{"id":3436,"date":"2013-04-07T07:57:44","date_gmt":"2013-04-07T07:57:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/?p=3436"},"modified":"2013-07-25T19:19:40","modified_gmt":"2013-07-25T19:19:40","slug":"systematic-errors-of-judgement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/2013\/04\/07\/systematic-errors-of-judgement\/","title":{"rendered":"Systematic Errors of Judgement"},"content":{"rendered":"

To tie in with International Women\u2019s Day, last month Nature ran a series of articles<\/a> about the issues still facing women in science and also a podcast<\/a> with Uta Frith and myself debating some of the issues. The interviewer, Charlotte Stoddart<\/a> asked me, amongst other things, why I felt unconscious bias was so important that I frequently wrote about it.\u00a0 My answer was, and is, that it is important for the very reason that it is unconscious, unseen unless taken out of the closet and inspected and so liable to be invidious and pernicious. It is, if you like, a systematic error distorting the very way we judge and are judged \u2013 in general to women\u2019s detriment.<\/p>\n

Much is made of the practical difficulties of combining a career and a family for women; this is often proposed as the major reason for women leaving science, but I think this is too simplistic. Indeed, academia is probably an easier place \u2013 because of the relative freedom we enjoy to work at times that work for us and not just clocking in and out \u2013 than some other professions for flexibility around caring responsibilities, for both men and women. \u00a0Perpetuating the view that the combination is well-nigh impossible (without exploring, as Ottoline Leyser\u2019s excellent book<\/a> did, all the different ways women have found actually to manage to do it), is probably only discouraging and disempowering in itself.<\/p>\n

But the evidence \u2013 gleaned from study after study in the social sciences and related literature, which many Deans of Science or Heads of Science Departments are probably not reading \u2013 seems to point to the range of subtle ways in which we, collectively, reach conclusions on others which, all unknowingly, are influenced by gender and stereotypes.\u00a0 At the bottom of this post I list some of the papers I have come across in the past year or so, not all of which I have comprehensively studied and which I am unqualified to assess in terms of their (social sciences) methodology. I do this for the interested reader in the hopes that this may facilitate their distribution to decision-makers in their institution (some may be behind paywalls depending on institutional subscriptions, so I just link to the abstracts). \u00a0In this present post I would like to pick out just one which, like the much-discussed PNAS paper<\/a> by Moss-Racussin et al<\/i>, identify some disturbing aspects of the way we all \u2013 these failings affect women as well as men \u2013 reach conclusions about the work of others and then act them out (I\u2019ll use another post to discuss a very recent paper<\/a> by Wang et al<\/em> on an analysis of choices boys and girls make about careers).<\/p>\n

Unconscious bias can only be dealt with by making it conscious, by ensuring an instantaneous assessment is backed up by evidence and not just by one\u2019s unthinking gut. Now that overt discrimination is relatively rare and explicit sexism of the sort that says \u2018women can\u2019t do this\u2019 rarely annunciated, we need to move on to a situation where the playing field is genuinely level and not just free of gross peaks and troughs. It behoves us all, particularly those in decision-making roles but also those at the receiving end, to consider the myriad and disparate ways in which subtle cues can trigger different reactions according to the gender of the individual under consideration.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t simply a case of differing ways of reacting to actions, as in the conjugation \u2018he is assertive, she is aggressive\u2019 and equivalent pairings. It is also a case of reading between the lines of letters of reference (as I\u2019ve talked about before here<\/a> and here<\/a>) or metrics (see this article<\/a>) and citations (here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Scientists may like to form judgements based on quantification, but what is emerging from the literature is that our collective reactions invariably seem to imply a systematic disadvantage to women by the use of such metrics, even though it looks like something as gender-neutral as citations may be being studied. The most recent study<\/a> I came across, entitled The Matilda Effect in Science Communication: An Experiment on Gender Bias in Publication Quality Perceptions and Collaboration Interest<\/i>\u00a0 looked at the responses of \u2018243 young communication scholars\u2019 when asked to rate some (carefully manipulated) conference abstracts. (The Matilda effect<\/a> was a phrase coined by Margaret Rossiter<\/a> 20 years ago to describe the systematic underrecognition of women in science.) The abstracts\u2019 topics and authors were varied to see how the readers reacted and to test a series of hypotheses relying on \u2018role congruity\u2019. This theory says that a group (or in this case, an abstract) will be positively evaluated when its characteristics are recognized as aligning with that group\u2019s typical social roles. So a paper written by women about a subject \u2018appropriate\u2019 to their gender, such as the effect of media on children (remember this was a project involving science communicators), will be more highly rated than one written by women on an \u2018inappropriate\u2019 topic such as political communication.<\/p>\n

Their hypotheses were largely borne out; on average the papers written by \u2018men\u2019 were perceived as of higher quality than those written by \u2018women\u2019, and even more so if stereotypically male topics were being written about. The respondents were also more likely to want to collaborate with the males on stereotypically \u2018male\u2019 topics and with the women on those topics associated with women. These trends were the same irrespective of the respondents own gender. The differences in evaluations were not large, but as earlier studies<\/a> have shown, small effects multiply up over time; this is true of salaries and it is true of less tangible attributes such as recognition or collaboration opportunities.<\/p>\n

Somehow we \u2013 again I\u2019d stress this seems to apply to both men and women \u2013 react differently when we see a name on a piece of paper (let alone when we meet the individual) and are less likely to cite a woman or want to collaborate with them. This reaction is apparently so in-built and rapid that it can happen without even noticing that one has taken in the gender of, say, a paper\u2019s author. I have always believed I don\u2019t look at the names at the top of papers \u2013 including those for job applications \u2013 and so am unbiased. This latest paper suggests that, whether or not I have taken in a name sufficiently to be able to recall it, I may still be being influenced, so I will have to work harder on this.<\/p>\n

