Girls Are Good At STEM: Opening Minds And Providing Evidence Reduce Boys\u27 Stereotyping Of Girls\u27 STEM Ability

Girls and women face persistent negative stereotyping within STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). This field intervention was designed to improve boys\u27 perceptions of girls\u27 STEM ability. Boys (N = 667; mostly White and East Asian) aged 9-15 years in Canadian STEM summer camps (2017-2019) had an intervention or control conversation with trained camp staff. The intervention was a multi-stage persuasive appeal: a values affirmation, an illustration of girls\u27 ability in STEM, a personalized anecdote, and reflection. Control participants discussed general camp experiences. Boys who received the intervention (vs. control) had more positive perceptions of girls\u27 STEM ability, d = 0.23, an effect stronger among younger boys. These findings highlight the importance of engaging elementary-school-aged boys to make STEM climates more inclusive

Creative destruction in science

Drawing on the concept of a gale of creative destruction in a capitalistic economy, we argue that initiatives to assess the robustness of findings in the organizational literature should aim to simultaneously test competing ideas operating in the same theoretical space. In other words, replication efforts should seek not just to support or question the original findings, but also to replace them with revised, stronger theories with greater explanatory power. Achieving this will typically require adding new measures, conditions, and subject populations to research designs, in order to carry out conceptual tests of multiple theories in addition to directly replicating the original findings. To illustrate the value of the creative destruction approach for theory pruning in organizational scholarship, we describe recent replication initiatives re-examining culture and work morality, working parents\u2019 reasoning about day care options, and gender discrimination in hiring decisions. Significance statement It is becoming increasingly clear that many, if not most, published research findings across scientific fields are not readily replicable when the same method is repeated. Although extremely valuable, failed replications risk leaving a theoretical void\u2014 reducing confidence the original theoretical prediction is true, but not replacing it with positive evidence in favor of an alternative theory. We introduce the creative destruction approach to replication, which combines theory pruning methods from the field of management with emerging best practices from the open science movement, with the aim of making replications as generative as possible. In effect, we advocate for a Replication 2.0 movement in which the goal shifts from checking on the reliability of past findings to actively engaging in competitive theory testing and theory building. Scientific transparency statement The materials, code, and data for this article are posted publicly on the Open Science Framework, with links provided in the article

Stereotypes in Interactions: The Interpersonal Consequences of Threatened Belonging

Would relatively subtle signals that women are devalued in performance environments have interpersonal consequences for women? My dissertation tests this question across three experiments. In Experiment 1, women (N = 109) completed a mock job interview with a subtly sexist (vs. neutral) interviewer while under stereotype threat or no threat. Women under any form of threat (either stereotype threat or interacting with a subtly sexist interviewer) reported greater feelings of threat and more negative evaluations of the interviewer relative to women under no threat at all (neutral interviewer, no stereotype threat). In Experiment 2, male and female naïve observers (N = 185) viewed videos of interviewees from Experiment 1 without sound. Interviewees under no threats at all were evaluated quite favorably; however, interviewees under either form of threat (stereotype threat or interacting with a subtly sexist interviewer) were evaluated as less competent and hireable than interviewees under neither threat. In Experiment 3 (N = 277), women watched a video of and rehearsed interacting with the subtly sexist or neutral interviewer from Experiment 1 after being subtly excluded (vs. equally included; a manipulation of belonging threat) during an online game with three male players. Exposure to the subtly sexist interviewer led to greater expected threat in the interview, which in turn decreased the perceived identity safety of the work environment, but only for women whose belonging had previously been threatened. Exposure to the subtly sexist interviewer also increased women’s desire to be evaluated as physically attractive but decreased their motivations to approach the interviewer; these effects were not moderated by belonging threat, however. The results of these three experiments suggest that experiences of social identity threat from the environment and from social interactions not only impact women’s self-concepts, motivations, and behavior, but can also lead outside observers to evaluate these women as less capable and less qualified

Why Anti-Bias Interventions (Need Not) Fail

This manuscript was accepted for publication in Perspectives on Psychological Science on September 26, 2021. There is a critical disconnect between scientific knowledge about the nature of bias and how this knowledge gets translated into organizational de-biasing efforts. Conceptual confusion around what implicit bias is contributes to misunderstanding. Bridging these gaps is the key to understanding when and why anti-bias interventions will succeed or fail. Notably, there are multiple distinct pathways to biased behavior, each of which require different types of interventions. To bridge the gap between public understanding and psychological research, we introduce a visual typology of bias that summarizes the process by which group-relevant cognitions are expressed as biased behavior. Our typology spotlights cognitive, motivational, and situational variables impacting the expression and inhibition of biases while aiming to reduce the ambiguity of what constitutes implicit bias. We also address how norms modulate how biases unfold and are perceived by targets. Using this typology as a framework, we identify theoretically distinct entry points for anti-bias interventions. A key insight is that changing associations, increasing motivation, raising awareness, and changing norms are distinct goals, which require different types of interventions targeting individual, interpersonal, and institutional structures. We close with recommendations for anti-bias training grounded in the science of prejudice and stereotyping

When an “Educated” Black Man Becomes Lighter in the Mind’s Eye

We offer novel evidence that a Black man appears lighter in the mind’s eye following a counter-stereotypic prime, a phenomenon we refer to as skin tone memory bias. In Experiment 1, participants were primed subliminally with the counter-stereotypic word educated or with the stereotypic word ignorant, followed by the target stimulus of a Black man’s face. A recognition memory task for the target’s face and six lures (skin tone variations of ±25%, ±37%, and ±50%) revealed that participants primed with “educated” exhibited more memory errors with respect to lighter lures—misidentifying even the lightest lure as the target more often than counterparts primed with “ignorant.” This skin tone memory bias was replicated in Experiment 2. We situate these findings in theorizing on the mind’s striving for cognitive consistency. Black individuals who defy social stereotypes might not challenge social norms sufficiently but rather may be remembered as lighter, perpetuating status quo beliefs

Political behavior inside and outside the lab:Bringing political research to the real world

It is hardly surprising that almost everything about human life is influenced by politics. In this special issue of Translational Issues in Psychological Science (TPS), you will find articles that look at both the causes of political behavior and the consequences of it; some articles examine proximal influences whereas others examine more distal factors. However, each of the research articles has in common an attempt to translate the knowledge we have gained through rigorous, empirical research to practical political problems in the world. The present issue contains six primary articles that interface research with real-world political problems