Beginning in childhood we all develop unconscious stereotypes that influence how we see ourselves and others – including what careers we choose, and who we choose to recruit, hire or promote in the workplace.
Researchers discussed the origins and effects of these judgement biases during a virtual conference titled Mitigating Implicit Bias: Tools for the Neuroscientist, which was put on by the Society for Neuroscience and screened by DIBS at Duke on Jan. 23 and 24.
Associate professor of neuroscience Anne Churchland of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory proposed several ideas for overcoming gender bias in the workplace, especially for women in STEM or other male-dominated domains. Asking questions, speaking with authority (particularly about one’s own work), finding a way to communicate with senior colleagues, trying risky experiments, making one’s achievements known, sending one’s work to high-level journals, and applying to awards and grants are her main suggestions. Above all these strategies, she recommends finding good friends and colleagues to help. As research shows, when women are successful in arenas that are viewed as distinctly male, both women and men like them less. These negative reactions can be discouraging and even career-affecting, and any support system will help to overcome that struggle.
The ‘Brilliance Barrier ‘ is a judgement bias explored by Andrei Cimpian’s research at New York University. One study shows that for every ten parents who searched on Google, “Is my daughter talented?”, twenty-five parents looked up “Is my son talented?”
Another study describes the gendered reviews on ratemyprofessor.com. Men are two to three times more likely to be called genius than women. Women though are more likely to be portrayed as warm or caring.
Cimpian uses these studies to develop the Field-specific Ability Beliefs hypothesis (FAB). FAB attributes women’s underrepresentation to a combination of the idolized brilliance/genius and the “brilliance” equals men stereotype. The higher the FAB in a field, the greater the emphasis on brilliance in it. When graphing the percentage of women with PhDs and the FAB for a specific field such as philosophy or physics, higher FABs are associated with a lower number of PhDs. African American representation also decreases as the FAB increases. Cimpian classifies one potential mechanism of this trend as minorities having less interest in fields with high FABs. In addition, increased bias, discrimination, and imposter syndrome could explain why minorities appear to avoid getting PhDs in high FAB fields.
Cimpian also demonstrates how susceptible children are to judgement biases. At age five, the percentage of girls who pick their own gender as “really, really smart” and the percentage of boys who do the same are similar. When children reach seven though, the percentage of boys choosing men exceeds the girls picking women. He suggests de-emphasizing brilliance, genius, and gifted in favor of work ethic because minorities are more likely to be recommended when the job description asks for commitment than when it asks for intelligence. Language has the potential to change the amount of representation in high FAB fields, such as STEM.
Lastly, psychology professor Ione Fine at the University of Washington talked about the hiring process in her lab and how she reduces bias by laying out and weighting criteria beforehand. Instead of focusing on objective criteria like GPA and GRE scores, she advocates for more interviews with set lists of questions and a paper discussion. She also recommends calling the recommendation letter writers. After selecting a diverse group of research assistants, Fine then makes sure they have the proper support and mentoring. Reinforcing that they were chosen for their potential and that she is their advocate helps them feel empowered to succeed in her lab. Through mentoring and supporting diversity, anyone can help minorities overcome the judgement biases surrounding them.