Writer Perception, Writer Projection: The Influence of Personality, Ideology, and Gender on Letters of Recommendation
by Henrik Eger
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1991, 328 pages.
by Henrik Eger
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1991, 328 pages.
Abstract: The influence of personality, ideology, and gender on the process of composing letters of recommendation (LORs) in the American business culture is investigated.
Thesis: Writers are so restrained by their gender, ideology (deeply held, mainly unexamined values, attitudes, and world views), and personality (Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator), that they will compose LORs based on criteria which confirm their own subjective sense of self, rather than write texts which approximate a candidate's reality.
Thesis: Writers are so restrained by their gender, ideology (deeply held, mainly unexamined values, attitudes, and world views), and personality (Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator), that they will compose LORs based on criteria which confirm their own subjective sense of self, rather than write texts which approximate a candidate's reality.
Drawing of wings by Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519. Dissertation dedication by Henrik Eger, Ph. D., June 28, 1990.
Results: Each LOR carried, Trojan horse-like, some of the writer's concealed subtexts. If a candidate was seen as similar or identical, most writers ranked that person higher, used fewer negative words, and committed fewer genre violations than for a candidate whose profile did not match theirs. Perception of difference in ideology caused strong, adverse projections and almost total rejection. The least educated writers (measured by percentage of grammatical/stylistic problems) violated genre conventions 84% more often than the most educated writers.
WRITER PERCEPTION, WRITER PROJECTION: THE INFLUENCE OF PERSONALITY, IDEOLOGY, AND GENDER ON LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION
SUMMARY
The influence of personality, ideology, and gender on the process of composing letters of recommendation (LORs) in the American business culture is investigated. Thesis: Writers are so restrained by their gender, ideology (deeply held, mainly unexamined values, attitudes, and world views), and personality (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), that they will compose LORs based on criteria which confirm their own subjective sense of self, rather than write texts which approximate a candidate’s reality.
The study generated 144 LORs written by 12 male and 12 female professionals who wrote LORs on five hypothetical candidates whose educational background and job performance were identical. Their personality and ideology matched that of the writers (2 LORs) and was the opposite (2 LORs). Only neutral data were supplied for the fifth candidate. The writers wrote the sixth LOR about themselves. Independent variables were personality, ideology, and gender. Dependent variables were linguistic features: words, negative words, passive voice, grammatical/stylistic problems, readability, descriptive level, genre violations (negative, misleading, or illegal statements), and writers’ analytical comments.
The results confirmed the hypothesis that professionals perceive and judge others based on their own personality, ideology, and gender. Each LOR carried, Trojan horse-like, some of the writer’s concealed subtexts. If a candidate was seen as similar or identical, most writers ranked that person higher, used fewer negative words, and committed fewer genre violations than for a candidate whose profile did not match theirs. Knowledge of candidates’ gender led to preferential treatment of male candidates by male professionals and preferential treatment of female candidates by female professionals (“advocacy effect”). Identification with candidates’ personality led to very positive comments and the highest ranking. Perception of difference in ideology caused strong, adverse projections and almost total rejection. The least educated writers (measured by percentage of grammatical/stylistic problems) violated genre conventions 84% more often than the most educated writers. A study of the writers’ analytical comments about their own LORs indicated that most writers were surprised about their deeply-seated bias.
The study concludes that professionals need to practice an active acceptance of difference, based on the belief that difference among people can lead to human and professional growth through its very challenge.
1. INTRODUCTION
We measure the excellency of other men [women and children] by some excellency we conceive to be in ourselves.
—John SELDEN, “Measure of Things,” Table Talk (1689)
In each action [each letter of recommendation] we must look beyond the action [beyond the letter of recommendation] at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.
—Blaise PASCAL, Pensées, (1670), 505, tr. W. F. Trotter
Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.
—Francis BACON, Of Studies (1625)
1.1 Background
Some years ago, I studied toward an M.A. in Sociology of Literature at the University of Essex at Colchester in England. The main emphasis was on ideology and literary theories. As a result of my studies, I wrote a thesis entitled “Distortions: A Socio-Literary Study of some Influences on the Production and Perpetuation of the Image of the German in English Literature” (1976). In it, I presented evidence to suggest the possibility that perceptions of others are directly related to external events, ruling ideologies, and the general Zeitgeist.
For example, during the reign of Queen Victoria, whose husband was Prince Albert of Saxony, British authors tended to describe German characters as human beings who were not only outstandingly bright and hard working, but also role-models for British readers. However, by the time World War I broke out, most British authors had changed their use of language dramatically and described people who happened to live in Germany as sub-human, labeled them “Huns,” and reduced them to “swine” who needed nothing but a British bayonet in their body. J. A. Hammerton, the English editor of The Masterpiece Library of Short Stories: The Thousand Best Complete Tales of All Times and All Countries (London, n.d. [circa 1923]), said in his introduction that nothing written in German was worth being included in the 22 volume international collection.
Katherine Mansfield, in a letter to J. M. Murray, was the only author found who actually retracted her creations and who openly admitted that the German characters in her short stories (In A German Pension) were “lies.” Authors like D. H. Lawrence and A. Huxley are among the few British writers during the same time period who presented complex German characters with very human characteristics (see Eger, “The Image of the German in Selected English Short Stories, 1809-1974,” 1974).
