Implicit Bias and Stereotype Threat

Dominance discrimination seems to explain a lot about women in the academic workplace (see last post), but doesn't answer these questions:

1. Why do single childless women do somewhat worse compared to married fathers?
2. Why are there far fewer women in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) subjects?
3. Why are there far fewer female philosophers (Jennifer Saul's article)?  

4. Why is there attrition--women start out taking philosophy courses but stop?

What is the answer to those questions?

1. Men and women make different choices, have different interests (Christina Hoff Sommers)
2. Mary Ann Mason: stereotype threat and implicit bias
3. Jennifer Saul, explaining why so few women in philosophy: stereotype threat and implicit bias

Stereotype threat

Cheryan et al (2009)

• "concerns ways that a person’s (awareness of their) own group membership may negatively affect their performance" (Saul, p. 2)
• "if you ask five to seven year old girls to colour in drawings of girls holding dolls before taking a maths test, their performance is significantly reduced (Steele 170)" (Saul, p. 5)
• more examples of stereotype threat from Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine:
• STEM majors were shown videos of male-dominated and gender-balanced conferences; women had a stress reaction to the male-dominated scene and expressed less interest in attending (Murphy et al 2007)
• men and women were asked about their interest in computer science careers in geeky room (star trek posters etc.) and ungeeky room (art posters etc.) Women expressed more interest in joining a web-design company if asked in the ungeeky room (Cheryan et al 2009)
• men and women were shown ads depicting women excited about making brownies or worrying about their appearance; afterwards women more likely to avoid math problems on a test; less likely to express interest in technical careers; less interested in leading a group (Davies et al 2002)
• Saul argues: women get cues that they don't belong in philosophy
• the conference room with pictures of male philosophers
• the all male syllabus

Implicit Bias

• "unconscious biases that affect the way we perceive, evaluate, or interact with people from the groups that our biases 'target'" (Saul, p. 2)
• Hypothesis: implicit bias excludes women from male dominated fields like STEM and philosophy
• The resume study (Saul, p. 4)
• But wait, do I really have implicit bias against ___________?

The IAT and the debate about what it shows

• The Implicit Association Test (IAT)
• What was your test about? How did it work?
• gender-career test 

The debate

• Bartlett, "Can We Really Measure Implicit Bias? Maybe Not"
• Hart Blanton, University of Connecticut psychologist
• Performance on IAT doesn't predict behavior
• Changes in performance don't lead to changes in behavior
• People perform differently from one moment to the next
• Payne et al "How to Think about 'Implicit Bias'"
• Just because IAT is a poor test, doesn't mean there isn't implicit bias

• The email study, in more detail 
• The debate about implicit bias among philosophers (see comments as well)