Suggested Reading
Bauer, C.C. and B.B. Baltes. (2002). “Reducing the Effects of Gender Stereotypes on Performance Evaluations.” Sex Roles 47.9/10 (2002): 465-476, 9/10. article
Explores the efficacy of structured free recall intervention as a tool for minimizing the influence of gender stereotypes on performance ratings. Free recall intervention is when raters rely on their memories of specific behaviors of the person being rated, rather than on overall judgments.
Biernat, Monica, Melvin Manis, and Thomas E. Nelson. “Stereotypes and Standards of Judgment.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 60.4 (1991): 5-20. article
Compares the differences in personal judgments of members of stereotyped social groups when the response scales are objective versus subjective. In 3 studies where subjects judged a series of targets with respect to gender-related qualities, either objective or subjective scales were used (e.g. height in inches versus “short”/“tall”). Findings imply that subjective scales can be adjusted to suit the range of values that a rater expects to exist within a social group, and thus concludes that subjective scales may mask the effects of stereotypes on personal judgments.
Blair, I. B. and M. R. Banaji. “Automatic and Controlled Processes in Stereotype Priming.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70.6 (1996): 1142-1163. article
Demonstrates the automatic activation of stereotypes and assesses the varying conditions of intention and cognitive constraint that contribute to stereotyping. Although stereotypes may be automatically activated, perceivers can control and even eliminate stereotype bias by devoting cognitive resources and demonstrating the intent to process counter-stereotypic information.
Brouns, M. “The Gendered Nature of Assessment Procedures in Scientific Research Funding: The Dutch Case.” Higher Education in Europe. 25.2 (2000): 193-199. article
Study of gender bias in assessment procedures at two major institutions the Netherlands. Analysis of 128 applicants for a prestigious grant indicated that female applicants are judged differently than male applicants, but gender bias does not always discriminate. When the study broke the success rates down into disciplines, it found marked differences in male and female success rates between disciplines: success rates were especially pronounced in the Biology/Oceanography and Earth Sciences and the Exact Sciences (Physics, Mathematics, Astronomy). Gender always matters, but it produces different effects in different disciplines.
Budden, A. E., T. Tregenza, L. W. Aarssen, J. Koricheva, R. Leimu, and C. J. Lortie. "Double-blind review favours increased representation of female authors." TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution. Vol.23 No.1 (2007): 4-6. article
Describes the effects of a “double-blind” peer-review policy adopted by the journal Behavioral Ecology. Following the implementation of this policy, there was a significant increase in female first-authored papers. One concern with double-blind peer review is that it might be possible to infer an author’s gender from the citations used. However studies have shown that reviewers asked to guess the author’s gender were correct in only 25-42% of instances. The study compares Behavioral Ecology with another similar journal that uses a single-blind peer-review policy, in which the increase in female first-authored papers is not as large. There does not seem to be any negative implications of the double-blind policy suggesting that other journals should reconsider their current policies.
Butler, D. and F. L. Geis. “Nonverbal Affect Responses to Male and Female Leaders: Implications for Leadership Evaluations.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58.1 (1990): 48-59. article
Explores the hypothesis that female leaders elicit more negative, nonverbal affect responses from group members than male leaders. Experimenters created four-person discussion groups, which they observed from behind one-way mirrors, and found that women leaders received less positive responses and more negative responses than their male counterparts. Indicates that gender and leadership expectations are prescriptive as well as descriptive.
Carnes, M., S. Geller, E. Fine, J. Sheridan, and J. Handelsman. "NIH Director's Pioneer Awards: Could the Selection Process be Biased Against Women?" Journal of Women's Health 14.8 (2005): 684-691. article
Presents evidence to suggest that women scientists may be disadvantaged by certain aspects of the selection process for the NIH Director's Pioneer Awards. Factors that may disadvantage women applicants include time pressure placed on evaluators, absence of face-to-face discussion about the applicants, and ambiguous performance criteria.
Ceci, S.J. and W.M. Williams, eds. Why Aren't More Women in Science. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC (2007). 274 pp.