However, a review of short stories written after World War I strongly suggested that a perception of ideological difference between “the British” and “the Germans” by many British writers led to an increase in the creation of one-sided characters and dichotomies of good and evil—at the expense of more complex characters. Similar studies could be done with the image of the English (“Tommies”) in German literature, or the image of North Americans (“gringos”) in Latin American literature, etc. Most likely, the general perceptions of the other at the time influences the majority of writers who, in turn, will create texts reflective of ruling ideologies.
If the main emphases of my studies in Europe were on socio-literary aspects of text production, the main interests of my recent study are psychological aspects of writing. I have been particularly influenced by the Carl Jung-inspired works of Isabel Briggs Myers and Katherine C. Briggs. I also owe much to the publications of George H. Jensen and John K. DiTiberio on personality and composing processes. All the above authors encourage writers, teachers, and students of writing to recognize and accept difference. As a result of such insights, teachers of composition can now work with much more understanding of their own and their students’ composing processes.
Several other aspects of life in the United States led me to develop the present study, especially the strong emphasis on hard research data and the general interest in America on the practical. In short, my studies over the past 15 years in different cultures encouraged me to bring together some of the theory-driven work which I had experienced in Europe with some of the empirical, research-based work that I had experienced in the United States.
Last, but not least, this study owes its existence to an interest in a phenomenon that seems to bridge cultures and times: many intelligent and well-educated people who appear rational and considerate of others frequently present shifting and often conflicting interpretations of people and events. They tend to view one and the same person, one and the same action, in radically different ways. What was “outstanding” and “very special” can quickly become “dreadful” and “threatening.”
As a result, I began to investigate the possibility that “reality” is not a given but a construction, made up of a series of interacting and constantly changing perceptions and projections. I began to wonder why such a construction through perception and projection can take on a whole new “truth dimension” which did not exist before and why a new “reality” can be created with each speech act, each letter of recommendation (hereafter referred to as LOR), adding to the multitude of already existing “realities” of just one person. In short, I replaced the concept of “reality” with the more flexible concept of “reality construction” which allows for a multitude of layers of perceptions and projections by many different individuals. It is against this background that this study evolved.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Comparatively little is known in rhetoric and composition research about the influence of personality type on the process of writing; even less is known about knowledge—real or perceived—that writers have of candidates who have requested an LOR and the influence of that knowledge on the production of text; and apparently nothing concrete is known about the influence of personality types, values, ideologies, and performance data on the actual production of LORs, especially the consequences on the process of writing LORs when writers perceive candidates as having quite a different set of values and ideologies from that of the writers. Yet thousands of professionals and expert writers (hereafter called “writers”)—people who write as part of their profession, for example, executives, managers, business people, heads of departments, or instructors—sit down many times during the year in their business, government, or school offices to compose persuasive LORs to other professionals in the field. They write important documents that frequently go beyond the level of skills and performance description into areas which can strongly influence the readers in their decision making.
While it may be obvious to most writers that the process of writing is usually highly goal oriented (Hayes and Flower, 1986), not all writers may be aware that they could be operating under the illusion that their LORs are rational and objective tools which measure and transmit important, verifiable data on job performance and skills. Instead, writers may be guided by data selection criteria that have to do as much with their own personality types, ideologies, and gender subtexts as with those of the employee or recommendee (hereafter called “candidate”) and the intended target audience. If this assumption is true, then the process of writing LORs inevitably results in highly subjective pieces of writing, in documents that can reveal as much about the writer as they can conceal about the candidate. However, these very problems—deeply embedded in a text—can also lead to new insights.
This study investigates aspects of some of the problems caused by writer perception and projection, especially the influence of personality types and ideologies on the production of LORs. I will demonstrate at least part of the concealed “problematic” (an ambiguous or problematic relationship) of this type of discourse production, namely “interpersonal affect and rating errors” (Barry and Tsui, 1986), that is, the tendency of writers and “raters [to] prefer candidates who are similar to themselves” (Glick, 1981). This selective treatment of candidates by fellow professionals—based on a sense of writer-identity with a candidate’s personality, ideology, and gender—seems to guide part of the composition process and employment selection. Yet, the influences of writer identification—or non-identification—with a candidate and their consequences for the production of texts appear almost unexplored.
1.3 Significance of the Problem
The act of persuasion has been of interest to speakers and writers for thousands of years. During the last twenty years a renewed interest in composition and rhetoric, especially in the United States, has helped to create a growing body of knowledge in persuasive writing and discourse production as witnessed by an ever-increasing number of dissertations, books, and articles, including a large number of studies that deal with LORs (see Bibliography). Similarly, the following areas are contributing to an understanding of some of the phenomena of writer perception and writer projection: contemporary literary theories, especially deconstructionism, with their attempt to come to terms with subtexts or the “unwritten text”; Marxist-based studies with their emphasis on the importance of ideologies on the production of text; and educational, psychological, and business-related studies, especially those that deal with values and personality types.
I determined that a truly interdisciplinary approach was necessary to develop this research project, in order to come to a better understanding of a significant problem, namely the hidden problematic of LORs in the American business culture. I hope that such a cross-disciplinary approach will help make visible some of the perceived discrepancies between identical sets of performance data on candidates and widely-diverging texts which seem to say at least as much about the writers as they say about the candidates.
