The ABCs of Biases
Is there an alphabetical bias at the SAG Awards? According to Erik Anderson of Awards Watch and Joyce Eng of Gold Derby, there is.
During SAG Award voting, the candidate names are presented alphabetically on the ballot. Erik and Joyce reason that voters gravitate towards those at the top of the ballot (with surnames from A-M), as opposed to those towards the bottom (with surnames from N-Z.)
By seeing a name first or second or third on the list, you instinctively mark it better, perhaps due to laziness, or instinct, or implied worth (“Her name is at the top of the list; she must be the best!”)
(The Emmys have attempted to combat this, by printing half their ballots in alphabetical order, and the other half in reverse alphabetical order.)
But is this theory true? There’s research to suggest it is.
But what about the SAG Awards specifically? I looked at the past three years of data for Lead Actor, Lead Actress, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress.
I took the top ten candidates for each SAG category, as determined by Gold Derby’s Odds and Rankings section.
Of the 120 candidates (10 per category x 4 categories x 3 years of data):
71% had surnames in the A-M bracket
29% in the N-Z bracket.
(Even if I was a bit more ruthless and employed a much slimmer A-E bracket, it’s still quite top heavy: 39% in A-E, 61% in F-Z.)
So already, there’s bias present in the data. There are simply more candidates with surnames in the first half of the alphabet, so our results will be skewed upwards regardless.
(Further, there is a real rarity of Q, U and X surnames worldwide, so this doesn’t help either.)
In terms of the 60 individual SAG nominees (5 nominees x 4 categories x 3 years):
75% had A-M surnames
4% higher than the underlying bias.
That’s not terribly significant, but it is present.
However, there is a similar alignment with relation to the Gold Derby odds. 78% of SAG nominees were in Gold Derby’s Top 5. The proximity of these two numbers suggests there isn’t much difference between who’s genuinely popular and whose surname is at the top.
The surprise comes with the winners. 67% of SAG Award winners had A-M surnames, and 58% were ranked #1 at Gold Derby. A 9% difference here is significant.
So are Joyce and Erik correct? Probably, but not in the way they originally thought. Alphabetical bias likely does exist in SAG Awards voting, but more so with the winners, not the nominees.
The solution? How about SAG voters stop being stupid and vote properly! (But considering the American track record with voting, we’re not holding our breath…)