Examines gender disparities in science from the perspective of 19 leading psychologists. Discusses gender differences in cognitive abilities and the impact of stereotypes on participation in science. Several of the chapters address performance on competitive mathematics tests and the extremes of the distribution in particular, where the gender gap is large but narrowing. Concludes that controversey will only increase as more data are collected.
review by Marcia C. Linn in Science
Christie-Mizell, C. A., J. M. Keil, et al. (2007). "Gender Ideology and Motherhood: The Consequences of Race on Earnings." Sex Roles 57(9): 689-702.
Uses a nationally representative US sample from 1988-1989 to determine relationships between gender ideology and the earnings of African American and white mothers. The study also examines the effects of other factors on earnings, such as number of children. The study shows that a conservative gender ideology reduces women’s earnings across both genders, although less so for African Americans. Number of children is negatively correlated with earnings in white women, although number of children has no effect on African American women.
Cohen, P. N. and M. L. Huffman (2007). "Working for the Woman? Female Managers and the Gender Wage Gap." American Sociological Review 72(5): 681-704.
Uses data from the 2000 Census, along with a three-level hierarchical linear model, to analyze whether a female manager affects inequality of workers in nonmanagerial positions. The study suggests that the presence of a female manager often results in a narrowing of the gender wage gap.
Cole, M. S., H. S. Feild, and W. F. Giles. “Interaction of Recruiter and Applicant Gender in Resume Evaluation: A Field Study.” Sex Roles 51 (2004): 597-608. article
Explores the link between gender-stereotyping and resume evaluation. Examines the relationship of applicant and recruiter gender on recruiters’ perceptions of applicants’ resume content. Found that comparable men and women applicants were perceived differently in accordance with traditional gender stereotypes. The study’s data also determined that male and female recruiters differed from one another in the extent to which they applied gender stereotypes to applicants.
Dardenne, B., M. Dumont, et al. (2007). "Insidious dangers of benevolent sexism: Consequences for women's performance." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 93(5): 764-779.
Shows how benevolent sexism can be worse than hostile sexism. Benevolent sexism has a more positive tone, although it is still sexist because it portrays women as warm but weak and incompetent. A series of four experiments were carried out and showed that benevolent sexism worsened a woman’s performance. It showed that having a sense of gender identity protected against hostile sexism but did not protect against benevolent sexism, despite the positive and inoffensive tone of benevolent sexism.
Dar-Nimrod, I. and S.J. Heine. "Exposure to Scientific Theories Affects Women's Math Performance" Science 314.5798 (2006). article
Explores how women's math performance is affected by stereotypes that link female underachievement to either genetic or experiential causes. Suggests that women tend to perceive gender differences in math to be innate or genetic, but when women consider such differences to be based on theories of nurture rather than nature, they can improve their performance.
Dovidio, J. F. and S. L. Gaertner. “Aversive Racism and Selection Decisions: 1989 and 1999.” Psychological Science 11.4 (2000): 315-319. article
Examines changes in prejudice and discrimination by comparing attitudes expressed by a sample of white American college students in 1989 to those held by a similar demographic sample in 1999. Experiment observed students’ ratings of identically qualified applicants for a hypothetical position of a peer counselor. Although less racial prejudice and stereotyping was reported in 1999 compared to a decade earlier, students were still more likely to offer white applicants with ambiguous qualifications a job than black applicants with identical credentials. Findings indicate that good intentions are not enough to counter racism and discrimination when targets have mid-range qualifications.
Eagly, A. H., S. J. Karau, and M. G. Makhijani. “Gender and the Effectiveness of Leaders: A Meta-Analysis.” Psychological Bulletin 117.1 (1995): 125-145. article
Meta-analysis of numerous organizational and laboratory experimental studies about women in leadership positions. Discusses results from the perspective of a social-role theory of sex differences in social behavior and provides alternate interpretations of findings.
Fels, A. Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives. New York: Pantheon, 2005.
