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ESS Newsletter
December 2019
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Hello!
Welcome to the fourth edition of the biannual Engendering Success in STEM Newsletter. We are now halfway through the third year of the ESS Consortium’s activities and are excited to share our most recent accomplishments and research initiatives.
Most recently, on October 24 - 25, 2019, the ESS Consortium hosted its annual meeting at the University of British Columbia. It was an inspiring and thought-provoking day that included renown scholars in social science and STEM education presenting their research and ideas. Day 1 was followed with collaborative discussions between research teams and partners about ongoing and planned projects. It was a very productive event that brought together key stakeholders in education, industry, and beyond in order to further develop and challenge the ways evidence-based interventions can foster a more diverse and inclusive culture for girls and boys, and women and men in STEM. We would like to thank Simon Fraser University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences for their support in funding the event!
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Since our last newsletter update shared in May 2019, the research teams have been busy working closely with our partners to collect data and implement studies with students and professionals in STEM. Each of the project leaders has provided a summary of their ongoing activities and findings. Take a close at each project’s summary for more information.
We also want to congratulate team members who have achieved important milestones: getting jobs, securing postdocs, receiving research awards, and birthing our newest (and cutest) consortium members. And finally, we are excited to highlight a few specific members of our consortium and the work they are doing to promote gender inclusion in STEM fields.
We encourage you to follow us on Twitter @ess_consortium and Facebook @ESSConsortium to keep up to date on ESS related updates, relevant research that we share, and upcoming events.
We hope you enjoy reading about some of our latest achievements to date and we welcome your feedback! We look forward to another productive year of research and data collection and as always, thank you for your collaboration and partnership.
Best regards,
Toni Schmader
Director, ESS Consortium
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ESS Annual Meeting
October, 24 - 25, 2019
Vancouver, BC
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Attendees of the 2019 ESS Symposium and Annual Meeting
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On October 24th and 25th, the ESS Consortium held its 2019 STEM Symposium and Annual Meeting at The University of British Columbia, sponsored by Simon Fraser University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
This highly interactive meeting featured symposia led by ESS researchers on a variety of key topics including barriers to belonging for women in STEM, the role of context in leadership, and engaging men as allies for inclusion. The meeting also featured talks from invited keynote speakers, Lesley Shannon, Mary Wells, Alexa Bailey, and Mesmin Destin. Each talk was interspersed with interactive Q&A sessions with the speakers, as well as table discussions among social scientists, STEM industry leaders, educational outreach experts, and key ESS partners.
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Photo credit: Paul Joseph / UBC Brand and Marketing
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If you are interested in learning more about key takeaways from the meeting, please contact ESS@psych.ubc.ca and we would be happy to provide you with more information that you may find useful within your STEM setting.
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Girls to the Power of Math
The ESS Consortium is excited to feature Alexa Bailey, founder of Girls to the Power of Math, and one of our invited speakers at our recent Annual Meeting. You can find out more about Alexa's background and work with the Girls to the Power of Math program below.
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Alexa Bailey is a Grade 9 student in the Mini Program at Sir Charles Tupper Secondary in East Vancouver. Alexa is the creator of a program called Girls to the Power of Math, a girl-to-girl mentoring program that aims to empower girls to love math. She is the recipient of a grant by the Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology, which helped to fund the program. She was recently awarded the North American wide Girls Living Stem Award and her video “Girls to the Power of Math” is playing at centre stage at Science World in Vancouver.
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Girls to the Power of Math: Empowering Girls to Love Math
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To read more about Alexa, her research, and next steps, see the article in "Medium" HERE, and the interview with Radio Canada in french, HERE.
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Changing the Learning of Implicit Math Biases
Project CLIMB has had another productive year in close collaboration with our partner, Science World at TELUS World of Science in Vancouver. With the close support of one of our newer team members, Dr. Jennifer Steele of York University, we have been focused on developing a variety of new methods to measure children’s gender stereotypes about math and science. Compared with research on children’s math-gender stereotypes, even less is understood about the development of science-gender stereotypes. The CLIMB team has been working to develop appropriate measures and stimuli to reliably characterize the development of these stereotypes.
