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Fair point. It does need to be noted that the authors found a 'small but significant difference'. The article said the influence of preference was 'Hedge's g = 0.22' and I don't know what that means. I'm not saying that bias is irrelevant, but it should not be the null hypothesis. The influence of status seeking behavior is natural and obvious enough that it should have been explored before bias was considered. The research should have started with this assumption; it should not be a surprise that is only revealed right now, which to me suggests that the researchers in this area are to some extent not starting from a point of indifference.
I don't want to risk overstating the role preference has here, but I don't know how to regard the phrase 'small but significant difference' and I don't know what Hedge's G is. But reading the Bloomberg article and how the author of the study commented on this, it seems that the influence of preference is prominent enough to necessitate a shift in thought.
The ultimate point here is that equity lenses lack the explanatory power they are alleged to have.
"Small but significant" usually means statistically significant, rather than practically significant.
Re Hedge's g, this says that a rule of thumb is "Small effect (cannot be discerned by the naked eye) = 0.2," so 0.22 sounds pretty small.
However, I obviously agree that the study implies that previous studies which did not control for preferences must have overstated the effect of bias somewhat. But that seems to me to be a much more modest claim than what was made originally.
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