1. Dr. Jenna P. Carpenter, Dean School of Engineering Campbell University
Implicit Bias
Dr. Jenna P. Carpenter, Dean
School of Engineering
Campbell University

2. Implicit Bias Implicit Bias
Implicit or unconscious or unintended bias describes attitudes, thinking, stereotypes & behaviors that affect our understanding, actions, judgments & decisions about a particular group of people (like women or underrepresented minorities in STEM fields)
Implicit Bias

3. Implicit Bias
Implicit bias is responsible for much of the chilly climate women & underrepresented minorities experience in non-stereotypical roles (scientist, mathematician, engineer, dean, department head, researcher).

4. Implicit Biases... ...come from our society’s culture.
...are often at odds with our conscious beliefs & values.
...are not our “fault”.
...are often absorbed at a young age.
Because we are not aware of implicit biases, they can be far more powerful (and damaging) than our conscious beliefs and values.
We think we are being fair when we are not.

5. Implicit Bias
Implicit biases are fueled by stereotypes in our culture (NOT by our personal gender, race, ethnicity,…).
Therefore:
Men and women tend to have similar biases about gender.
Whites and people of color tend to have similar biases about race/ethnicity.

6. Research-Based Examples
Evaluation of resumes
Working with students
Leadership opportunities
Letters of recommendation

7. Identical Resumes - Gender
When evaluating identical application packages as part of a search, male & female psychology professors preferred 2:1 to hire “Brian” over “Karen” as an assistant professor – even though their application packages were identical.
This type of study has been replicated numerous times (Moss-Racusin et al, 2012).
Steinpreis, Anders, & Ritzke. (1999). Sex Roles, 41, 509.

8. Identical Resumes - Race
In a study, applicants with African American-sounding names had to send 15 resumes to get a callback, compared to 10 resumes by applicants with white-sounding names.
White-sounding names yielded as many more callbacks as an additional eight years of experience.
The higher the resume quality, the larger the gap between callbacks.
Dovidio & Gaertner. (2000). Psychological Science, 11,

9. Students
Faculty are more likely to respond to s from students with white-sounding names (Milkman et al., 2014).
Students from cultures that don’t emphasize self-promotion in education or who have lower levels of academic prep are over-looked (Ragins, 1999; Eagan et al., 2011b).

10. Leadership Implicit biases paint women as poor leaders:
Mothers suffer a huge penalty at work, dads get a positive bump (Williams, 2004).
Women undervalue their skills & achievements, men overestimate theirs (Pajares & Schunk, 2001; Wigfield et al.,1996).
Women can’t/shouldn’t be confident, assertive, self-promoting,... (Enloe, 2004; Flammang,1997).*
Joan Williams UC Hastings School of Law - Motherhood penalty order of magnitude worse than all other biases

11. *Gender + Race Matters
Black women are not penalized for dominant behaviors.
White women are.
Latinas who are assertive are “angry” and “emotional.”
Asian women are pressured to demonstrate very traditionally feminine behavior (Williams, 2015).
Women of color often encounter overt bias.
Race is gendered
AAUW, Barriers and Bias: The Status of Women in Leadership, 2016.

12. Letters of Recommendation
Letters of recommendation written for Men:
Are longer
Contain more references to their CV
Discuss publications
Present them as colleagues

13. Letters of Recommendation
Letters of recommendation written for Women:
Are shorter
Contain more references to their personal lives
Contain more “doubt raisers” (hedges, faint praise, irrelevancies)
Its amazing how much she’s accomplished.
It appears her health is stable.
She is close to my wife.
Trix & Psenka. (2003). Discourse & Society, Vol. 14(2):

14. But does it really matter?
Virginia Valian’s Accumulation of Advantage & Disadvantage:
Implicit bias fuels microinequities that accumulate over time and can have major consequences in salary, promotion and prestige, including advancement to leadership positions.
Answer: YES!!
Small differences in treatment
Valian, V. (1998). Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

15. There’s more...
There are lots of other studies that confirm implicit bias – faculty teaching evaluations (MacNeil, Driscoll, Hunt, 2015)…
Check out the Project Implicit IAT or Implicit Association Tests at:

16. Strategies for breaking the cycle
Acknowledge that we are all influenced by implicit bias.
Develop objective, specific criteria, key points before evaluating resumes or applications, writing letters, etc., and use them (less ambiguity = less implicit bias).
Take your time (we are more susceptible to the influence of implicit bias when we are in a hurry).

17. More strategies!
Catch yourself/each other (Ponin, Lin, Ross, 2013) being influenced by implicit bias & redirect thoughts/actions (awareness builds over time).
Manage around biases: don’t interrupt others; don’t attack others’ ideas; rotate team roles - leader, lab, note-taking, speaking; credit women for their ideas.