Erin Leahey Laura Hunter University of Arizona
Why, despite remarkable gains in many fields, are women still noticeably underrepresented in scientific fields? Biased assessments of competence may be partly responsible. This dissertation research will test whether gender affects evaluations of scientific competence, by both self and others. Just as women's capabilities are underestimated in other realms, they may also be underestimated in science, thereby promoting the use of double standards when evaluating men's and women's competence. To test this hypothesis, the co-PI will design and execute two experiments. Both experiments will investigate processes in three natural science fields -- biology, chemistry, and physics -- because these fields differ in ways likely relevant to assessments of competence, such as required skills and degree of gender integration. Thus, the results will be applicable to multiple scientific fields. The first, laboratory-based experiment will assess bias in self-assessments, and will rely on college students (as potential scientists) for subjects. The second, survey-based experiment will assess bias in the assessments of others, and will rely on working scientists as respondents. Participating scientists will evaluate the curricula vitae and a research proposal of a hypothetical junior scientist (randomly assigned to be either male or female) and indicate whether they would recommend the hypothetical scientist for hire. Both experiments will rely on status characteristic theory and will test recently proposed extensions of the theory's scope. Together, the experiments will allow the researcher to speak to the relevance of gender in both self-assessments and assessments by others. As such, it will be a particularly strong test of the role of biased assessments in producing and perpetuating gender inequality in science. By testing a potentially important mechanism "biased assessments" the proposed research will advance our understanding of why women and men pursue, persist, and succeed in science to different degrees. Furthermore, the tightly controlled nature of the experimental design will permit a disentangling of competence assessments from other potential mechanisms, such as attitudes toward science and individual preferences, thereby allowing the researcher to adjudicate between competing explanations. A primary goal of this research is to contribute to the development of a more coherent framework for understanding the mechanisms that produce gender inequality in science.
Broader Impact
The research also has potentially broad policy and educational implications. If the research finds that the same research proposal is evaluated more favorably when it is assumed to be written by a man, the procedures for reviewing grant and fellowship proposals (and even non-blinded manuscripts) should perhaps be revised. If familiarizing female students with a renowned female scientist increases their assessment of their own scientific ability, the accomplishments of female scientists should perhaps be highlighted in science education. Both of these efforts may ultimately help limit biased evaluations in science.
