NextSTEPS Bibliography
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Teaching

Parrotta, P., Pozzoli, D. & Pytlikova, M. (2014). The nexus between labor diversity and firm’s innovation. Journal of Population Economics, 27, 303–364. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-013-0491-7

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Teaching

Payne, B. K., Vuletich, H. A., & Brown-Iannuzzi, J. L. (2019). Historical roots of implicit bias in slavery. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(24), 11693-11698. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1818816116

https://psu.box.com/s/hneumqmgyjq8sn6jahotncid59lgtfqd
COVID-19, Gender/Sex, Group Disparities & intergroup relations, Hiring, Promotion, & Tenure, Publishing

Pebdani, R. N., Zeidan, A., Low, L. F., & Baillie, A. (2022). Pandemic productivity in academia: using ecological momentary assessment to explore the impact of COVID-19 on research productivity. Higher Education Research & Development. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2022.2128075

The unequal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns on mothers around the world were identified as a concern in the early months of the pandemic. Almost immediately, women decreased work hours and women researchers reported reductions in research time as research publications by women dropped precipitously. In order to examine day-to-day activities of academics during June and July 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we utilised Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) to ask 130 academics around the world about their current activities at six random times per day over the course of one week. Results showed that parents, especially mothers, were less likely to have uninterrupted work time and that mothers were 3 times more likely than fathers to multitask, nearly 5 times more likely than fathers to multitask while caring for children and 4.25 times more likely than fathers to be caring for children when contacted. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on academic mothers has many long-term implications on career progression and alleviating this gendered impact should be a priority for adminstrators worldwide.
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Gender/Sex, Group Disparities & intergroup relations, Schemas/Stereotypes/Evaluation Bias

Reuben, E., Sapienza, P., & Zingales, L. (2014). How stereotypes impair women’s careers in science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(12), 4403-4408. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1314788111

Women outnumber men in undergraduate enrollments, but they are much less likely than men to major in mathematics or science or to choose a profession in these fields. This outcome often is attributed to the effects of negative sex-based stereotypes. We studied the effect of such stereotypes in an experimental market, where subjects were hired to perform an arithmetic task that, on average, both genders perform equally well. We find that without any information other than a candidate’s appearance (which makes sex clear), both male and female subjects are twice more likely to hire a man than a woman. The discrimination survives if performance on the arithmetic task is self-reported, because men tend to boast about their performance, whereas women generally underreport it. The discrimination is reduced, but not eliminated, by providing full information about previous performance on the task. By using the Implicit Association Test, we show that implicit stereotypes are responsible for the initial average bias in sex-related beliefs and for a bias in updating expectations when performance information is self-reported. That is, employers biased against women are less likely to take into account the fact that men, on average, boast more than women about their future performance, leading to suboptimal hiring choices that remain biased in favor of men.
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Gender/Sex, Group Disparities & intergroup relations, Schemas/Stereotypes/Evaluation Bias, Teaching

Rivera, L. A., & Tilcsik, A. (2019). Scaling down inequality: Rating scales, gender bias, and the architecture of evaluation. American Sociological Review, 84(2), 248-274. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0003122419833601

Quantitative performance ratings are ubiquitous in modern organizations—from businesses to universities—yet there is substantial evidence of bias against women in such ratings. This study examines how gender inequalities in evaluations depend on the design of the tools used to judge merit. Exploiting a quasi-natural experiment at a large North American university, we found that the number of scale points used in faculty teaching evaluations—whether instructors were rated on a scale of 6 versus a scale of 10—significantly affected the size of the gender gap in evaluations in the most male-dominated fields. A survey experiment, which presented all participants with an identical lecture transcript but randomly varied instructor gender and the number of scale points, replicated this finding and suggested that the number of scale points affects the extent to which gender stereotypes of brilliance are expressed in quantitative ratings. These results highlight how seemingly minor technical aspects of performance ratings can have a major effect on the evaluation of men and women. Our findings thus contribute to a growing body of work on organizational practices that reduce workplace inequalities and the sociological literature on how rating systems—rather than being neutral instruments—shape the distribution of rewards in organizations.
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Gender/Sex, Group Disparities & intergroup relations, Publishing, Strategies for Improvement

Roberts, S. G., & Verhoef, T. (2016). Double-blind reviewing at EvoLang 11 reveals gender bias. Journal of Language Evolution, 1(2), 163-167. https://doi.org/10.1093/jole/lzw009

The impact of introducing double-blind reviewing in the most recent Evolution of Language conference is assessed. The ranking of papers is compared between EvoLang 11 (double-blind review) and EvoLang 9 and 10 (single-blind review). Main effects were found for first author gender by conference. The results mirror some findings in the literature on the effects of double-blind review, suggesting that it helps reduce a bias against female authors.
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Group Disparities & intergroup relations, LGBTQ+, Schemas/Stereotypes/Evaluation Bias, Teaching

Russ, T., Simonds, C., & Hunt, S. (2002). Coming out in the classroom... An occupational hazard?: The influence of sexual orientation on teacher credibility and perceived student learning. Communication Education, 51(3), 311-324. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634520216516

This study examined the influence of instructor sexual orientation on perceptions of teacher credibility. The purpose was to determine if college students perceive gay teachers as less credible than straight teachers. In addition, we sought to explore the role of teacher credibility in terms of perceived student learning. In order to examine these variables, a male confederate presented a lecture on cultural influences to 154 undergraduate students enrolled in eight separate introductory communication classes. In each class, the confederate was careful to keep his delivery and immediacy cues (e.g., vocal expressiveness, movement, and eye contact) natural and consistent. The confederate's sexual orientation, however, was systematically manipulated. Findings indicate that students perceive a gay teacher as significantly less credible than a straight teacher. This study also found that students of a gay teacher perceive that they learn considerably less than students of a straight teacher. To help explain the complex reasons behind students' biased evaluations, the authors have included an in-depth qualitative analysis of participants' responses.
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Gender/Sex, Group Disparities & intergroup relations, Race/Ethnicity, Schemas/Stereotypes/Evaluation Bias

Sackett, P. R., DuBois, C. L., & Noe, A. W. (1991). 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), 263-267. https://doi.org/10.1037%2F0021-9010.76.2.263

Male–female differences in performance ratings were examined in 486 work groups across a wide variety of jobs and organizations. As suggested by the sex stereotyping literature, women received lower ratings when the proportion of women in the group was small, even after male–female cognitive ability, psychomotor ability, education, and experience differences were controlled. Replication of the analyses with racial differences (White–Black) in 814 work groups demonstrated that group composition had little effect on performance ratings. The effects of group composition on stereotyping behaviors do not appear to generalize to all minority contexts.
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Hiring, Promotion, & Tenure

San Francisco declaration on research assessment. (2012). DORA.

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Hiring, Promotion, & Tenure, Strategies for Improvement

San Francisco declaration on research assessment. (2012). DORA.

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Gender/Sex

Sarsons, H. (2017). Recognition for group work: Gender differences in academia. American Economic Review, 107, 141–45. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.p20171126

How is credit for group work allocated when individual contributions are not observed? I use data on academics' publication records to test whether demographic traits like gender influence how credit is allocated under such uncertainty. While solo-authored papers send a clear signal about ability, coauthored papers are noisy, providing no specific information about each contributor's skills. I find that men are tenured at roughly the same rate regardless of coauthoring choices. Women, however, are less likely to receive tenure the more they coauthor. The result is much less pronounced among women who coauthor with other women.
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(Workplace) Climate, Gender/Sex, Group Disparities & intergroup relations, Schemas/Stereotypes/Evaluation Bias, Strategies for Improvement

Schmader, T. (2022). Gender Inclusion and Fit in STEM. Annual Review of Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-032720-043052

Despite progress made toward increasing women's interest and involvement in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), women continue to be underrepresented and experience less equity and inclusion in some STEM fields. In this article, I review the psychological literature relevant to understanding and mitigating women's lower fit and inclusion in STEM. Person-level explanations concerning women's abilities, interests, and self-efficacy are insufficient for explaining these persistent gaps. Rather, women's relatively lower interest in male-dominated STEM careers such as computer science and engineering is likely to be constrained by gender stereotypes. These gender stereotypes erode women's ability to experience self-concept fit, goal fit, and/or social fit. Such effects occur independently of intentional interpersonal biases and discrimination, and yet they create systemic barriers to women's attraction to, integration in, and advancement in STEM. Dismantling these systemic barriers requires a multifaceted approach to changing organizational and educational cultures at the institutional, interpersonal, and individual level.
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Gender/Sex, Race/Ethnicity, Schemas/Stereotypes/Evaluation Bias

Schmader, T., Johns, M., & Forbes, C. (2008). An integrated process model of stereotype threat effects on performance. Psychological Review, 115(2), 336-356. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.115.2.336

Research showing that activation of negative stereotypes can impair the performance of stigmatized individuals on a wide variety of tasks has proliferated. However, a complete understanding of the processes underlying these stereotype threat effects on behavior is still lacking. The authors examine stereotype threat in the context of research on stress arousal, vigilance, working memory, and self-regulation to develop a process model of how negative stereotypes impair performance on cognitive and social tasks that require controlled processing, as well as sensorimotor tasks that require automatic processing. The authors argue that stereotype threat disrupts performance via 3 distinct, yet interrelated, mechanisms: (a) a physiological stress response that directly impairs prefrontal processing, (b) a tendency to actively monitor performance, and (c) efforts to suppress negative thoughts and emotions in the service of self-regulation. These mechanisms combine to consume executive resources needed to perform well on cognitive and social tasks. The active monitoring mechanism disrupts performance on sensorimotor tasks directly. Empirical evidence for these assertions is reviewed, and implications for interventions designed to alleviate stereotype threat are discussed.
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Gender/Sex, Group Disparities & intergroup relations, Hiring, Promotion, & Tenure, Schemas/Stereotypes/Evaluation Bias

Schmader, T., Whitehead, J., & Wysocki, V. H. (2007). A linguistic comparison of letters of recommendation for male and female chemistry and biochemistry job applicants. Sex Roles, 57(7-8), 509-514. https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs11199-007-9291-4

Letters of recommendation are central to the hiring process. However, gender stereotypes could bias how recommenders describe female compared to male applicants. In the current study, text analysis software was used to examine 886 letters of recommendation written on behalf of 235 male and 42 female applicants for either a chemistry or biochemistry faculty position at a large U.S. research university. Results revealed more similarities than differences in letters written for male and female candidates. However, recommenders used significantly more standout adjectives to describe male as compared to female candidates. Letters containing more standout words also included more ability words and fewer grindstone words. Research is needed to explore how differences in language use affect perceivers’ evaluations of female candidates.
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Teaching

Schmid, S. L. (2013). Beyond CVs and impact factors: an employer’s manifesto. Science Careers. September 3, 2013. https://doi:10.1126/science.caredit.a1300186

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Funding & Awards, Gender/Sex, Group Disparities & intergroup relations, Hiring, Promotion, & Tenure

Sege, R., Nykiel-Bub, L., & Selk, S. (2015). Sex differences in institutional support for junior biomedical researchers. JAMA, 314, 1175-1177. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2015.8517

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Teaching

Sekaquaptewa, D. & Thompson, M. (2002). The Differential Effects of Solo Status on Members of High- and Low-Status Groups. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 694–707. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167202288013

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Gender/Sex, Group Disparities & intergroup relations, Hiring, Promotion, & Tenure, Race/Ethnicity

Sekaquaptewa, D., & Thompson, M. (2002). The differential effects of solo status on members of high-and low-status groups. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(5), 694-707. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167202288013

Individuals experience solo status when they are the only members of their social category (e.g., gender or race) present in a group. Field research indicates that women and racial minorities are more debilitated by solo status than White men. However, lab oratory research indicates that men and women are equally debilitated as solos. We noted that laboratory studies introduced solo status during learning, whereas field research examined solo status at performance. Therefore, we predicted that high and low social status group members would be differentially influenced by solo status experienced during testing. In two laboratory experiments, men and women and African Americans and Whites experienced solo status during an oral examination. In Experiment 1, White women performed more poorly than White men taking the exam before an opposite-sex (but same-race) audience. In Experiment 2, African American women performed more poorly than White women taking the exam before an other-race (but same-gender) audience.
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(Workplace) Climate, Gender/Sex

Settles, I. H., Cortina, L. M., Malley, J., & Stewart, A. J. (2006). The climate for women in academic science: The good, the bad, and the changeable. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30(1), 47-58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2006.00261.x

Deficits theory posits that women scientists have not yet achieved parity with men scientists because of structural aspects of the scientific environment that provide them with fewer opportunities and more obstacles than men. The current study of 208 faculty women scientists tested this theory by examining the effect of personal negative experiences and perceptions of the workplace climate on job satisfaction, felt influence, and productivity. Hierarchical multiple regression results indicated that women scientists experiencing more sexual harassment and gender discrimination reported poorer job outcomes. Additionally, perceptions of a generally positive, nonsexist climate, as well as effective leadership, were related to positive job outcomes after controlling for harassment and discrimination. We discuss implications for the retention and career success of women in academic science.
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COVID-19, Gender/Sex, Group Disparities & intergroup relations

Shalaby, M., Allam, N., & Buttorff, G. J. (2021). Leveling the field: Gender inequity in academia during COVID-19. PS: Political Science & Politics, 54(4), 661-667. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096521000615

This article explores the differential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the productivity of male and female academics and whether the ongoing health crisis will exacerbate further the existing gender gap in academia in both the short and long terms. We present early evidence of the pandemic’s disproportionate effect on women’s research productivity using online survey data supplemented by interview data with regional and international female political scientists. The interviews and survey findings reveal gender disparities in perceived research productivity and service workloads during the pandemic. The results also shed initial light on the pandemic’s impact on the research productivity of academics who are parents, especially among women.
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Group Disparities & intergroup relations

Shandera S, Matsick JL, Hunter DR, Leblond L (2021) RASE: Modeling cumulative disadvantage due to marginalized group status in academia. PLoS ONE 16(12): e0260567. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260567

We propose a framework of Resources, Achievement, Status, and Events (RASE) that allows the many disparate but well-documented phenomena affecting underrepresented groups in STEM to be assembled into a story of career trajectories, illuminating the possible cumulative impact of many small inequities. Our framework contains a three-component deterministic cycle of (1) production of Achievements from Resources, (2) updated community Status due to Achievements, and (3) accrual of additional Resources based on community Status. A fourth component, stochastic Events, can influence an individual’s level of Resources or Achievements at each time step of the cycle. We build a specific mathematical model within the RASE framework and use it to investigate the impact of accumulated disadvantages from multiple compounding variables. We demonstrate that the model can reproduce data of observed disparities in academia. Finally, we use a publicly available visualization and networking tool to provide a sandbox for exploring career outcomes within the model. The modeling exercise, results, and visualization tool may be useful in the context of training STEM faculty to recognize and reduce effects of bias.
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Gender/Sex, Group Disparities & intergroup relations, Publishing

Shauman, K. A., & Xie, Y. (2003). Explaining sex differences in publication productivity among postsecondary faculty. In L. S. Hornig (Ed.), Equal rites, unequal outcomes: Women in American research universities (pp. 175-208). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