As well, the Project Climb team has been focused on developing methods that allow us to independently measure different academic stereotypes in children. Indeed, because many measures of academic stereotypes pit different domains against each other (e.g., is one gender stronger at math vs reading), it is difficult to distinguish cases where a pro math+male bias is driven by a true belief that males are stronger in math (relative to females) or whether it is driven by the belief that females are better at reading (compared with math), even if they think females are better at both math and reading relative to males.
Efforts this year by the Project Climb team have centered around establishing new methods to tease these competing hypotheses apart. In other news, we are also gearing up to pilot some work in collaboration with Super Science Club at Science World.
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Promoting Rising Inclusion and STEM Motivation
Project PRISM is pleased to report key successes obtained this year with adolescents ages 11-13 at STEM camps, where dual interventions succeeded in significantly improving girls' STEM interest and boys' respect for girls' abilities. In our work with over 1000 adolescents across 3 years, boys and girls have reported similar fit in their current STEM classes, yet girls' anticipated fit in STEM high school courses and careers lags that of boys.
In summer 2019, our team debuted a novel intervention that significantly reduced this gender gap in future fit, improving girls’ beliefs about their career trajectories in STEM. Specifically, girls who watched a video with near-peer role models discussing STEM fit and also talked with an interventionist about enacting their values and belonging in STEM reported significantly higher anticipated fit and efficacy in STEM, plus elevated interest in STEM high school courses and careers, relative to girls in the control condition. For boys, our team extended the patterns observed in prior years, now observing a significant improvement in boys' attitudes about girls' STEM abilities. Specifically, boys in the treatment condition did a values affirmation, watched a video on latent (or hidden) ability , and discussed with an interventionist how stereotypes can conceal girls’ true abilities. Boys in treatment had improved beliefs of girls’ abilities in STEM (yet unchanged beliefs about boys’ abilities), relative to those in the control condition.
Next steps for Project PRISM include partnering with interested school boards to take these interventions into schools, to test their efficacy and longer-term academic impact with more broadly representative youth samples.
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Shaping Inclusive Network Cultures
Project SINC is exploring the relationship between daily work experiences and the physiology and cognitive functioning of STEM students starting their careers. We have recently finished a series of studies validating approaches for collecting data in workplace settings using smartphones and wearable physiological devices. Our team will launch a series of studies in engineering workplaces in the new year.
In our first major project, we have developed and validated a way of measuring cognitive functioning in people's day-to-day lives. To do this, we took a measure of working memory and modified it for use on a smartphone. Working memory describes people's ability to hold and process information temporarily. It is essential for reasoning and complex decision making. Our pilot project found that we could successfully use our smartphone measure to track how student's working memory fluctuated throughout a day. SINC will be using this measure to explore how early experiences of inclusion at work impact students' daily cognitive abilities.
In another line of work, we have recently completed an initial analysis of a study designed to validate methods for collecting physiological data with devices worn on a person's wrist. Early analyses suggest that these devices can reliably detect physiological changes that occur in response to experiencing a stressor. We have now started new data collection to further validate these devices against other common approaches for collecting physiological data outside of a controlled lab setting.
In sum, SINC is continuing to develop new ways of exploring the impact of inclusion on students' cognitive and physiological functioning. We are excited for workplace data collection to begin in the new year and look forward to developing partnerships with organizations interested in their employee's day-to-day workplace experiences.
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Realizing Identity Safe Environments
Project RISE is thrilled to announce that data collection is officially underway for the RISE Workshop Study (our “Cultivating Collaborative Cultures” intervention). We launched participant recruitment with our first partner in May 2019 and debuted our first pair of RISE Workshops in June. Feedback from the participating employees was very positive.