1.4 Purpose of the Study
One of the main purposes of this study is to investigate unknown aspects of text production, especially the production of LORs. It does not set out to dethrone LORs or even to doubt the usefulness of LORs. Rather, based on the data generated through several writing experiments, this study questions uncritical or one-sided acceptance or rejection of LORs. It builds toward an understanding of text production through a model which allows for multiple reality constructions—realities that include or allow for perceptions and projections of each writer, candidate, and reader. It is suggested that these multiple layers of reality coexist—shifting and changing from encounter to encounter, from moment to moment. With this model of “reality construction,” one can possibly see better at least some layers of previously hidden subtexts. Yet, so far, quite a few of these aspects of text production seem to have been neglected or ignored in the literature on LORs. Ultimately, a deeper knowledge and understanding of writer perception and writer projection could possibly lead to changes in the perception of job applicants and a better understanding of LORs and the writers of such documents.
Therefore, this study sets out to combine important work done in various fields in order to contribute to the ongoing research in text production. If the main hypotheses are proved, the results might help writers and readers of LORs to better understand aspects of the processes that can influence their writing. Future studies might even lead toward the development and assessment of a “grammar of acceptance and rejection,” provided the rhetorical context is known, based on the individual perceptions of each other’s personalities, ideologies, and gender expectations.
Above all, it is hoped that this study will contribute to the ongoing research in discourse production. It is guided by the hope that better understanding of composition processes will eventually contribute to a greater acceptance of difference, rather than rejection. I also hope that an active awareness of data selection processes will help writers overcome deeply seated attitudes and behavioral patterns and eventually lead to a greater acceptance of people who are different in their personality, ideology, or gender.
[. . .]
6.1 Conclusions
In some way, part of this study can be seen as an attempt to bring together, to build on, and to present a new model of text analysis vis-à-vis letters of recommendation. It is based on the work of Jung, Myers and Briggs, Jensen and DiTiberio, and other researchers in composition theory as it relates to personality and composition; on theoretical work done by writers like Adorno, Foucault, Barthes, Raymond Williams, and Eagleton as it relates to ideology and text production; and on extensive work carried out by numerous researchers in the United States as it relates to values, letters of recommendation, and the business culture.
The main findings of this study are
1. A confirmation of the MBTI literature, especially the work that relates composition to personality;
2. A realization, not documented in the literature so far, that ideology has a stronger influence on writers of letters of recommendation than personality;
3. A better understanding of hidden gender agenda and the advocacy effect which favors members of the same gender over those of the opposite gender within a professional setting; and
4. A better understanding of the existence of important subtexts in LORs which, at a very subtle level, can influence the reader.
Below are some of my conclusions, followed by an outline of future research.
This study, among others, indicates that if a candidate’s set of values and ideologies is perceived to be in opposition to that of the writer can bring out more negative solidarity and lead to the worst ranking of that particular candidate than any other criteria such as personality or gender. In short, ideology can wipe out any personality effect—a fact which could explain why even professionals with personalities identical or similar to that of the candidates are willing to block the progress of candidates, even oust them from their jobs—mainly because of perceived differences in values and ideology.
It seems that writing as such does not automatically lead to rational conclusions or fair judgments. Rather, writing, like any other intellectual activity, is embedded in ideology. As a consequence of this condition, it seems that writing can be seen as a process of ruptures, of conflicting ideologies fighting with each other in semi-automatic responses, and a thinking writer’s struggle to write against that which comes easy. That is, writers can become and stay imprisoned by their own values or feelings, their own personality characteristics or nebulous hunches, until certain (sometimes painful) circumstances or events in the lives of the writers allow those individuals to step back and look at the sentences that they pass through their writing.
Perhaps one of the most dramatic applications of these observations is the fact that people are willing to go to war and kill each other, based on a perception of difference in values and ideologies. The few attempts by trade union leaders during World War I to unite all those people who appeared to have much in common, for example, factory workers in Germany and Britain, failed miserably because the prevailing ideologies on both sides of the Channel at the time were stronger than any appeal to reason and commonality.
One of the surprises of this study was the fact that quite a few of the writers seemed to limit their view of the candidates to a few criteria that guided their data selection and grading processes.
Based on the results of this study, it appears that the single most explosive issue which writers shared more than anything else in this experiment was a perception of difference in values and ideologies which, in time, can bring with it an almost automatic rejection of all those people who do not fit in with a writer’s perception of ideological self.
Also, when one takes into consideration that a number of the women writers in this study are top performers in the fields of real estate and finance—some with million dollar budgets, and highly active in their professional organization—and given the fact that the subject of women and equality is being discussed frequently in today’s America, the results of this study may indicate that more is at stake than meets the eye. It may be the case that the prevailing ideology in the American business culture today exists on two different levels: On the surface—through public statements and official company policies—the subject of gender equality seems to rank fairly high. But at a deeper level, a level which goes way beyond an individual company, women seem to be subject to a different ideology, perhaps based on a general environment in this society that still fosters preferential treatment for males Based on the results of this study, it is possible to speculate that even professional women in today’s America have imbibed and fostered an ideology which treats males with more respect than females, as witnessed by the significantly larger percentage of words used in LORs for male candidates than female candidates. That is, women could be both victims of an anti-women ideology and contributors to the same oppressive ideology, in spite of the advocacy effect which allows women to give each other preferential treatment.
It is against the evidence of highly selective reality constructions and distortions in the LORs of many writers that some of the claims made by various writers about their state of being objective, or at least “somewhat objective,” has to be taken seriously as it seems to indicate resistance to the notion that we all construct our own realities and, through our writing and our interpretations, the realities of others especially when the same writers then come to admit their own subjectivity.
