "Think of this as a measurement of buzz," said Fabio Rojas, an associate professor of sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences at IU Bloomington. "We call this the 'all publicity is good publicity' finding. Even if you don't like somebody, ...

Research explores evolution of hip-hop from party music to political platform

2013-08-11

NEW YORK CITY — A new University of Cincinnati-Blue Ash College study explores the evolution of hip-hop from party music into a political platform. Todd Callais, an assistant professor of sociology, criminology, and criminal justice at UC-Blue Ash, focused on the hip-hop industry because of its impact on society and because there is a clear timeline of its development. "You can identify a beginning to the hip-hop culture that was fairly recent," said Callais, who will present his research at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. "It started ...

Research shows negative effects of half-siblings

2013-08-11

NEW YORK CITY — Adolescents who have half-siblings with a different father are more likely to have used drugs and had sex by age 15 than those who have only full siblings. That's according to new research from Karen Benjamin Guzzo, an assistant professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University, and Cassandra Dorius, an assistant professor of human development and family studies at Iowa State University. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, they examined a phenomenon known as "multi-partnered fertility" or MPF. This happens when parents who ...

Why does the American middle class continue to struggle financially?

2013-08-11

NEW YORK CITY — Since the mid-1980s, unrestrained household spending has damaged American family finances — despite the fact that globalization and technological change have caused consumer prices to fall widely, says Queens College sociologist Joseph Nathan Cohen. In his paper, "The Myth of America's 'Culture of Consumerism': Policy May Help Drive American Household's Fraying Finances," which Cohen will present at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, he examines the factors that keep American families from tightening their belts. A brief ...

Smart enough to know better: Intelligence is not a remedy for racism

2013-08-11

NEW YORK CITY — Smart people are just as racist as their less intelligent peers — they're just better at concealing their prejudice, according to a University of Michigan study. "High-ability whites are less likely to report prejudiced attitudes and more likely to say they support racial integration in principle," said Geoffrey Wodtke, a doctoral candidate in sociology. "But they are no more likely than lower-ability whites to support open housing laws and are less likely to support school busing and affirmative action programs." Wodtke will present his findings at ...

Study finds more tweets means more votes for political candidates

2013-08-11

Study examines beliefs about who should pay for dates

2013-08-11

NEW YORK CITY — Chapman University's David Frederick will present new research at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association that examines men's and women's beliefs about who should pay for dates during courtship, and how couples actually go about splitting expenses. The paper, "Who Pays for Dates? Following versus Challenging Conventional Gender Norms," contains survey data from more than 17,000 participants; a quarter of whom also provided written commentaries to explain their beliefs and actions regarding paying for dates. "The motivation for ...

Computing leaders propose measures to combat tech-facilitated intimate partner violence, human trafficking, and child exploitation

Sometimes, when competitors collaborate, everybody wins

EU Flagship project DORIAN GRAY to use pioneering AI and avatar technology to uncover links between cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to improve healthy ageing and survi

African-American females have good odds to get a loan

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: