Social Media as Input for Recruiment: Does Women's Relationship History Affect Candidate Evaluations?

We examine whether information about a female candidate's relationship history, obtained from social media profiles, affects evaluations of her suitability for a student union board position. Moreover, we investigate whether it is possible to mitigate any bias against women with multiple partners by providing information about the origins of prejudice. We utilized a 2 (relationship history: multiple vs. one partner(s)) X 2 (mitigating information: explaining prejudice against promiscuous women vs. explaining prejudice against outgroups) experimental design across two studies. Participants were female students (Study 1: