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Unconscious bias in academia – what it is
and what to do about itDr Katja PoppenhaegerLecturer in Astrophysics
Queen’s University Belfast
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What is unconscious bias?
● A positive or negative unconscious belief about a particular category of people.
● Allows quick, but sometimes inaccurate, processing of information
● Often conflicts with consciously held attitudes● Can change based on experience/exposure
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Everyone has biases
● On average, men and women underestimate the contributions of women
Remember: There’s more than two genders - but a lot of studies are >5 years old and people didn’t think of including other genders
● On average, both whites and people of colour underestimate the contributions of people of colour
● Biases are NOT discrimination:● We can consciously decide if we act on them if we are aware of
them
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Bias and its effect in STEM
If biases go unchecked, they can have multiple negative effects for groups against which negative biases exist:
- performance evaluations (students: marks)
- hiring
- career progression
→ quality of scientific community!
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University teaching evaluations
MacNell, Driscoll, and Hunt, Innov High Educ (2015) 40:291-303
Online teaching:
Half of students taught by female instructor, half by male instructor
But: half of students were told that their instructor had a different gender than the instructor actually had
I.e. half of the students who were taught be the male instructor thought the instructor was female and vice versa
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University teaching evaluations
MacNell, Driscoll, and Hunt, Innov High Educ (2015) 40:291-303
Online teaching:
Half of students taught by female instructor, half by male instructor
But: half of students were told that their instructor had a different gender than the instructor actually had
I.e. half of the students who were taught be the male instructor thought the instructor was female and vice versa
Note: only female and male genders used in the study, non-binary genders not investigated
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University teaching evaluations
MacNell, Driscoll, and Hunt, Innov High Educ (2015) 40:291-303
![Page 8: Unconscious bias in academia – what it is and what …...Bias and its effect in STEM If biases go unchecked, they can have multiple negative effects for groups against which negative](https://reader033.vdocuments.net/reader033/viewer/2022042915/5f52c716b6858c3a7731ac32/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
University teaching evaluations
MacNell, Driscoll, and Hunt, Innov High Educ (2015) 40:291-303
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University teaching evaluations
Bias present even for “objective” categories:
Both instructors announced exam grades 2 days after exam.
→ assumed female instructor got rating of 3.55 for promptness
→ assumed male instructor got rating of 4.35 for promptness
MacNell, Driscoll, and Hunt, Innov High Educ (2015) 40:291-303
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Job offers to STEM graduates:gender
127 STEM professors asked to evaluate CVs of students who were supposedly applying for a lab manager position.
Every professor got the same CV, but half of them had a female first name and the other half a male first name.
Professors asked to rate competence, hireability, if they would mentor the student, and what salary they would offer.
Moss-Racusin, Dovidio, Brescoll et al., PNAS (2012), 109:16474-16479
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Job offers to STEM graduates:gender
Moss-Racusin, Dovidio, Brescoll et al., PNAS (2012), 109:16474-16479
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Job offers to STEM graduates:gender
Moss-Racusin, Dovidio, Brescoll et al., PNAS (2012), 109:16474-16479
0
5000
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Male Female
Salary offered (USD)
Same results for male and female professors rating the students!
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Job offers:race
Reseachers created 2 CVs (resumes), a good one and a bad one, and attached fictional names to it. One half of the names were white-sounding names, the other half black-sounding names.
They sent the CVs in response to 1300 open job ads, and counted how many times the fictional characters received an invitation to be interviewed for the job by the employer.
Bertrand & Mullainathan, American Economic Review, 2004, 991-1013
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Job offers:race
Bertrand & Mullainathan, American Economic Review, 2004, 991-1013
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Cumulative effect
Any one slight may seem minor, but since small imbalances and disadvantages accrue, they can have major consequences in ● Salary● Promotion● Prestige● Advancement to leadership positions
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Discussion:
● Do any of you have examples of biases you want to share?
● Anything you encountered inside or outside of academia?
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What to do?
Effects of unconscious bias can be counteracted:● Awareness● Policies● Practices● Accountability
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Awareness● Online self-test:
“Harvard Implicit Association Test”
● Tests how easily one associates one category with another (for example, “female” with “science”)
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Implicit Association Test
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Implicit Association Test
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My result:
“Here is your result:
Your data suggest a slight automatic association for Male with Science and Female with Liberal Arts.”
Note: large standard deviation for individuals; this is a tool to investigaet biases of groups of people.
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Results at my department (QUB School of Maths and Physics)
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Results at my department (QUB School of Maths and Physics)
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Results at my department (QUB School of Maths and Physics)
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Results at my department (QUB School of Maths and Physics)
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Results at my department (QUB School of Maths and Physics)
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What to do?
Effects of unconscious bias can be counteracted:● Awareness● Policies● Practices● Accountability
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What to do? Example: Hiring
Set criteria before looking at applications
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What to do? Example: Hiring
Set criteria before looking at applications
Evaluate all applications based on the same criteria
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What to do? Example: Hiring
Set criteria before looking at applications
Evaluate all applications based on the same criteria
Decrease ambiguity of the criteria for the job. Specify
evaluations of scholarly productivity
research funding
teaching ability
fit with the department’s priorities.
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What to do? Example: Hiring
Set criteria before looking at applications
Evaluate all applications based on the same criteria
Decrease ambiguity of the criteria for the job. Specify
evaluations of scholarly productivity
research funding
teaching ability
fit with the department’s priorities.
Consider candidates, including women and minorities, who may currently be thriving at less well-ranked institutions
(Past discrimination by top tier institutions)
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Discussion:
What to do about unconscious bias:● Example from QUB: senior male academics
taking on duties as Athena SWAN organizers (UK gender equality initiative)
● Personal example: keeping a laser-like focus on my female colleagues while they’re talking
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Discussion:
What to do about unconscious bias:● Have you seen good examples?
● Do you have some ideas yourself?
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Materials and references to the peer-reviewed studies:
go.qub.ac.uk/unconsciousbias
Of particular interest: Gvozdanovic and Maes 2018, LERU study “Implicit bias in academia: A challenge to the meritocratic principle and to women’s careers – And what to do about it”.