Transcript Implicit bias, stereotype threat, and women in academia

Implicit bias, stereotype threat,
and women in academia
Havi Carel & Richard Pettigrew
Department of Philosophy
University of Bristol
Are women bad at philosophy?
Need to look to
• Climate within discipline/institutions
– E.g. sexist attitudes are tolerated, encouraged, or
turned a blind eye to
• Processes such as marking, hiring, promotion,
reviewing
• Good-willed, committed egalitarians might
contribute to this climate
Implicit Bias and Stereotype Threat
• Cognitive processes,
often unconscious,
which influence our
judgments, actions, and
performances
• Arise from internalised
associations between
conceptions of the
different groups and
specific attributes
Implicit bias
Perceiving individuals, and
assessing and interpreting
their actions and
performances, in accordance
with the attributes associated
to the social class under
which one identifies them
e.g.
• Woman pilot
• Gay male child minder
Two features of IB
• You might have those
attitudes unbeknownst to
you even if you are
sincerely and explicitly
committed to equality
• Not solely directed to
members of social classes
other than your own, but
also to members of your
own group and yourself
Examples
• Behavioural Ecology introduced anonymous refereeing
- led to a 33% increase in articles authored by women
(Burden et al from Saul)
• 238 academic psychologists (118 male, 120 female)
evaluated a curriculum vitae randomly assigned a male
or a female name. Both male and female participants
gave the male applicant better evaluations for
teaching, research, and service experience and were
more likely to hire the male than the female applicant
(two to one) (Moss-Racusin et al 2012)
• References for medical staff - pronounced differences
in the way in which they were written, depending on
gender
Analysis of reference letters for MDs
Trix and Peaska (2003) ‘Exploring the color of glass: letters of
recommendation for female and male medical faculty’, Discourse &
Society, 14(2): 191-220
Stereotype Threat
• Exclusively self-directed. It
consists in the operation of
schemas in such a way that
they sabotage your
performance to make it fit
the stereotype
• Esp. in a context where
social class is negatively
associated, and
membership of that group is
made salient
– E.g. ‘Now it’s the girl’s turn to
throw’
Two features of ST
• Subtle ways of making
membership identity
salient have a greater
effect than blatant ones
• The more one cares
about the activity in
question, the worse the
effects of ST
Examples
• Asian girls sit a maths test: if ‘girl’ identity is made
salient performance is ‘significantly worse’ than if
their Asian identity is made salient
• Black and white men play golf in order to test their
‘natural athletic ability’: white men perform ‘a lot
worse’ (3 strokes more, 22-24 stroke course) than if
they are not made think they are tested. Performance
of black men unaffected
• If they are told that the game is to test their ‘sports
strategic intelligence’, performance of white men is
unaffected, but performance of the black men is
dramatically affected, taking around 5 more strokes
IB and ST interact
• Where IBs that others hold towards you are
clearly manifested, ST will be triggered
• The schemas that trigger IB and ST more often
are: race, gender, sex, accents, sexual orientation,
age, physical disability
• IB and ST can serve useful functions: they can
enable us to cope with our limited epistemic
resources (IB), and act as self-protective
mechanisms (ST).
• But they can also be very damaging in a variety of
ways
Case study: philosophy
• Considered a masculine discipline
• Women and their work tend to be:
– overlooked
– undervalued
• In talks/classes women’s contributions tend to be
–
–
–
–
–
Overlooked
Attributed to men
Interpreted uncharitably (“She’s confused”)
Women less often called upon to answer
Women more frequently interrupted
Publications in journals
• 81% of philosophy journals don’t anonymise
submissions to editors (2010)
• 93% of editors ‘desk reject’ papers
• 22% (mean) of papers rejected this way
• 12.36% of papers published in top journals in
2002-2007 were by women (26% women in
the profession)
Also …
• Women underrepresented in conferences,
research seminars, reading lists, course topics,
and less cited
• This affects a woman’s CV negatively: she won’t
have as many publications, won’t have been
invited to speak at as many conferences,
references won’t be as glowing.
• Even if she does manage to get her CV on a par
with that of a male applicant her CV will be rated
lower than that of her male peer
Effects of IB and ST
•
•
•
•
Underperformance
Lowered ambitions
Altered aspirations
Distancing from one’s
group
• Result: women leaving
philosophy
What can we do?
What we have done: climate
• Increased visibility of women philosophers
(Susan Hurley CR; seminar series)
• External climate review with female PGs
• Pre-talk discussions for women in dept
• Adopted BPA/SWIP good practice guidelines
What we have done: climate
• Designated member of staff
• More women staff
• Raise awareness of IB and ST: talked to
– Students in philosophy & other depts
– Faculty of Arts staff (next Science)
– SU staff
What we have done: process
• Anonymise as much as we can: exams, CVs,
writing samples, submissions
• Write to them!
• Mentoring scheme
• Seminar on promotion
procedures
Proposals for climate change
1. Greater transparency in promotion/
progression procedure
2. Greater anonymisation and other biasreducing strategies in hiring
3. Faculty- or university-level endorsement of
equality-promoting guidelines
4. IB and ST training for staff & students
5. Climate surveys and data collection