As a result of this study, I have therefore concluded that writing is guided by deeply seated ideologies which have more to do with self-preservation and the reservation of established ideologies than with a fairness to a candidate who happens to feel or think differently from the writer but who would or could be a valuable part of another company or organization if given a chance through a balanced LOR.
If this study could be generalized, one may want to ask whether a majority of writers in the business culture, without much prompting, is really willing to construct and reconstruct other people’s realities fairly, readily, and willingly. One could also ask whether the reasons for differential treatment of candidates who happen to have the same educational background and the same record of job performance are rooted in a lack of writer commitment to people who are not, in one way or another, reflective of the writer. The results of this study made me ask whether professionals are refusing to accept, let alone appreciate difference in others. I also asked myself whether the rejection of people who are perceived to be ideologically different could also be seen as a pragmatic, if not to say a Darwinian way for writers to preserve their own sense of self as the center of all standards by which others get judged.
Given the overall evidence, it appears that the influence of personality, gender, and, even more so, ideology is enormous and guides powerfully the process of composing LORs, so much so that one could speak of “letters of writer-based reality constructions,” perhaps even “letters of distortion,” especially if the candidate displays and ideology different from that of the writer. It is against the evidence of writer perception and writer projection, of distortion, and writer-based reality construction in LORs that some of the claims made by various writers about their state of being objective, or at least “somewhat objective,” has to be taken seriously. Such claims seem to indicate resistance to the notion that writers have a tendency to distort, that we all construct our own and other people’s realities, and that perceptions and projections, reality constructions and reconstructions, are all inherent parts of writing and persuading ourselves and others that we, as writers, are the center of wise judgment on others.
To conclude, the process of composing LORs is so complex that it does not lend itself easily to analysis, especially when one looks at the influence of writer personality, gender, and ideology on letters of recommendation. A writer’s so-called good intentions, however reflective and well-phrased, do not alter the subtle layers of meaning of a text and its subtexts once written. In other words, unexamined value systems and deeply ingrained judgments bases on a writer’s sense of identity or non-identity with a candidate’s gender, personality, and ideology seem to be not only hard to grasp, even in a post-writing analysis, but appear to permeate thought processes like a virus which sits hidden inside many LORs, ready to work on unsuspecting readers with the goal of transmitting a manipulative message, rather than communicating to the reader openly important aspects of both candidate and writer. If there were writers who could liberate themselves from the virus of deeply seated bias and mainly self-serving preference and, if these writers, simultaneously, could share important insights about the candidate and themselves, everyone—writer, candidate, and anonymous reader of such an LOR—might be better served.
However, it seems that neither human nature nor traditional genre restraints would allow such an approach. As a result, we will probably see more of the same in the future. On the other hand, there is always the hope that people, especially writers, will learn to recognize difference and otherness as a gift that challenges, a gift that benefits those involved in the process of writing LORs and those who read and act on such documents.
6.2 Future Research
Future research needs to find out whether it is possible to separate deeply seated feelings and internalized experiences of LOR writers from the end product which, in many cases, may appear as rational a document as an. Perhaps even more important would be to know whether it would be possible for people to sustain an open mind—accepting of difference—on a permanent basis, or whether writers revert to older forms of reacting to others, through writing LORs in an unreflected, almost instinctive way.
More research is needed to find out whether—and to what extent—readers of LORs, unaware of those often subtle undercurrents, intuitively grasp a writer’s hidden messages. Overall, one could probably say that there will be as many different readings of one LOR as there are readers. Only if a representative sample of readers comes to similar ranking decisions as the original writer, or to interpretations which share at least common, general directions, can one make conclusions about the power of hidden messages or the strength of undercurrents on unsuspecting readers—a task well beyond the goal of this dissertation. Sometime soon, however, I intend to conduct a comparative study on the perception of genre violation with three different groups of readers—lawyers, heads of personnel departments, and social workers—to see whether lawyers will locate significantly more genre violations than heads of personnel departments who, in turn, might locate more genre violation than social workers. Such a study, done on a fairly large scale, might help understand better why genre violations—through the interpretation of their presence or absence—are not necessarily an integral part of a text but are more closely linked to the value system of readers and their adherence to values and ideologies of their respective professions. As a result of such research, it might be possible to develop charts that eventually could predict readers’ possible reactions to certain documents, such as LORs, provided one has the necessary information on the readers (somewhat similar to Jensen and DiTiberio’s “Handout on Personality and Writing”).
As this study shows, projections, distortions, fabrications, and genre violations occurred not only on the LOR level, but also in other documents which the writers wrote about the candidates. Therefore, future research needs to look at the discrepancy between an LOR and interpretations of that same candidate by the writer—written after the official letter is completed—as part of a study on the discrepancies and ruptures between text and subtexts.
Future research needs also be done to find out more about writers, readers, and candidates, many of whom appear unaware of the expectation gaps surrounding LORs—the candidates usually want the best review possible while the readers usually want as detailed (and critical) a report as possible, not to mention the writers who frequently find themselves right in the middle of these two sets of diverging expectations. In addition, writers of LORs are often concerned about the preservation of their own professional standing; for example, they may feel that LORs should be either more complimentary to the candidate, more critical of the candidate, or more flattering to the image of the writer. Others, more conscious of the multi-edged sword which each LOR represents, may consider this tradition-honored sword blunt and useless, a nuisance at best, and wish it to be discarded as a way of gauging a candidate’s chance of success in a new organization or company. Therefore, more research is needed not only on the effectiveness of important documents such as LORs but also on the deeper function of such documents in today’s society.
