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Racial bias eliminated when ratings switch from five stars to thumbs up or down

Implementing a performance-rating system with a two-point scale instead of a five-point scale could be an easy way to temper racial prejudices and tangibly improve income equality for workers from under-represented groups.
  1. Lauren Rivera

    1. Lauren Rivera is at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.

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Performance ratings are everywhere. Whether in the form of teaching evaluations for professors or star systems for ride-share drivers, ratings have become a central feature of how employers measure — and reward — workers. Yet performance evaluations are notoriously biased. These ratings reflect societal stereotypes: the same performance is rated differently depending on who we think did the work. For example, people from minority ethnic groups typically receive lower ratings than do white people and women receive lower ratings than do men for equivalent work1,2. Although biases in performance ratings are well-documented, determining how to make performance evaluations fairer remains an open empirical question. Writing in Nature, Botelho et al.3 demonstrate an easy change that can eliminate racial bias in performance ratings in online markets: simplify the scale.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-00304-y

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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