The Influence of Profile Name on Person Perception

Indianapolis, IN

Individuals often judge others unconsciously. Looking at small things such as a person's appearance, group memberships, or style of dress helps people make value judgments. Previous research (Tynes, Rose & Markoe, 2013) has shown that stereotyping, as one form of value judgment, is still evident today Subjects in this study who were of a different ethnicity felt more likely to be harassed in person and on social media based on ethnicity as well as feel as though the racial climate on their respected college campus was "against them" due to stereotypes (Tynes, Rose, & Markoe, 2013). How stereotyping impacts social media behavior needs further study. The present study examined the effect of ethnicity of names using a popular social media platform, Facebook. This study is based on Bertrand and Mullainathan (2002) whose study investigated discrimination and stereotyping through job applications. Specifically, the researchers investigated if participants would be more or less likely to accept a friend request if the Facebook profile had an ethnic sounding name. Participants (N=40) were undergraduates at a small, Midwestern liberal arts college. The first set of students were given a mock Facebook profile with a Caucasian sounding name and asked questions such as, "would you become friends with this person?" The second group was given mock Facebook profiles with ethnic sounding names and asked the same questions. The researchers hypothesized that people would be more likely to accept the Caucasia sounding names. An independent samples t-test found that participants who read Facebook profiles with ethnic minority names accepted them significantly less than those who read profiles with Caucasian or ethnic majority names (t=2.36, p<.05). The results of this study will add to psychological studies to help determine whether stereotyping and discrimination still exist today in a social media setting.