Victoria L. Brescoll

Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students

Despite efforts to recruit and retain more women, a stark gender disparity persists within academic science. Abundant research has demonstrated gender bias in many demographic groups, but has yet to experimentally investigate whether science faculty exhibit a bias against female students that could contribute to the gender disparity in academic science. In a randomized double-blind study (n = 127), science faculty from research-intensive universities rated the application materials of a student—who was randomly assigned either a male or female name—for a laboratory manager position. Faculty participants rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant. These participants also selected a higher starting salary and offered more career mentoring to the male applicant. The gender of the faculty participants did not affect responses, such that female and male faculty were equally likely to exhibit bias against the female student. Mediation analyses indicated that the female student was less likely to be hired because she was viewed as less competent. We also assessed faculty participants’ preexisting subtle bias against women using a standard instrument and found that preexisting subtle bias against women played a moderating role, such that subtle bias against women was associated with less support for the female student, but was unrelated to reactions to the male student. These results suggest that interventions addressing faculty gender bias might advance the goal of increasing the participation of women in science.

Calorie Labeling And Food Choices: A First Look At The Effects On Low-Income People In New York City

We examined the influence of menu calorie labels on fast food choices in the wake of New York Citys labeling mandate. Receipts and survey responses were collected from 1,156 adults at fast-food restaurants in low-income, minority New York communities. These were compared to a sample in Newark, New Jersey, a city that had not introduced menu labeling. We found that 27.7 percent who saw calorie labeling in New York said the information influenced their choices. However, we did not detect a change in calories purchased after the introduction of calorie labeling. We encourage more research on menu labeling and greater attention to evaluating and implementing other obesity-related policies.

Can an Angry Woman Get Ahead? Status Conferral, Gender, and Expression of Emotion in the Workplace

Three studies examined the relationships among anger, gender, and status conferral. As in prior research, men who expressed anger in a professional context were conferred higher status than men who expressed sadness. However, both male and female evaluators conferred lower status on angry female professionals than on angry male professionals. This was the case regardless of the actual occupational rank of the target, such that both a female trainee and a female CEO were given lower status if they expressed anger than if they did not. Whereas womens emotional reactions were attributed to internal characteristics (e.g., “she is an angry person,” “she is out of control”), mens emotional reactions were attributed to external circumstances. Providing an external attribution for the target persons anger eliminated the gender bias. Theoretical implications and practical applications are discussed.

The Price of Power: Power Seeking and Backlash Against Female Politicians:

Two experimental studies examined the effect of power-seeking intentions on backlash toward women in political office. It was hypothesized that a female politician’s career progress may be hindered by the belief that she seeks power, as this desire may violate prescribed communal expectations for women and thereby elicit interpersonal penalties. Results suggested that voting preferences for female candidates were negatively influenced by her power-seeking intentions (actual or perceived) but that preferences for male candidates were unaffected by power-seeking intentions. These differential reactions were partly explained by the perceived lack of communality implied by women’s power-seeking intentions, resulting in lower perceived competence and feelings of moral outrage. The presence of moral-emotional reactions suggests that backlash arises from the violation of communal prescriptions rather than normative deviations more generally. These findings illuminate one potential source of gender bias in politics.

ATTITUDES TOWARD TRADITIONAL AND NONTRADITIONAL PARENTS

Three studies investigated attitudes toward traditional parents (stay-at-home mothers and employed fathers) and nontraditional parents (stay-at-home fathers and employed mothers) among adult men and women. Using a between-subjects design, Study 1 found that nontraditional parents were liked significantly less than traditional parents. Participants also believed that stay-at-home fathers were not regarded highly by others. Study 2 replicated these results using a within-subjects design, suggesting that participants felt little compunction about expressing negative attitudes toward nontraditional parents. Study 3 further found that employed mothers were less disliked when described as working out of financial necessity rather than for personal fulfillment. Both male and female participants reported negative evaluations of employed mothers and stay-at-home fathers, suggesting that prescriptive gender role stereotypes represent a consensual ideology shared by men and women.

