Effects of Ratee Sex and Purpose of Appraisal on the Accuracy of Performance Evaluations

The present study investigated the effects of purpose of appraisal on the accuracy with which male and female ratees are evaluated. Eighty male and 82 female undergraduate students read and evaluated two descriptions of highperforming college professors and two descriptions of low-performing college professors. Professors were described as either male or female, and raters were informed that their evaluations would be used for scale validation (experimental purpose), to provide the instructor with feedback (feedback purpose), or to make merit pay and promotion decisions (personnel decision purpose). Because the true level of performance was known for each professor, the accuracy of evaluations was calculated and served as the major dependent measure. Analyses indicated that male professors were rated as more effective then female professors, but only when evaluations were made by male raters for personnel decisions. Analysis of the accuracy of ratings indicated that men were rated higher than their true level of performance and women were rated lower than their true level of performance. Implications of the findings for pay discrimination and future research are discussed.