I have frequently heard calls for reviewing (eg for grant applications or jobs) to be done blind, i.e. with the name removed. I am not convinced, certainly within a country as small as the UK, that this would be meaningful. You cannot remove details of the field being worked in, the papers cited, or the list of publications attached, so how would an anonymous refereeing process actually work? Surely one should keep names in and remind everyone, constantly, to be on their guard for their own hidden biases? But doing the latter is hard, and cannot be dealt with simply superficially.<\/p>\n

To illustrate this let me finish with two linked anecdotes (I know, this isn\u2019t data). The first is from a woman who enquired about how unconscious bias was dealt with at a research council panel. She was told \u2018any funny business is stamped on pretty quickly<\/i>\u2018. Now, what did the official mean by this? That illegal discrimination was spotted and dealt with, or that anyone who has lurking unconscious bias is hauled over the coals? I think it\u2019s easy to see which was intended. But by way of a specific example of the dangers of bias, of the sort that could turn up at a research council panel, let me cite statements from two recent references I saw (edited for the sake of anonymity) for a male and female applicant of roughly equal standing \u2013 the woman happened to be a year further on in her career but had taken time out to have a child \u2013 both with stellar credentials.<\/p>\n

Woman A<\/p>\n

\u2018 a consistent output of more than a dozen papers per year, despite a period of maternity leave and currently working less than full time; more than \u00a32M of current research funding held as PI\u2026.however she is still at a relatively early stage of her career and this makes me uncomfortable about recommending her\u2026.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Man B<\/p>\n

\u2018I should comment on the fact that all but 3 of B\u2019s recent publications do not include Y [his mentor, still in the same department]<\/em> as a co-author. However for about half of these B appears to be the senior author, and presumably the intellectual driving force behind the work\u2026.my overall view is that\u2026he is highly deserving\u2026’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I expect you can see why these two references, in juxtaposition (and with A and B in competition) made me so angry. OK, they weren\u2019t written by the same referee, but in one case the woman is damned with being too early on for serious consideration despite overwhelming evidence for her independence \u2013 through grants and papers – explicitly being presented. On the other hand, when it comes to the man – whose independence is being queried with the referee only using weak words like appears <\/i>and presumably<\/i> regarding what B has achieved – there seems no doubt in the referee’s mind that B is \u2018ready\u2019.<\/p>\n

The panel I was on read these comments and dealt with them appropriately in my view, but not all panels may be so sensitive to seeing this manifestation of the Matilda Effect in practice in letters of reference. Is this a form of ‘funny business’ that needs to be stamped on? I think so, but there is no guarantee that it will be. This is why unconscious bias has to be teased out and discussed at every opportunity. Please distribute the (links to the) papers below as widely as possible, and add more to the reading list. It would be nice to think progress could be made.<\/p>\n

Reading List (in reverse chronological order; this is bound to be very incomplete, as it relies on papers that have happened to cross my path rather than a systematic search, and only covers the last year or so; additions to this list would be welcome).<\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/b>
\nNot Lack of Ability but More Choice: Individual and Gender Differences in Choice of Careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics<\/i> by M-T Wang, JS Eccles and S Kenny published online March 18, 2013, doi: 10.1177\/0956797612458937 in Psychological Science http:\/\/pss.sagepub.com\/content\/early\/2013\/03\/18\/0956797612458937.abstract<\/a>
\nThe Matilda Effect in Science Communication: An Experiment on Gender Bias in Publication Quality Perceptions and Collaboration Interest<\/i> by S Knobloch-Westerwick, C Glynn and M Huge published online February 6 2013 in Science Communication \u00a0http:\/\/scx.sagepub.com\/content\/early\/2013\/01\/24\/1075547012472684.abstract<\/a>
\nIs publication rate an equal opportunity metric?<\/i> EZ Cameron, ME Gray and AM White Trends in Ecology and Evolution 28<\/span> (2013) 7-8 http:\/\/www.cell.com\/trends\/ecology-evolution\/abstract\/S0169-5347%2812%2900275-3<\/a>
\nScience faculty\u2019s subtle gender biases favour male students <\/i>CA Moss-Racusin, JF Dovidio, VL Brescoll, MJ Graham and J Handelsman PNAS 109<\/span> (2012) 16474\u201316479 http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC3478626\/<\/a>
\n\u2018I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s sexism, except that \u2026 It\u2019s all these little subtle things\u2019: Healthcare scientists\u2019 accounts of gender in healthcare science laboratories <\/i>V Bevan and M Learmonth Social Studies of Science 43<\/span> (2013) 136-158 http:\/\/sss.sagepub.com\/content\/43\/1\/136.abstract<\/a>
\nPenalties and Premiums: The Impact of Gender, Marriage, and Parenthood, on Faculty Salaries in SEM and non-SEM Fields <\/i>\u00a0K Kelly and L Grant Social Studies of Science 42<\/span> (2012) 869-896 http:\/\/sss.sagepub.com\/content\/42\/6\/869<\/a>
\nThe academic jungle: ecosystem modelling reveals why women are driven out of research <\/i>KR O\u2019Brien and KP Hapgood Oikos I21<\/span> (2012) 999\u20131004 http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/j.1600-0706.2012.20601.x\/abstract<\/a> <\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To tie in with International Women\u2019s Day, last month Nature ran a series of articles about the issues still facing women in science and also a podcast with Uta Frith and myself debating some of the issues. The interviewer, Charlotte … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,27],"tags":[647,646,429,973],"class_list":["post-3436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-culture","category-women-in-science","tag-gender-stereotypes","tag-matilda-effect","tag-reference-letter","tag-unconscious-bias"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}