Also, future research needs to look very closely at the complexity of writers’ data selection processes involved in writing LORs by combining research on gender, personality, and ideology with a more comprehensive social constructivist point of view than the limits of this study allowed.
And last, but not least, more research may find out more about the origins of LORs as they relate to our lives today. It seems that good LORs are like milestones in a person’s life, markers which confirm someone’s existence on more than a professional level.
And so, eventually, we might learn more about some of the deeper reasons for writing LORs which could include their function of empowerment through the words and the good name of the writer—powers of protection, like blessing and safe-guarding of a person, as originally developed in antiquity when the first letters of recommendation were written to carry their bearers to safe new lands, to a better life outside the old city walls—somewhere far away from home.
*For more excerpts of this dissertation, or to read the entire document, contact the editor.
SUMMARY
The influence of personality, ideology, and gender on the process of composing letters of recommendation (LORs) in the American business culture is investigated. Thesis: Writers are so restrained by their gender, ideology (deeply held, mainly unexamined values, attitudes, and world views), and personality (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), that they will compose LORs based on criteria which confirm their own subjective sense of self, rather than write texts which approximate a candidate’s reality.
The study generated 144 LORs written by 12 male and 12 female professionals who wrote LORs on five hypothetical candidates whose educational background and job performance were identical. Their personality and ideology matched that of the writers (2 LORs) and was the opposite (2 LORs). Only neutral data were supplied for the fifth candidate. The writers wrote the sixth LOR about themselves. Independent variables were personality, ideology, and gender. Dependent variables were linguistic features: words, negative words, passive voice, grammatical/stylistic problems, readability, descriptive level, genre violations (negative, misleading, or illegal statements), and writers’ analytical comments.
The results confirmed the hypothesis that professionals perceive and judge others based on their own personality, ideology, and gender. Each LOR carried, Trojan horse-like, some of the writer’s concealed subtexts. If a candidate was seen as similar or identical, most writers ranked that person higher, used fewer negative words, and committed fewer genre violations than for a candidate whose profile did not match theirs. Knowledge of candidates’ gender led to preferential treatment of male candidates by male professionals and preferential treatment of female candidates by female professionals (“advocacy effect”). Identification with candidates’ personality led to very positive comments and the highest ranking. Perception of difference in ideology caused strong, adverse projections and almost total rejection. The least educated writers (measured by percentage of grammatical/stylistic problems) violated genre conventions 84% more often than the most educated writers. A study of the writers’ analytical comments about their own LORs indicated that most writers were surprised about their deeply-seated bias.
The study concludes that professionals need to practice an active acceptance of difference, based on the belief that difference among people can lead to human and professional growth through its very challenge.
1. INTRODUCTION
We measure the excellency of other men [women and children] by some excellency we conceive to be in ourselves.
—John SELDEN, “Measure of Things,” Table Talk (1689)
In each action [each letter of recommendation] we must look beyond the action [beyond the letter of recommendation] at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.
—Blaise PASCAL, Pensées, (1670), 505, tr. W. F. Trotter
Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.
—Francis BACON, Of Studies (1625)
1.1 Background
Some years ago, I studied toward an M.A. in Sociology of Literature at the University of Essex at Colchester in England. The main emphasis was on ideology and literary theories. As a result of my studies, I wrote a thesis entitled “Distortions: A Socio-Literary Study of some Influences on the Production and Perpetuation of the Image of the German in English Literature” (1976). In it, I presented evidence to suggest the possibility that perceptions of others are directly related to external events, ruling ideologies, and the general Zeitgeist.
For example, during the reign of Queen Victoria, whose husband was Prince Albert of Saxony, British authors tended to describe German characters as human beings who were not only outstandingly bright and hard working, but also role-models for British readers. However, by the time World War I broke out, most British authors had changed their use of language dramatically and described people who happened to live in Germany as sub-human, labeled them “Huns,” and reduced them to “swine” who needed nothing but a British bayonet in their body. J. A. Hammerton, the English editor of The Masterpiece Library of Short Stories: The Thousand Best Complete Tales of All Times and All Countries (London, n.d. [circa 1923]), said in his introduction that nothing written in German was worth being included in the 22 volume international collection.
Katherine Mansfield, in a letter to J. M. Murray, was the only author found who actually retracted her creations and who openly admitted that the German characters in her short stories (In A German Pension) were “lies.” Authors like D. H. Lawrence and A. Huxley are among the few British writers during the same time period who presented complex German characters with very human characteristics (see Eger, “The Image of the German in Selected English Short Stories, 1809-1974,” 1974).
However, a review of short stories written after World War I strongly suggested that a perception of ideological difference between “the British” and “the Germans” by many British writers led to an increase in the creation of one-sided characters and dichotomies of good and evil—at the expense of more complex characters. Similar studies could be done with the image of the English (“Tommies”) in German literature, or the image of North Americans (“gringos”) in Latin American literature, etc. Most likely, the general perceptions of the other at the time influences the majority of writers who, in turn, will create texts reflective of ruling ideologies.
If the main emphases of my studies in Europe were on socio-literary aspects of text production, the main interests of my recent study are psychological aspects of writing. I have been particularly influenced by the Carl Jung-inspired works of Isabel Briggs Myers and Katherine C. Briggs. I also owe much to the publications of George H. Jensen and John K. DiTiberio on personality and composing processes. All the above authors encourage writers, teachers, and students of writing to recognize and accept difference. As a result of such insights, teachers of composition can now work with much more understanding of their own and their students’ composing processes.
