Entry3_Đỗ Thị An

Item 1:

Tall People Earn $789 More Per Inch

Guess who earns more?

Research has been rolling out for years supporting the theory that tall folks make more money than their vertical underlings. And while researching men and height for an upcoming podcast, I stumbled across this bombshell of a statistic cited in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink: “corrected for variables like age and gender and weight, an inch of height is worth $789 a year in salary.” In other words, the salary disparity between you and your coworker is roughly equivalent to your height difference in inches multiplied by $789.

LiveScience highlights a couple other studies that have also found a height pay gap:

• A 2003 study found that between two adult men of the same age and height, the one who was taller as a teenager earned more.
• An 2009 Australian study calculated a $1,000 pay difference between men who hit the 6-foot mark and those 2 inches shorter.

- 1. Type of bias: Assumption

- 2. Analysis: It can be easily noticed that when the author carried out the research in 2003, he just based on the result of “two adult men of the same age and height”. He did not give the specific detail about the exact number of people, the level or the qualification of those taking part in his research. It means the researcher might use a small number of people and apply the result to a large number of people.

In addition, there is no evidence that the height determines income level. In other word, the height is not proportion to the salary and you do not need an ideal height to earn a lot of money. This conclusion is obvious.

ð Assumption.

Item 2:
The Stanford university story

- 1. Type of bias: Discrimination

- 2. Analysis: In this story, the secretary thought that the scruffy old couple in old clothes was boorish poor people with low social status, so did not deserve to be in Cambridge. Therefore, she ignored them and did not allow them to meet the headmaster of Harvard (prejudice in action).

The headmaster also supposed that with the appearance and the clothes of this old couple, they must be the poor and could not afford to give a building to Harvard. Therefore, he said gruffly to them and refused their requirement, their help; even he wanted to exclude them from his university.

It can be said that both the secretary and the headmaster put their prejudice into action. They treated the old couple unfairly because they supposed that this couple was the poor, boorish with low social status.

ð This is discrimination.

Item 3:

Blacks Only

While traveling with her white business manager in Clarksdale, Mississippi in September 1937, Bessie Smith was seriously injured in a car accident. A doctor on the scene ordered that Smith be sent to a "blacks only" hospital several miles away. She bled to death before they arrived.

Smith's manager, who had suffered little more than a concussion, was sent to a nearby hospital and was fine.

- 1. Type of bias: Discrimination.

- 2. Analysis: Two people in this story, a black person and a white one, were behaved in two different ways:

v Bessie Smith, the black who was injured more seriously, was forced to be sent to a “blacks only” hospital several miles away instead of being rescued by the doctor in nearby hospital. Therefore, it was too late to save her life and she bled to death before they arrived.

v Smith’s manager, the white who had suffered little more than a concussion, was sent to a nearby hospital and was fine.

It can be noticed that the black and the white were treated unfairly and differently

in this situation.

ð Discrimination.

References:

http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2011/08/08/tall-people-earn-789-more-per-inch/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojYaFeF9bBo&feature=related

http://www.anecdotage.com/index.php?aid=4145