Psychiatrist Anna Fels’s book hypothesizes that recognition is the source of ambition and examines women’s tendencies to downplay their achievements while men choose to bask in accolades. Provides a broad range of case studies (from to Katharine Graham to Maya Lin to Madonna) that show how women are trained to avoid any type of “unfeminine” recognition, and how this is harmful to their self-esteem and careers.
Fiske, S.T. "Intent and Ordinary Bias: Unintended Thought and Social Motivation Create Casual Prejudice." Social Justice Research 17.2 (2004): 117-127.
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Argues that intent influences the activation and use of stereotypes and prejudices. Identifies a number of "motives that matter" such as belonging, which both preserves ingroups that foster prejudice against outgroups and provides the means for ingroups to overcome their prejudice. Recommends changing group boundaries to create cross-cutting categories that create new relationships of trust. Advises managers and policymakers to facilitate both accurate information and provide incentives for thoughtful reasoning.Fiske, S.T. and S. E. Taylor. Social Cognition, 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991.
Overview of prominent theories and methods in the field of social cognition. Defines and explores the concept of a social schema—an implicit, often unconscious hypothesis that people use to interpret social data.
Goldin, Claudia, and Cecilia Rouse. “Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of ’Blind’ Auditions on Female Musicians.” American Economic Review 90.4 (2000):715-741.
Click here for PDF (1.8MB).
Examines the emergence of “blind” auditions in symphony orchestras, in which a screen conceals the candidate’s identity, and the subsequent impact on sex-based hiring. Researchers conclude that “blind” auditions increase the chance that a woman will be hired or promoted. Although some data sets have large standard errors or show one persistent effect in the opposite direction, the researchers ultimately maintain that blind audition procedures alone can account for one third of the increase in the proportion of female musicians hired in top-tier American orchestras.
Greenhaus, J. H. and S. Parasuraman. “Job Performance Attributions and Career Advancement Prospects: An Examination of Gender and Race Effects.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 55.2 (1993): 273-297.
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Compares how the success of women and black managers was interpreted by their supervisors in relation to white male managers. Found that the more successful a woman or black manager was, the more likely a supervisor attributed his or her success to factors outside of ability and effort, such as luck or the help of others.
Heilman, M. E., A. S. Wallen, D. Fuchs, & and. M. Tamkins. “Penalties for Success: Reactions to Women Who Succeed at Male Gender-Typed Tasks.” Journal of Applied Psychology 89.3 (2004): 416-427. article
Series of studies that compare observers’ evaluations of male and female leaders in a stereotypically male position and occupational field (Assistant Vice President of an aircraft company). Found that observers devalued women’s leadership accomplishments, and when women were perceived as being successful in a male-typed field, they were considered significantly less likable than their male counterparts.
Hugenberg et al. "Framing Discrimination: Effects of Inclusion Versus Exclusion Mind-Sets on Stereotypic Judgments" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91.6 (2006): 1020-1031 article
Discusses stereotyping mechanisms that are associated with different decision-making processes. The authors investigate how inclusion and exclusion strategies differentially lead to stereotypic decisions. In inclusion strategies, suitable targets are selected from a list of candidates, whereas in exclusion strategies, unsuitable candidates are eliminated. Exclusion strategies elicited higher levels of both sensitivity stereotyping (i.e., greater difficulty distinguishing among members of stereotyped groups) and criterion stereotyping (i.e., setting different decision thresholds). Concludes that inclusion strategies are less likely to elicit stereotyping behavior.
Marlowe, C. M., S. L. Schneider, and C. E. Nelson. “Gender and Attractiveness Bias in Hiring Decisions: Are More Experienced Managers Less Biased?” Journal of Applied Psychology 81.1 (1996): 11-21. article
Managers at a financial institution were asked to evaluate one of four identical resumes, each with a photograph of an attractive female, an attractive male, a less attractive female, or a less attractive male attached. Gender and attractiveness biases were present across the board, but the bias was smaller in the decisions of more experienced managers. However, the marginally attractive women candidates were consistently at the greatest disadvantage.
Martell, R.F. "Male-Female Differences: A Computer Simulation." American Psychologist 51 (1996): 157-158.
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Computer simulation modeled a pyramid organizational structure with initial conditions of equal men and women; 1% bias toward promoting men imposed resulted in a community with a steady state of 65% men at the senior levels. Provides a model of the accumulation of small bias over time.
Martell, R.F. "Reducing the Performance-Cue Bias in Work Behavior Ratings: Can Groups Help?" Journal of Applied Psychology 87.6 (2002): 1032-1041.
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Study suggests that groups can be used to avoid the introduction of bias. However, for groups to be an asset and not a potential liability, two conditions are relevant: First, the magnitude of the particular bias cannot be large. When a bias is large, and thus pervasive, group-based judgments may reflect amplification and not attenuation. Fortunately many social judgment biases reside in the small-to-moderate range and, thus, it is not unusual for individuals to sometimes escape their influence. This suggests that in a group context there is an increased probability that one or more members will have an unbiased response. However, the presence of an unbiased response often is not enough; it must surface in the course of group deliberation.
Masser, B., K. Grass, et al. (2007). "'We Like You, But We Don't Want You'-The Impact of Pregnancy in the Workplace." Sex Roles 57(9): 703-712.
Uses the stereotype content model (SCM) to examine perceptions of pregnant women in the workplace. The study suggests that pregnant women are stereotyped in the workplace as warm and incompetent, an attitude that is especially prevalent in male-dominated professions.
Maurer, T. J. and M. A. Taylor. “Is Sex by Itself Enough? An Exploration of Gender Bias Issues in Performance Appraisal.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 60 (1994): 231-251.
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Expands on prior research about the effect of gender on performance ratings to include the effects of the perceived masculinity/femininity of ratees in conjunction with occupation and gender-relevant stereotypes held by raters. The study also explores underlying variables interrelated to the gender-bias process, and concludes that although gender-related variables significantly affected performance ratings, sex by itself was of no significant value. Calls attention to, but does not examine, the “double bind” effect, that is masculine-type behavior by women leaders that enhances their perceived competence but negatively impacts interpersonal judgments.
Moskowitz, G. B., P. M. Gollwitzer, W. Wasel, and B. Schaal. “Preconscious Control of Stereotype Activation Through Chronic Egalitarian Goals.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77.1 (1999): 167-184. article
Posits that stereotype activation is not uncontrollable; instead, suggests that stereotype activation is controlled through intent, which operates in a preconscious, resource-independent fashion. Shows that individuals with egalitarian goals can consciously prevent stereotype activation when making inferences from social information.
Murphy, M.C., C.M. Steele, and J.J. Gross. "Signaling Threat: How Situational Cues Affect Women in Math, Science, and Engineering Settings." Psychological Science 13.10 (2007). article
Examines the hypothesis that situational cues, such as a setting’s features and organization, can make potential targets vulnerable to social identity threat. The study entails subjective and objective measuring of identity collected from male and female math, science, and engineering majors who watched a math, science and engineering conference video depicting either an unbalanced ratio of men to women or a balanced ratio. Women viewing the unbalanced ratio video exhibited more cognitive and psychological vigilance, and reported a lower sense of belonging and less desire to participate in the conference than women who viewed the gender-balanced video. Men were unaffected by the situational cue exhibited in both videos.
National Academy of Sciences. (2006). Beyond bias and barriers: Fulfilling the potential of women in academic scienec and engineering. The National Academies Press. report
A comprehensive review of the literature and data on women in science. Disputes commonly held beliefs about innate differences or gaps in the pipeline. Discusses the impact of arbitrary and subjective evaluation processes. Encourages funding agencies to bear some of the burden of bringing about change.
New York Times review of the report
Porter, N. and F. L. Geis. “Women and Nonverbal Leadership Cues: When Seeing is Not Believing” in C. Mayo and N. Henley (Eds.), Gender and Nonverbal Behavior. New York: Springer Verlag, 1981.
When study participants were asked to identify the leader of the group, they reliably picked the person sitting at the head of the table when the group was all-male, all-female, or mixed-sex with a male occupying the head; however, when the pictured group was mixed-sex and a woman was at the head of the table, both male and female observers chose a male sitting on the side of the table as the leader half of the time.
The RAND Corporation. “Gender Differences in Major Federal External Grant Programs.” (2005). article
At NSF and USDA, over a recent three year period (2001–2003), there were no differences in the amount of funding requested or awarded.. The major exception was at NIH, where female applicants in 2001–2003 received on average only 63 percent of the funding that male applicants received (one third of this gender gap is explained by the under-representation of women among top 1 percent award winners). At NSF and NIH, women who applied in 2001 were less likely to apply again. The difference was much larger at NIH (more than 20 percent) than at NSF (5percent), and it applied to both successful and unsuccessful applicants in the first year.
Sackett, P. R., C. L. Z. DuBois, and A. Wiggins Noe. “Tokenism in Performance Evaluation: The Effects of Work Group Representation on Male-Female and White-Black Differences in Performance Ratings.” Journal of Applied Psychology 76.2 (1991): 263-267. article
Examined the performance ratings of individuals from 486 work-groups across a wide variety of jobs. When the proportion of women was small, women were given lower-performance ratings than men even after male-female cognitive ability, psychomotor ability, education, and experience differences were controlled. When women constitute less than 20% of a working-group, they are rated 1/2 standard deviation lower than men, and that this group-phenomenon affect is not symmetrical, i.e. when men are a minority in a working-group, they are not rated lower. This lack of symmetry indicates that women’s devaluation in the workplace cannot be fully explained by a general tokenism effect. Replicating the study with racial differences did not yield the same results.
Scott, K.A. and D.J. Brown. "Female first, leader second? Gender bias in the encoding of leadership behavior." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 101.2 (2006): 230-242.
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Examines the role of gender in leadership behavior and presents evidence, illustrated in three studies, that supports the hypothesis that people have difficulty identifying and accepting stereotypical male leadership traits in women in positions of leadership. Participants in the study were slower to recognize male stereotypically associated leadership behaviors in women than in men. The evidence suggests that gender bias in leadership emerges early and that stereotypes color how behavioral information is encoded in gender associations.
Segrest Purkiss et al. "Implicit sources of bias in employment interview judgments and decisions." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 101.2 (2006): 152-167.
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Examines implicit sources of bias in employment interview judgments and decisions. The study used two ethnic cues, accent and name, as sources of bias that may trigger prejudicial decisions. The applicant with the ethnic name, speaking with an accent, was viewed less positively by interviewers than the ethnic named applicant without an accent and non-ethnic named applicants with and without an accent.
Stark, B. L., K. A. Speilmann, B. Shears, and M. Ohnersorgen. "The Gender Effect on Editorial Boards and in Academia." Society for American Archeology. (1994). article
Study to determine whether women are well represented in the editorial positions at archeological journals. Examined the gender composition of archaeological editorial boards and, for the purpose of comparison, also examined the representation of women archaeologists on college and university faculties. Found that women are statistically underrepresented in editorial positions or as chief editors compared to academic reference pools.
Steele, C.M. “A Threat in the Air: How Stereotypes Shape Intellectual Identity and Performance.” American Psychologist (1997): 613-629.
Steele proffers a theory of stereotype threat and domain identification to describe additional pressures that negatively-stereotyped groups face in academic contexts. Contends that stereotypes are tangible threats that women and minorities experience every day, and that even in situations where the threat of prejudicial treatment is slight (such as when taking a standardized test), stereotypes can still produce a significant negative effect.
Steele, C. and J. Aronson. “Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Performance of African Americans.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69.5 (1995): 797-811. article
Examines the effects of stereotype threat (i.e., the risk of self-confirming a negative stereotype about one’s social group). Describes experiments that measured African American students’ performance on standardized tests (compared to whites) and concerns about being judged according to the stereotypes that they are less intelligent or less able to perform well on standardized tests than their white counterparts. Concludes that stereotype threat causes an inability to process information that is similar to (and can exacerbate) other evaluative pressures.