Several other aspects of life in the United States led me to develop the present study, especially the strong emphasis on hard research data and the general interest in America on the practical. In short, my studies over the past 15 years in different cultures encouraged me to bring together some of the theory-driven work which I had experienced in Europe with some of the empirical, research-based work that I had experienced in the United States.
Last, but not least, this study owes its existence to an interest in a phenomenon that seems to bridge cultures and times: many intelligent and well-educated people who appear rational and considerate of others frequently present shifting and often conflicting interpretations of people and events. They tend to view one and the same person, one and the same action, in radically different ways. What was “outstanding” and “very special” can quickly become “dreadful” and “threatening.”
As a result, I began to investigate the possibility that “reality” is not a given but a construction, made up of a series of interacting and constantly changing perceptions and projections. I began to wonder why such a construction through perception and projection can take on a whole new “truth dimension” which did not exist before and why a new “reality” can be created with each speech act, each letter of recommendation (hereafter referred to as LOR), adding to the multitude of already existing “realities” of just one person. In short, I replaced the concept of “reality” with the more flexible concept of “reality construction” which allows for a multitude of layers of perceptions and projections by many different individuals. It is against this background that this study evolved.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Comparatively little is known in rhetoric and composition research about the influence of personality type on the process of writing; even less is known about knowledge—real or perceived—that writers have of candidates who have requested an LOR and the influence of that knowledge on the production of text; and apparently nothing concrete is known about the influence of personality types, values, ideologies, and performance data on the actual production of LORs, especially the consequences on the process of writing LORs when writers perceive candidates as having quite a different set of values and ideologies from that of the writers. Yet thousands of professionals and expert writers (hereafter called “writers”)—people who write as part of their profession, for example, executives, managers, business people, heads of departments, or instructors—sit down many times during the year in their business, government, or school offices to compose persuasive LORs to other professionals in the field. They write important documents that frequently go beyond the level of skills and performance description into areas which can strongly influence the readers in their decision making.
While it may be obvious to most writers that the process of writing is usually highly goal oriented (Hayes and Flower, 1986), not all writers may be aware that they could be operating under the illusion that their LORs are rational and objective tools which measure and transmit important, verifiable data on job performance and skills. Instead, writers may be guided by data selection criteria that have to do as much with their own personality types, ideologies, and gender subtexts as with those of the employee or recommendee (hereafter called “candidate”) and the intended target audience. If this assumption is true, then the process of writing LORs inevitably results in highly subjective pieces of writing, in documents that can reveal as much about the writer as they can conceal about the candidate. However, these very problems—deeply embedded in a text—can also lead to new insights.
This study investigates aspects of some of the problems caused by writer perception and projection, especially the influence of personality types and ideologies on the production of LORs. I will demonstrate at least part of the concealed “problematic” (an ambiguous or problematic relationship) of this type of discourse production, namely “interpersonal affect and rating errors” (Barry and Tsui, 1986), that is, the tendency of writers and “raters [to] prefer candidates who are similar to themselves” (Glick, 1981). This selective treatment of candidates by fellow professionals—based on a sense of writer-identity with a candidate’s personality, ideology, and gender—seems to guide part of the composition process and employment selection. Yet, the influences of writer identification—or non-identification—with a candidate and their consequences for the production of texts appear almost unexplored.
1.3 Significance of the Problem
The act of persuasion has been of interest to speakers and writers for thousands of years. During the last twenty years a renewed interest in composition and rhetoric, especially in the United States, has helped to create a growing body of knowledge in persuasive writing and discourse production as witnessed by an ever-increasing number of dissertations, books, and articles, including a large number of studies that deal with LORs (see Bibliography). Similarly, the following areas are contributing to an understanding of some of the phenomena of writer perception and writer projection: contemporary literary theories, especially deconstructionism, with their attempt to come to terms with subtexts or the “unwritten text”; Marxist-based studies with their emphasis on the importance of ideologies on the production of text; and educational, psychological, and business-related studies, especially those that deal with values and personality types.
I determined that a truly interdisciplinary approach was necessary to develop this research project, in order to come to a better understanding of a significant problem, namely the hidden problematic of LORs in the American business culture. I hope that such a cross-disciplinary approach will help make visible some of the perceived discrepancies between identical sets of performance data on candidates and widely-diverging texts which seem to say at least as much about the writers as they say about the candidates.
1.4 Purpose of the Study
One of the main purposes of this study is to investigate unknown aspects of text production, especially the production of LORs. It does not set out to dethrone LORs or even to doubt the usefulness of LORs. Rather, based on the data generated through several writing experiments, this study questions uncritical or one-sided acceptance or rejection of LORs. It builds toward an understanding of text production through a model which allows for multiple reality constructions—realities that include or allow for perceptions and projections of each writer, candidate, and reader. It is suggested that these multiple layers of reality coexist—shifting and changing from encounter to encounter, from moment to moment. With this model of “reality construction,” one can possibly see better at least some layers of previously hidden subtexts. Yet, so far, quite a few of these aspects of text production seem to have been neglected or ignored in the literature on LORs. Ultimately, a deeper knowledge and understanding of writer perception and writer projection could possibly lead to changes in the perception of job applicants and a better understanding of LORs and the writers of such documents.
Therefore, this study sets out to combine important work done in various fields in order to contribute to the ongoing research in text production. If the main hypotheses are proved, the results might help writers and readers of LORs to better understand aspects of the processes that can influence their writing. Future studies might even lead toward the development and assessment of a “grammar of acceptance and rejection,” provided the rhetorical context is known, based on the individual perceptions of each other’s personalities, ideologies, and gender expectations.
