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.

System-justifying motives can lead to both the acceptance and the rejection of innate explanations for group differences.

Recent experimental evidence indicates that intuitions about inherence and system justification are distinct psychological processes, and that the inherence heuristic supplies important explanatory frameworks that are accepted or rejected based on their consistency with one's motivation to justify the system.

Obesity metaphors: how beliefs about the causes of obesity affect support for public policy.

CONTEXT: Relatively little is known about the factors shaping public attitudes toward obesity as a policy concern. This study examines whether individuals' beliefs about the causes of obesity affect their support for policies aimed at stemming obesity rates. This article identifies a unique role of metaphor-based beliefs, as distinct from conventional political attitudes, in explaining support for obesity policies. METHODS: This article used the Yale Rudd Center Public Opinion on Obesity Survey, a nationally representative web sample surveyed from the Knowledge Networks panel in 2006/07 (N = 1,009). The study examines how respondents' demographic and health characteristics, political attitudes, and agreement with seven obesity metaphors affect support for sixteen policies to reduce obesity rates. FINDINGS: Including obesity metaphors in regression models helps explain public support for policies to curb obesity beyond levels attributable solely to demographic, health, and political characteristics. The metaphors that people use to understand rising obesity rates are strong predictors of support for public policy, and their influence varies across different types of policy interventions. CONCLUSIONS: Over the last five years, the United States has begun to grapple with the implications of dramatically escalating rates of obesity. Individuals use metaphors to better understand increasing rates of obesity, and obesity metaphors are independent and powerful predictors of support for public policies to curb obesity. Metaphorical reasoning also offers a potential framework for using strategic issue framing to shift support for obesity policies.

Third-party prejudice accommodation increases gender discrimination.

We investigated how gatekeepers sometimes arrive at discriminatory hiring selections to accommodate prejudiced third parties due to role demands (i.e., the "third-party prejudice effect"). Studies 1 and 2 show that individuals in charge of personnel decisions were significantly less likely to select a woman when a relevant third party (the chief executive officer of the company in Study 1; the "proposer" in an ultimatum game in Study 2) was prejudiced against women. Gatekeepers accommodate third-party prejudice in this way in order to avoid conflict in relations and task-related problems that would likely occur if the gatekeeper introduced a member of the target of prejudice into an organization. Studies 3 and 4 demonstrated that both interpersonal and task-focused concerns significantly mediated third-party prejudice accommodation. Furthermore, experimentally reducing task-focused concerns significantly reduced the accommodation of third-party prejudice against women (Study 4). We also found that gatekeepers accommodate third-party prejudice regardless of their own beliefs and attitudes (Studies 5 and 6), or their own desire to get along or affiliate with the third party (Study 7), and despite leading to feelings of guilt (Studies 4 and 5). Both men and women accommodated third-party prejudice against women. A role-based framework can be useful to understand the persistence of gender inequality in various fields and organizations, even as individuals endorse increasingly gender-egalitarian views. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Differential support for female supervisors among men and women.

Two studies evaluated the lay belief that women feel particularly negatively about other women in the workplace and particularly in supervisory roles. The authors tested the general proposition, derived from social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979, 2004), that women, compared to men, may be more supportive of other women in positions of authority, whereas men would respond more favorably to other men than to women in positions of authority. Consistent with predictions, data from an online experiment (n = 259), in which the authors randomly assigned men and women to evaluate identical female (vs. male) supervisors in a masculine industry, and a correlational study in the workplace using a Knowledge Networks sample (n = 198) converged to demonstrate a pattern of gender in-group favoritism. Specifically, in Study 1, female participants (vs. male participants) rated the female supervisor as higher status, were more likely to believe that a female supervisor had attained her supervisory position because of high competence, and viewed the female supervisor as warmer. Study 2 results replicated this pattern. Female employees (vs. male employees) rated their female supervisors as higher status and practiced both in-role and extra-role behaviors more often when their supervisor was female. In both studies, male respondents had a tendency to rate male supervisors more favorably than female supervisors, whereas female respondents tended to rate female supervisors more favorably than male supervisors. Thus, across both studies, the authors found a pattern consistent with gender in-group favoritism and inconsistent with lay beliefs that women respond negatively to women in authority positions. (PsycINFO Database Record

Reducing STEM gender bias with VIDS (video interventions for diversity in STEM).