Steele, C.M., S.J. Spencer, and J. Aronson. "Contending with Group Image: The Psychology of Stereotype and Social Identity Threat." In M.P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 34, pp. 379-440). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Examines the underperformance of women in relation to men and blacks in relation to whites in conditions where stereotype threat is present. Concludes that the intensity of the experiences varies according to such factors as the strength of the subject's desire to belong and the contextual cues that suggest the presence of stereotyping. Describes how the threat can be reduced using strategies that identify the facts of the situation and one's representation of the situation.
Steele, J.R. and N. Ambady. “Math Is Hard! The Effect of Gender Priming on Women's Attitudes.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 42 (2005): 428-436. article
Examines the effect of gender stereotypes on women’s attitudes toward the domains of mathematics (negatively stereotyped) and the arts (positively stereo typed). Two studies are discussed. 46 undergraduate women participated and were asked to express their opinions towards male-oriented fields after being subliminally reminded of their gender or female identity while taking computerized tests. Women who were reminded of the category female or their gender identity expressed more stereotype-consistent attitudes toward both mathematics and the arts than the control group. The role of an individual’s self-concept in interpreting and resisting these stereotypes is also discussed.
Steinpreis, R. E., K. A. Anders, and D. Ritzke. “The Impact of Gender on the Review of the Curricula Vitae of Job Applicants and Tenure Candidates: A National Empirical Study.” Sex Roles 41 (1999): 509-528. article
Even psychologists are more likely to hire a male job applicant than a female job applicant with an identical record. Steinpres et al. presented 238 psychologists with curriculum vitae from real-life scientists; only the names were changed. Participants were four times as likely to write cautionary comments such as “we would have to see her job talk” and “I would need to see evidence that she had gotten these grants and publications on her own” for female tenure candidates.
Tregenza, T. “Gender Bias in the Refereeing Process?” TRENDS in Ecology & Evolution 17.8 (2002): 349-350. article
Examines the process of how manuscripts are accepted for publication by peer-referees and journal editors by considering the effects of gender, nationality, and number of authors on acceptance decisions. Tracked the acceptance decisions of five major research journals between 1997 and 2000. Found that the peer reviewing process for manuscripts is not institutionally gender-biased, but the study points out that non-English speakers seem at a disadvantage (whether because of discrimination or lack of facility with English), and that some publications seemed more prone toward making biased decisions.
Trix, Frances and Carolyn Psenska. “Exploring the Color of Glass: Letters of Recommendation for Male and Female Medical Faculty.” Discourse & Society 4.2 (2003): 191-220. Online at http://das.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/14/2/191
Examines over 300 letters of recommendation for faculty at a large American medical school in the mid-1990s. Revealed systematic differences between letters that recommenders wrote for successful male and female applicants. On the whole, letters written about females were shorter, had more doubt-raising phrases, were more likely to mention irrelevant facets of their personal lives, and reinforced gender schemas by classifying women as teachers and students rather than as researchers.
Uhlman, Eric Luis and Geoffrey L. Cohen. “Constructed Criteria: Redefining Merit to Justify Discrimination.” Psychological Science (2005): 474-480. article
Examines how shifting standards in hiring processes may contribute to discrimination. In studies where male and female reviewers were asked to judge male and female applicants for stereotypically gender-specific jobs (police chief, women’s studies professor), the reviewers did not overtly discriminate against applicants; instead, they constructed job criteria that was tailored to select a certain type of applicant. Thus, the reviewer’s final selections seemed based on merit, but were actually based on social group. Study indicates that the act of committing to set hiring criteria before evaluating applicants can significantly mitigate gender bias in hiring practices.
Valian, Virginia. “Sex, Schemas, and Success: What’s Keeping Women Back?” Academe 84.5 (1998): 50-55. article
In this article, based on her book Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women (MIT Press 1998), Valian examines how gender schemas and the distribution of seemingly minor accumulations of advantages ultimately result in a glass ceiling. Refers to studies that have examined comparably educated men and women workers and found that men’s experiences and qualifications count for much more than women’s. In academia, men and women now start with the same salaries, but women’s salaries do not progress as quickly as men’s—the same applies to rank and tenure.
Valian, Virginia. Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998.
