Perception Bias among Undergraduate Business Students by Major

In this article, the authors examined business students' perceptions of themselves and their peers of the same and different majors on several traditional dimensions of academic performance and personal characteristics. The authors found that business students exhibited substantial perceptual biases in their perceptions of students in a major other than their own. Although there is a surprisingly high level of agreement in the students' perceptions of the various business majors--consistent with stereotypic portrayals of the different majors--there is also substantial evidence of positive self and in-group biases. A Business Student Survey is appended. (Contains 3 tables.)