To investigate biases against women in personnel decisions, psychologists performed a randomized experiment on 50 male bank supervisors attending a management institute who volunteered for the study. The supervisors were asked to make a decision on whether to promote a hypothetical applicant based on a personnel file. For 26 of them, the application file described a female candidate; for the others it described a male. The files were identical in all other respects. Results on the promotion decisions for the two groups are shown below.
-Based on the study design, what is the scope of inference for these results?

Question

To investigate biases against women in personnel decisions, psychologists performed a randomized experiment on 50 male bank supervisors attending a management institute who volunteered for the study. The supervisors were asked to make a decision on whether to promote a hypothetical applicant based on a personnel file. For 26 of them, the application file described a female candidate; for the others it described a male. The files were identical in all other respects. Results on the promotion decisions for the two groups are shown below. 
-Based on the study design, what is the scope of inference for these results?

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The study design is a randomized controlled trial, which means that the participants were randomly assigned to either the treatment group (in this case, being promoted) or the control group (in this case, not being promoted). This means that the results of the study can be generalized to the population of individuals who are similar to the participants in the study.

To Investigate Biases Against Women in Personnel Decisions, Psychologists Performed