Synthesizes a wide range of experimental and observational data that show the extent to which commonly held gender schemas result in the devaluation of women, particularly in science, academia, and the private sector. Referencing various experiments in cognitive psychology, Valian shows the extent to which unconscious, socially constructed notions of gender roles cause people to underestimate women’s academic abilities while overestimating men’s. Concludes that institutional reform, combined with better reasoning skills, will allow women academics to be more successful.
Van Vugt, Mark, David De Cremer, and Dirk P. Janssen. " Gender Differences in Cooperation and Competition: The Male Warrior Hypothesis." Psychological Science 18.1 (2007): 19-23.
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Discusses gender differences in regard to inter-group competition, cooperation and productivity. Evaluates the Male Warrior hypothesis that asserts men are more group-oriented and therefore more likely to behave altruistically and act on behalf of a group than women who tend to be more interpersonally oriented. The results of 3 university experiments support this hypothesis.
Vescio, Theresa K., Sarah J. Gervais, Ann Hoover, and Mark Snyder. “Power and the Creation of Patronizing Environments.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88.4 (2005): 658-672. article
Examines how powerful men’s patronizing attitudes toward their negatively-stereotyped subordinates, defined as doling out praise but not resources, affects those who work under them. The authors contend that social inequalities are maintained through the influences of paternalism rather than repeated acts of hostility or coercion. Describes two experiments that measure whether high-power males’ patronizing attitudes are more likely to be shown toward female subordinates than male subordinates, and measures how the anger induced by patronizing behavior differently affects male and female subordinates. Although women and men become angry about being treated patronizingly, men performed more successfully in such anger-inspiring situations.
Wenneras, Christine and Agnes Wold. “Nepotism and Sexism in Peer Review.” Nature 387 (1997): 341-343. article
Examines the peer-review system of the Swedish Medical Research Council, where the success rate of female applicants for post-doc positions during the 1990s has been less than half of that of male applicants. Suggests that peer reviewers cannot judge scientific merit independent of gender. By comparing equally productive male and female applicants, the study found two non-merit-based variables that significantly affected the peer reviewers’ scoring of an applicant: whether the applicant was affiliated with a reviewer (which was an almost identical percentage for male and female applicants) and the gender of an applicant.
Wheeler, M.E. and S.T. Fiske. "Controlling Racial Prejudice: Social-Cognitive Goals Affect Amygdala and Stereotype Activation." Psychological Science 16.1 (2005): 56-63. article
Presents evidence that supports the hypothesis that stereotype activation is controllable. Using methods of social-cognitive neuroscience, demonstrates how social-cognitive goals affect stereotype activation. Focuses on racial stereotyping by White American participants, but implications are relevant to other ethnic, gender, and age groups.
Wood, W. and S. J. Karten. “Sex Differences in Interaction Style as a Product of Perceived Sex Differences in Competence.” Personality and Social Psychology 50.2 (1986): 341-347. article
Observed males’ and females’ interaction styles while they worked in small, mixed-sex groups on discussion tasks. Men were perceived by themselves and others as higher in competence than women, and men engaged in more active tasks (e.g., giving opinions) while women exhibited a more positive social behavior (e.g., agreeing, being friendly). Alternatively, in groups where the experimenters manipulated members' status by providing false feedback that they were high or low relative to their group in intellectual and moral aptitude, high-status members fulfilled active positions irrespective of sex. Shows that status can override the gender-to-competence link.
Wright, A.L., et al. "Commpensation in Academic Medicine: Progress Toward Gender Equity.” Journal of General Internal Medicine 22.10 (2007): 1398-1402. article
Examines the effect of an identity- conscious intervention on salary equity in the medical profession. Previous studies have shown that faculty salaries for women were less than salaries for men even after adjusting for research and clinical productivity. The results of the study shows that gender disparities in compensation can be reduced through careful documentation, identification of comparable individuals paid different salaries, and commitment from leadership.
Compiled by Jennifer Laird, Gillian Kalson, and Shanon Fitzpatrick, NSF ADVANCE Program, Earth Institute at Columbia University