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(Workplace) Climate, Gender/Sex, Group Disparities & intergroup relations, Schemas/Stereotypes/Evaluation Bias, Strategies for Improvement

Shields, S. A., Zawadzki, M. J., & Johnson, R. N. (2011). The impact of the workshop activity for gender equity simulation in the academy (WAGES–Academic) in demonstrating cumulative effects of gender bias. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 4(2), 120-129. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022953

We report experimental evaluation of the Workshop Activity for Gender Equity Simulation in the Academy (WAGES–Academic), a brief, experiential simulation of the cumulative effects of unconscious bias in the academic workplace. We predicted that participants who played WAGES–Academic would demonstrate significantly increased knowledge and retention of gender equity issues in the academic workplace compared with participants in a control condition. Baseline information on general knowledge of workplace gender equity issues was obtained from 1,254 undergraduates. In the second phase, 144 were randomly assigned to complete either WAGES–Academic or a control task, and the immediate effects of the activities were measured. Participants were contacted 7–11 days later to complete an online measure of knowledge retention. Compared with a control condition, WAGES–Academic increased knowledge and retention. This effect occurred irrespective of prior level of sexist beliefs, participant gender, or whether the participant had been on the advantaged or disadvantaged team. Potential use and testing of WAGES–Academic with university faculty and administrators are discussed.
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Gender/Sex, Group Disparities & intergroup relations, Hiring, Promotion, & Tenure, Publishing, Race/Ethnicity

Silbiger, N. J., & Stubler, A. D. (2019). Unprofessional peer reviews disproportionately harm underrepresented groups in STEM. PeerJ, 7, e8247. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8247

Background Peer reviewed research is paramount to the advancement of science. Ideally, the peer review process is an unbiased, fair assessment of the scientific merit and credibility of a study; however, well-documented biases arise in all methods of peer review. Systemic biases have been shown to directly impact the outcomes of peer review, yet little is known about the downstream impacts of unprofessional reviewer comments that are shared with authors.
Methods In an anonymous survey of international participants in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, we investigated the pervasiveness and author perceptions of long-term implications of receiving of unprofessional comments. Specifically, we assessed authors’ perceptions of scientific aptitude, productivity, and career trajectory after receiving an unprofessional peer review.
Results We show that survey respondents across four intersecting categories of gender and race/ethnicity received unprofessional peer review comments equally. However, traditionally underrepresented groups in STEM fields were most likely to perceive negative impacts on scientific aptitude, productivity, and career advancement after receiving an unprofessional peer review.
Discussion Studies show that a negative perception of aptitude leads to lowered self-confidence, short-term disruptions in success and productivity and delays in career advancement. Therefore, our results indicate that unprofessional reviews likely have and will continue to perpetuate the gap in STEM fields for traditionally underrepresented groups in the sciences.
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Race/Ethnicity, Schemas/Stereotypes/Evaluation Bias, Teaching

Smith, B. P., & Hawkins, B. (2011). Examining student evaluations of Black college faculty: Does race matter? The Journal of Negro Education, 80(2), 149-162.

The purpose of this study was twofold. First, to describe the undergraduate student ratings of teaching effectiveness based on the traditional 36-item end-of-course evaluation form used in the College of Education (COE) at a southeastern Research Extensive predominantly White institution. Second, using critical race theory (CRT) to compare the teaching effectiveness for the tenure-track faculty in this study based on race (White, Black, and Other racial groups including Asians, Latinos, and Native Americans). Three academic years of undergraduate level courses were used to analyze student ratings for 28 items (26 multidimensional, which address specific topics or a single aspect about instruction and 2 global/overall, which address value of course and teaching ability) on the end-of-course evaluation form. Eight of the 36 items request demographic information from the student. The findings showed that of the three faculty racial groups, Black faculty mean scores were the lowest on the 26 multidimensional items. On the two global items, which are used in making personnel decisions, Black faculty mean scores were also the lowest of the faculty groups analyzed.
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