My name is Winjand A P van Tilburg
and I work at King's College London in the psychology department.
One version contained an author
with no middle initials. The other versions had one,
two, three or four middle initials instead. And what we found was
that students liked this written work better if the author had more middle
initials - even though the exact text of the essay was the same.
This is something to do with the stereotypes that people use -
so because people with middle initials are seen as more
prestigious, people automatically - but incorrectly - assume that their
work must therefore be of a higher standard.
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