Gender biases contribute to the underrepresentation of women in STEM. In response, the scientific community has called for methods to reduce bias, but few validated interventions exist. Thus, an interdisciplinary group of researchers and filmmakers partnered to create VIDS (Video Interventions for Diversity in STEM), which are short videos that expose participants to empirical findings from published gender bias research in 1 of 3 conditions. One condition illustrated findings using narratives (compelling stories), and the second condition presented the same results using expert interviews (straightforward facts). A hybrid condition included both narrative and expert interview videos. Results of two experiments revealed that relative to controls, VIDS successfully reduced gender bias and increased awareness of gender bias, positive attitudes toward women in STEM, anger, empathy, and intentions to engage in behaviors that promote gender parity in STEM. The narratives were particularly impactful for emotions, while the expert interviews most strongly impacted awareness and attitudes. The hybrid condition reflected the strengths of both the narratives and expert interviews (though effects were sometimes slightly weaker than the other conditions). VIDS produced substantial immediate effects among both men and women in the general population and STEM faculty, and effects largely persisted at follow-up. (PsycINFO Database Record

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.

A "Scientific Diversity" Intervention to Reduce Gender Bias in a Sample of Life Scientists.

Mounting experimental evidence suggests that subtle gender biases favoring men contribute to the underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), including many subfields of the life sciences. However, there are relatively few evaluations of diversity interventions designed to reduce gender biases within the STEM community. Because gender biases distort the meritocratic evaluation and advancement of students, interventions targeting instructors' biases are particularly needed. We evaluated one such intervention, a workshop called "Scientific Diversity" that was consistent with an established framework guiding the development of diversity interventions designed to reduce biases and was administered to a sample of life science instructors (N = 126) at several sessions of the National Academies Summer Institute for Undergraduate Education held nationwide. Evidence emerged indicating the efficacy of the "Scientific Diversity" workshop, such that participants were more aware of gender bias, expressed less gender bias, and were more willing to engage in actions to reduce gender bias 2 weeks after participating in the intervention compared with 2 weeks before the intervention. Implications for diversity interventions aimed at reducing gender bias and broadening the participation of women in the life sciences are discussed.

The effects of system-justifying motives on endorsement of essentialist explanations for gender differences.

People have a fundamental motive to view their social system as just, fair, and good and will engage in a number of strategies to rationalize the status quo (Jost & Banaji, 1994). We propose that one way in which individuals may "justify the system" is through endorsement of essentialist explanations, which attribute group differences to deep, essential causes. We suggest that system-justifying motives lead to greater endorsement of essentialist explanations because those explanations portray group differences as immutable. Study 1 employed an established system threat manipulation. We found that activating system-justifying motives increases both male and female participants' endorsement of essentialist explanations for gender differences and that this effect is mediated by beliefs in immutability. In Study 2, we used a goal contagion manipulation and found that both male and female participants primed with a system-justifying goal are significantly more likely to agree with essentialist explanations for gender differences. Study 3 demonstrated that providing an opportunity to explicitly reject a system threat (an alternative means of satisfying the goal to defend the system) attenuates system threat effects on endorsement of essentialist explanations, further suggesting that this process is motivated. Finally, Studies 4a and 4b dissociated the type of cause (biological vs. social) from whether group differences are portrayed as mutable versus immutable and found that system threat increases endorsement of immutable explanations, independent of the type of cause.

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.

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 City's 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 women's emotional reactions were attributed to internal characteristics (e.g., "she is an angry person,""she is out of control"), men's emotional reactions were attributed to external circumstances. Providing an external attribution for the target person's anger eliminated the gender bias. Theoretical implications and practical applications are discussed.