{"id":98975,"date":"2025-08-29T08:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T12:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/?post_type=cu_story&p=98975"},"modified":"2025-10-20T18:07:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T22:07:00","slug":"whats-in-a-name-how-the-sound-of-names-can-bias-hiring-decisions","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/whats-in-a-name-how-the-sound-of-names-can-bias-hiring-decisions\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s in a Name? How the Sound of Names Can Bias Hiring Decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n What\u2019s in a Name? How the Sound of Names Can Bias Hiring Decisions\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished<\/a> from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. All photos provided by The Conversation<\/a> from various sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Sidhu<\/a> is an assistant professor of psychology at Carleton University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/audio.adauris.ai\/v2\/widget\/RvjICRaqgSFBJozV1NoK\/cgiX84EFByAJ8EWsihSH?distribution=true<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine you\u2019re hiring someone for a job that requires a very kind, agreeable and co-operative person. You have two candidates and all you know about them are their names: Renee and Greta. Who do you think would be a better fit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are like the people in our recent study<\/a> on hiring judgments, you probably chose Renee. We found that smoother-sounding names like Renee were preferred to harsher-sounding names like Greta for certain kinds of jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea that the sound of a word can make it a better fit for particular meanings or qualities is known as sound symbolism. And it suggests that even something as small as the phonemes in a name can carry surprising weight in how people are judged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The power of sound symbolism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The best known example of sound symbolism is the bouba\/kiki effect. Across languages and cultures<\/a>, people tend to match the made-up word “bouba” with round shapes and “kiki” with spiky ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why this happens is still debated. Various explanations<\/a> exist, including the physical sensation<\/a> of pronouncing the words or the way the sounds of the words imitate the features of<\/a> round versus spiky objects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In experiments, people tend to associate the word kiki with the shape on the left, and bouba with the one on the right.
(Wikimedia Commons), CC BY-SA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Several years ago, we tested whether the bouba\/kiki effect extended beyond invented words to real first names<\/a>. In one part of that study, we showed participants silhouettes that were either round or spiky and asked them to match them with names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only do people associate names like Bob with round silhouettes and Kirk with spiky silhouettes, but people also associate these names with different personality traits<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smoother-sounding names like Liam or Noelle were judged as more agreeable and emotional, while spikier-sounding names like Tate or Krista were judged as more extroverted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Importantly, this didn\u2019t mean that Liams actually were more agreeable than Tates. In fact, when our study looked at the personalities of more than 1,000 people, we didn\u2019t find any sign these patterns existed in the real world. Nevertheless, people still make associations based on the sounds of names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Names and hiring decisions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In our latest study<\/a>, we were curious to see how these associations might affect judgments in a real-world context: hiring. Of course, employers usually have much more to go on than a name, but there are many instances in which candidates are screened based on only limited information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a great deal of evidence that socio-demographic cues in a name \u2014 such as race<\/a> and age<\/a> \u2014 can affect who gets a callback. The sound of a name itself could be another potential source of bias.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We designed job ads that looked for a candidate high in one of six personality factors<\/a>: honesty-humility, emotionality, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness (how organized or hard-working someone is) and openness to experience. For example, one ad looking for an agreeable candidate read:<\/p>\n\n\n

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An organization is looking to hire a new employee. The ideal applicant for this job should be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n