什么工作会浮现在脑海? 关于学科领域的刻板印象
What Jobs Come to Mind? Stereotypes About Fields of Study
Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2026 · [{"name": "John J. Conlon", "affiliation": ["Carnegie Mellon University"]}, {"name": "Dev Patel", "affiliation": ["Harvard–MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology"]}]
中文摘要
摘要 我们在一个高利害的经济环境中检验刻板印象——即对代表性特征的夸大。利用在俄亥俄州立大学本科生中开展的调查以及大规模的全国代表性数据, 我们测量美国大学新生如何感知大学专业与职业之间的关系。我们表明, 学生大幅高估了专业通向其代表性职业的可能性 (例如, 心理学对应咨询师, 新闻学对应记者)。利用内隐联想测验, 我们发现学生将专业与其代表性职业联系起来, 且这些联想能强烈预测信念偏误, 这与刻板印象机制一致。一个简单的劳动力市场均衡模型预测, 刻板印象会通过加剧错配而降低福利, 有关工作/专业错配的相关性证据佐证了这一预测。在一项田野实验中, 我们检验了一项旨在减少刻板印象的轻触式政策, 发现其对学生关于学什么的意向、以及他们实际注册的课程和专业均产生了显著影响。
Abstract
Abstract We test for stereotyping—the exaggeration of representative traits—in a high-stakes economic environment. Using both surveys administered among undergraduates at the Ohio State University and large-scale nationally representative data, we measure how US freshmen perceive the relationship between college majors and occupations. We show that students greatly overestimate the likelihood that majors lead to their representative jobs (e.g., counselor for psychology, journalist for journalism). Using an implicit association test, we show that students associate majors with their representative careers and that these associations strongly predict belief biases, in line with a stereotyping mechanism. A simple equilibrium model of the labor market predicts that stereotyping reduces welfare by increasing misallocation, which correlational evidence on job/major mismatch corroborates. In a field experiment, we test a light-touch policy to reduce stereotyping and find significant effects on students’ intentions about what to study as well as the classes and majors they enroll in.