Above all, it is hoped that this study will contribute to the ongoing research in discourse production. It is guided by the hope that better understanding of composition processes will eventually contribute to a greater acceptance of difference, rather than rejection. I also hope that an active awareness of data selection processes will help writers overcome deeply seated attitudes and behavioral patterns and eventually lead to a greater acceptance of people who are different in their personality, ideology, or gender.
[. . .]
6.1 Conclusions
In some way, part of this study can be seen as an attempt to bring together, to build on, and to present a new model of text analysis vis-à-vis letters of recommendation. It is based on the work of Jung, Myers and Briggs, Jensen and DiTiberio, and other researchers in composition theory as it relates to personality and composition; on theoretical work done by writers like Adorno, Foucault, Barthes, Raymond Williams, and Eagleton as it relates to ideology and text production; and on extensive work carried out by numerous researchers in the United States as it relates to values, letters of recommendation, and the business culture.
The main findings of this study are
1. A confirmation of the MBTI literature, especially the work that relates composition to personality;
2. A realization, not documented in the literature so far, that ideology has a stronger influence on writers of letters of recommendation than personality;
3. A better understanding of hidden gender agenda and the advocacy effect which favors members of the same gender over those of the opposite gender within a professional setting; and
4. A better understanding of the existence of important subtexts in LORs which, at a very subtle level, can influence the reader.
Below are some of my conclusions, followed by an outline of future research.
This study, among others, indicates that if a candidate’s set of values and ideologies is perceived to be in opposition to that of the writer can bring out more negative solidarity and lead to the worst ranking of that particular candidate than any other criteria such as personality or gender. In short, ideology can wipe out any personality effect—a fact which could explain why even professionals with personalities identical or similar to that of the candidates are willing to block the progress of candidates, even oust them from their jobs—mainly because of perceived differences in values and ideology.
It seems that writing as such does not automatically lead to rational conclusions or fair judgments. Rather, writing, like any other intellectual activity, is embedded in ideology. As a consequence of this condition, it seems that writing can be seen as a process of ruptures, of conflicting ideologies fighting with each other in semi-automatic responses, and a thinking writer’s struggle to write against that which comes easy. That is, writers can become and stay imprisoned by their own values or feelings, their own personality characteristics or nebulous hunches, until certain (sometimes painful) circumstances or events in the lives of the writers allow those individuals to step back and look at the sentences that they pass through their writing.
Perhaps one of the most dramatic applications of these observations is the fact that people are willing to go to war and kill each other, based on a perception of difference in values and ideologies. The few attempts by trade union leaders during World War I to unite all those people who appeared to have much in common, for example, factory workers in Germany and Britain, failed miserably because the prevailing ideologies on both sides of the Channel at the time were stronger than any appeal to reason and commonality.
One of the surprises of this study was the fact that quite a few of the writers seemed to limit their view of the candidates to a few criteria that guided their data selection and grading processes.
Based on the results of this study, it appears that the single most explosive issue which writers shared more than anything else in this experiment was a perception of difference in values and ideologies which, in time, can bring with it an almost automatic rejection of all those people who do not fit in with a writer’s perception of ideological self.
Also, when one takes into consideration that a number of the women writers in this study are top performers in the fields of real estate and finance—some with million dollar budgets, and highly active in their professional organization—and given the fact that the subject of women and equality is being discussed frequently in today’s America, the results of this study may indicate that more is at stake than meets the eye. It may be the case that the prevailing ideology in the American business culture today exists on two different levels: On the surface—through public statements and official company policies—the subject of gender equality seems to rank fairly high. But at a deeper level, a level which goes way beyond an individual company, women seem to be subject to a different ideology, perhaps based on a general environment in this society that still fosters preferential treatment for males Based on the results of this study, it is possible to speculate that even professional women in today’s America have imbibed and fostered an ideology which treats males with more respect than females, as witnessed by the significantly larger percentage of words used in LORs for male candidates than female candidates. That is, women could be both victims of an anti-women ideology and contributors to the same oppressive ideology, in spite of the advocacy effect which allows women to give each other preferential treatment.
It is against the evidence of highly selective reality constructions and distortions in the LORs of many writers that some of the claims made by various writers about their state of being objective, or at least “somewhat objective,” has to be taken seriously as it seems to indicate resistance to the notion that we all construct our own realities and, through our writing and our interpretations, the realities of others especially when the same writers then come to admit their own subjectivity.
As a result of this study, I have therefore concluded that writing is guided by deeply seated ideologies which have more to do with self-preservation and the reservation of established ideologies than with a fairness to a candidate who happens to feel or think differently from the writer but who would or could be a valuable part of another company or organization if given a chance through a balanced LOR.
If this study could be generalized, one may want to ask whether a majority of writers in the business culture, without much prompting, is really willing to construct and reconstruct other people’s realities fairly, readily, and willingly. One could also ask whether the reasons for differential treatment of candidates who happen to have the same educational background and the same record of job performance are rooted in a lack of writer commitment to people who are not, in one way or another, reflective of the writer. The results of this study made me ask whether professionals are refusing to accept, let alone appreciate difference in others. I also asked myself whether the rejection of people who are perceived to be ideologically different could also be seen as a pragmatic, if not to say a Darwinian way for writers to preserve their own sense of self as the center of all standards by which others get judged.
