It Pays to Be Herr Kaiser: Germans With Noble-Sounding Surnames More Often Work as Managers Than as Employees

• Autores: Raphael Silberzahn, Eric Luis Uhlmann
• Localización: Psychological Science, ISSN-e 1467-9280, Vol. 24, Nº. 12, 2013, págs. 2437-2444
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In the field study reported here (N = 222,924), we found that Germans with noble-sounding surnames, such as Kaiser (�emperor�), König (�king�), and Fürst (�prince�), more frequently hold managerial positions than Germans with last names that either refer to common everyday occupations, such as Koch (�cook�), Bauer (�farmer�), and Becker/Bäcker (�baker�), or do not refer to any social role. This phenomenon occurs despite the fact that noble-sounding surnames never indicated that the person actually held a noble title. Because of basic properties of associative cognition, the status linked to a name may spill over to its bearer and influence his or her occupational outcomes.