Who Takes the Floor and Why Gender, Power, and Volubility in Organizations

Although past research has noted the importance of both power and gender for understanding volubility—the total amount of time spent talking—in organizations, to date, identifying the unique contributions of power and gender to volubility has been somewhat elusive. Using both naturalistic data sets and experiments, the present studies indicate that while power has a strong, positive effect on volubility for men, no such effect exists for women. Study 1 uses archival data to examine the relationship between the relative power of United States senators and their talking behavior on the Senate floor. Results indicate a strong positive relationship between power and volubility for male senators, but a non-significant relationship for female senators. Study 2 replicates this effect in an experimental setting by priming the concept of power and shows that though men primed with power talk more, women show no effect of power on volubility. Mediation analyses indicate that this difference is explained by women’s concern that being highly voluble will result in negative consequences (i.e., backlash). Study 3 shows that powerful women are in fact correct in assuming that they will incur backlash as a result of talking more than others—an effect that is observed among both male and female perceivers. Implications for the literatures on volubility, power, and previous studies of backlash are discussed.

Assessing the Feasibility and Impact of Federal Childhood Obesity Policies

Research on childhood obesity has primarily been conducted by experts in nutrition, psychology, and medicine. Only recently have public policy scholars devoted serious work to this burgeoning public health crisis. Here the authors advance that research by surveying national experts in health/nutrition and health policy on the public health impact and the political feasibility of fifty-one federal policy options for addressing childhood obesity. Policies that were viewed as politically infeasible but having a great impact on childhood obesity emphasized outright bans on certain activities. In contrast, education and information dissemination policies were viewed as having the potential to receive a favorable hearing from national policy makers but little potential public health impact. Both nutrition and policy experts believed that increasing funding for research would be beneficial and politically feasible. A central need for the field is to develop the means to make high-impact policies more politically feasible.

Social heuristics and social roles: intuition favors altruism for women but not for men

Are humans intuitively altruistic, or does altruism require self-control? A theory of social heuristics, whereby intuitive responses favor typically successful behaviors, suggests that the answer may depend on who you are. In particular, evidence suggests that women are expected to behave altruistically, and are punished for failing to be altruistic, to a much greater extent than men. Thus, women (but not men) may internalize altruism as their intuitive response. Indeed, a meta-analysis of 13 new experiments and 9 experiments from other groups found that promoting intuition relative to deliberation increased giving in a Dictator Game among women, but not among men (Study 1, N = 4,366). Furthermore, this effect was shown to be moderated by explicit sex role identification (Study 2, N = 1,831): the more women described themselves using traditionally masculine attributes (e.g., dominance, independence) relative to traditionally feminine attributes (e.g., warmth, tenderness), the more deliberation reduced their altruism. Our findings shed light on the connection between gender and altruism, and highlight the importance of social heuristics in human prosociality.

Hard Won and Easily Lost The Fragile Status of Leaders in Gender-Stereotype-Incongruent Occupations

In 2009, Americans celebrated the first African American president and female speaker of the House in history. This illustrates the progress that women and minorities have made in attaining leadership positions historically occupied by White men. However, there are reasons to suspect that inspiring biographies and optimistic demographic statistics disguise the fragility of the gains made by individuals in stereotypeincongruent occupations. Numerous studies have documented the ways in which counterstereotypical individuals are discriminated against (Eagly & Karau, 2002; Glick, Zion, & Nelson, 1988). In addition to hitting the “glass ceiling” impeding their rise to top leadership roles, women often find themselves poised on a “glass cliff”―meaning that they are more likely than men to fall from their position (Ryan & Haslam, 2005). In the research reported here, we examined one potential mechanism for glass-cliff effects—specifically, that making small mistakes on the job is particularly damaging to individuals in genderincongruent occupations. Stereotyping thrives on ambiguity. Although minorities with unambiguously strong qualifications are often evaluated fairly, when qualifications are ambiguous, stereotypes strongly influence judgments (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986). Thus, a Black job candidate with a stellar record will receive high evaluations, but a Black candidate with a mixed record will face discrimination when compared with a White candidate (Hodson, Dovidio, & Gaertner, 2002). Thus, we predicted that when an individual has achieved a high-status position in a gender-incongruent occupation, making a mistake can prove especially damaging to his or her status. A gender-congruent leader’s competence is assumed, but for a gender-incongruent leader, salient mistakes create ambiguity and call the leader’s competence into question, which, in turn, leads to a loss of status. We hypothesized that this effect is driven by reactions to individuals in roles inconsistent with their gender—and not simply by discrimination against women—and we predicted that a similar penalty would be evident for men and women in gender-incongruent jobs. Method Participants and procedure

Scientific Diversity Interventions

Fair treatment of other scientists is an essential aspect of scientific integrity, warranting diversity interventions. Although the representation of women and racial or ethnic minorities within the scientific community has increased in recent decades, the overall pace of diversification remains relatively slow (1). A number of factors may be involved (2), but one possible explanation for this limited progress is that gender and racial or ethnic biases persist throughout academia (1, 3).