Given the overall evidence, it appears that the influence of personality, gender, and, even more so, ideology is enormous and guides powerfully the process of composing LORs, so much so that one could speak of “letters of writer-based reality constructions,” perhaps even “letters of distortion,” especially if the candidate displays and ideology different from that of the writer. It is against the evidence of writer perception and writer projection, of distortion, and writer-based reality construction in LORs that some of the claims made by various writers about their state of being objective, or at least “somewhat objective,” has to be taken seriously. Such claims seem to indicate resistance to the notion that writers have a tendency to distort, that we all construct our own and other people’s realities, and that perceptions and projections, reality constructions and reconstructions, are all inherent parts of writing and persuading ourselves and others that we, as writers, are the center of wise judgment on others.
To conclude, the process of composing LORs is so complex that it does not lend itself easily to analysis, especially when one looks at the influence of writer personality, gender, and ideology on letters of recommendation. A writer’s so-called good intentions, however reflective and well-phrased, do not alter the subtle layers of meaning of a text and its subtexts once written. In other words, unexamined value systems and deeply ingrained judgments bases on a writer’s sense of identity or non-identity with a candidate’s gender, personality, and ideology seem to be not only hard to grasp, even in a post-writing analysis, but appear to permeate thought processes like a virus which sits hidden inside many LORs, ready to work on unsuspecting readers with the goal of transmitting a manipulative message, rather than communicating to the reader openly important aspects of both candidate and writer. If there were writers who could liberate themselves from the virus of deeply seated bias and mainly self-serving preference and, if these writers, simultaneously, could share important insights about the candidate and themselves, everyone—writer, candidate, and anonymous reader of such an LOR—might be better served.
However, it seems that neither human nature nor traditional genre restraints would allow such an approach. As a result, we will probably see more of the same in the future. On the other hand, there is always the hope that people, especially writers, will learn to recognize difference and otherness as a gift that challenges, a gift that benefits those involved in the process of writing LORs and those who read and act on such documents.
6.2 Future Research
Future research needs to find out whether it is possible to separate deeply seated feelings and internalized experiences of LOR writers from the end product which, in many cases, may appear as rational a document as an. Perhaps even more important would be to know whether it would be possible for people to sustain an open mind—accepting of difference—on a permanent basis, or whether writers revert to older forms of reacting to others, through writing LORs in an unreflected, almost instinctive way.
More research is needed to find out whether—and to what extent—readers of LORs, unaware of those often subtle undercurrents, intuitively grasp a writer’s hidden messages. Overall, one could probably say that there will be as many different readings of one LOR as there are readers. Only if a representative sample of readers comes to similar ranking decisions as the original writer, or to interpretations which share at least common, general directions, can one make conclusions about the power of hidden messages or the strength of undercurrents on unsuspecting readers—a task well beyond the goal of this dissertation. Sometime soon, however, I intend to conduct a comparative study on the perception of genre violation with three different groups of readers—lawyers, heads of personnel departments, and social workers—to see whether lawyers will locate significantly more genre violations than heads of personnel departments who, in turn, might locate more genre violation than social workers. Such a study, done on a fairly large scale, might help understand better why genre violations—through the interpretation of their presence or absence—are not necessarily an integral part of a text but are more closely linked to the value system of readers and their adherence to values and ideologies of their respective professions. As a result of such research, it might be possible to develop charts that eventually could predict readers’ possible reactions to certain documents, such as LORs, provided one has the necessary information on the readers (somewhat similar to Jensen and DiTiberio’s “Handout on Personality and Writing”).
As this study shows, projections, distortions, fabrications, and genre violations occurred not only on the LOR level, but also in other documents which the writers wrote about the candidates. Therefore, future research needs to look at the discrepancy between an LOR and interpretations of that same candidate by the writer—written after the official letter is completed—as part of a study on the discrepancies and ruptures between text and subtexts.
Future research needs also be done to find out more about writers, readers, and candidates, many of whom appear unaware of the expectation gaps surrounding LORs—the candidates usually want the best review possible while the readers usually want as detailed (and critical) a report as possible, not to mention the writers who frequently find themselves right in the middle of these two sets of diverging expectations. In addition, writers of LORs are often concerned about the preservation of their own professional standing; for example, they may feel that LORs should be either more complimentary to the candidate, more critical of the candidate, or more flattering to the image of the writer. Others, more conscious of the multi-edged sword which each LOR represents, may consider this tradition-honored sword blunt and useless, a nuisance at best, and wish it to be discarded as a way of gauging a candidate’s chance of success in a new organization or company. Therefore, more research is needed not only on the effectiveness of important documents such as LORs but also on the deeper function of such documents in today’s society.
Also, future research needs to look very closely at the complexity of writers’ data selection processes involved in writing LORs by combining research on gender, personality, and ideology with a more comprehensive social constructivist point of view than the limits of this study allowed.
And last, but not least, more research may find out more about the origins of LORs as they relate to our lives today. It seems that good LORs are like milestones in a person’s life, markers which confirm someone’s existence on more than a professional level.
And so, eventually, we might learn more about some of the deeper reasons for writing LORs which could include their function of empowerment through the words and the good name of the writer—powers of protection, like blessing and safe-guarding of a person, as originally developed in antiquity when the first letters of recommendation were written to carry their bearers to safe new lands, to a better life outside the old city walls—somewhere far away from home.
*For more excerpts of this dissertation, or to read the entire document, contact the editor.
