10/1/2009

Rice psychologists to study gender bias in scientific, medical job applications

BY FRANZ BROTZEN
Rice News staff

The careers of men versus women are clearly affected by the gender schemas that decision-makers hold. And two Rice researchers are examining the extent to which this happens in academic science.

Mikki Hebl, associate professor of psychology and management, and Randi Martin, the Elma Schneider Professor of Psychology, are on a team that received a $1.5 million grant this summer from the National Institutes of Health to study how merit is assessed in the fields of science and medicine. More than $600,000 of the grant will come to Rice.


	MIKKI HEBL		RANDI MARTIN

People harbor gender schemas, which are general and largely unconscious views about the appropriate roles and behaviors for men and women. Hebl and Martin will examine how these schemas influence gatekeepers in evaluating scientific achievement and promise in three specific areas: letters of recommendation; short lists and job offers; and nominations for awards and prizes.

Hebl and Martin say their ultimate goal is to improve and reduce the gender biases that may exist in the recognition and reward of talent. The research will give search and award committees empirically based information about how to improve evaluations.

An earlier study by Hebl, Martin and Juan Madera, a former Rice psychology graduate student now on the faculty at the University of Houston, examined letters of recommendation for men and women applicants for psychology faculty positions.

The study, which is currently in press at the Journal of Applied Psychology, found that letter writers conformed to general gender schemas. They used more social and communal terms, such as "nice," "friendly" and "helpful," when describing female candidates and more "agentic" terms, such as "active" and "industrious," when describing male candidates. "Communal words express sensitivity and caring while agentic words express initiative and assertiveness," Hebl explained.

"We found that women were significantly more likely to be described in terms that were communal and men were significantly more likely to be described in agentic terms," Hebl said. "Both male and female letter writers were equally likely to do this."

The team then studied whether the people described in communal terms in the letters were evaluated more or less favorably as job applicants. Six senior professors, both men and women, were asked to read a sample of recommendation letters for potential junior faculty members and to rate each applicant in terms of "hireability."

The faculty judges rated letters more negatively the greater the number of social/communal terms that were used. "Communal words were linked with a decreased likelihood of being hired," Hebl said. "Consequently, women were less likely to be rated as hireable than men."

Hebl and Martin plan to expand the investigation of letters to a larger sample of letters written for male and female applicants for medical faculty positions.

The new study will look at hireability to see what links might exist between the language used to describe men and women and their likelihood of winning resources (i.e., funding). It will also explore how such language determines which job candidates are placed on short-lists for interviews or given job offers and whether these characteristics differ for men and women.

Finally, the research will examine what objective characteristics determine whether a person is nominated for prestigious awards or prizes such as admission to the National Academy of Science and whether these characteristics differ for men and women.

The other researchers on the study are Virginia Valian of Hunter College and Elizabeth Travis of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Madera serves as a consultant.