Our RISE workshops are part of a randomized controlled trial designed to test the effectiveness of a half-day workshop (“Inclusive Innovation”) that combines the best research-based practices for promoting inclusion and positive interpersonal relationships in the workplace. We compare this workshop to a second half-day workshop (“Influential Leaders”) that focuses on leadership in science and engineering (STEM) contexts, integrating research from the University of Toronto’s Troost Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering. We aim to test the relative effectiveness of each of these workshops raising participants’ relevant knowledge and awareness, as well as boosting their motivation and ability to engage in concrete allyship or leadership behaviors in their organization. Notably, this study spans a 22 to 24-month period, allowing us to track potential changes in workplace culture over time.
Looking forward, our team is launching data collection with two additional partners in November 2019, with six new pairs of workshops scheduled through January 2020. We are also in the process of bringing on board new organizational partners. If you know a company or organization who might be interested in participating in this project, please encourage them to email us at rise@psych.ubc.ca.
As a complement to our main intervention study, members of our RISE team have conducting lab, field, and online studies with both student and non-student samples to test components of this workshop. One highlight is the development of a visual simulation and interactive tool to simulate bias and allyship behavior in organizational networks. We have now presented the visual simulation component of this project to audiences at the Engineering Change Lab, the National Research Council, and an upper-division civil engineering class at UBC, with an overwhelmingly positive reception.
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Welcome New Research Members
Francine Karmali, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, joined Liz Page-Gould at University of Toronto
Haemi Nam, Grad student, Ohio State University, Social Psychology
Arya Awale, Grad student, University of Waterloo, Social Psychology
Jonathan Mendal, Grad student, Simon Fraser University, Social Psychology
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Recent Awards & Announcements
Congratulations to ESS team members who received recent awards and positions:
- Andy Baron was awarded the UBC Killam Research Prize recognizing outstanding research and scholarly contributions in the field of Psychology in February, 2019.
- Hilary Bergsieker was awarded the Oktoberfest Rogers Women of the Year Award for excellence in STEAM, recognizing women for outstanding advancement to the field of STEAM in October, 2019.
- Liz Page-Gould became a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.
- Hilary Bergsieker was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure at the University of Waterloo.
- Sheryl Staub-French was appointed Associate Dean of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the Faculty of Applied Science.
- Will Hall will move into a Co-applicant position on the ESS project.
- Antonya Gonzalez accepted a position as an Assistant Professor at Western Washington University that started this past fall. Antonya will move into a Collaborator position on the ESS project.
- Simon Lolliot will move into a Collaborator position on the ESS project.
- Andy Baron accepted a position on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.
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Hilary Bergsieker accepting the Oktoberfest Rogers Women of the Year Award
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Consortium Member Profile
We talked with Francine Karmali, Post Doctoral Candidate (University of Toronto) to learn more about her research.
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Hi Francine, what was the path that led you to study Social Psychology?
I knew I wanted to do research in social psychology after taking a course on intergroup processes in my third year as an undergraduate at York University in Toronto. I was introduced to seminal social psychological theories related to prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination, as well as, impressive methodological tools to capture hidden biases such as the Implicit Association Task. I found this course fascinating, as it presented forward-thinking research that had clear implications for social inequality, its roots, and its consequences. On the last day of class I approached the course instructor, Dr. Kerry Kawakami, who agreed to supervise my honours thesis, and then later my master’s thesis and PhD dissertation! Dr. Kawakami is not only an inspiring, brilliant, and renowned social psychologist, but an incredible supervisor and advocator. Her passion for social psychology has inspired me for many years and continues to do so!
Can you tell me a bit about your Ph.D. research at York University?
I was fortunate to have many research opportunities at York University during my PhD. One program of research followed from my master’s thesis work examining the discrepancy between predicted and actual responses to explicit expressions of outgroup racism. This work used methodology from psychophysiology and cognitive psychology to support our previous findings, suggesting that witnesses of outgroup racism often respond with affective and behavioral apathy, despite expecting feelings of distress and egalitarian behavior. In another lines of research, I have investigated the pervasiveness of color and conflict blind behavior (ignoring race and conflict) in negative intergroup contexts, and the development of implicit racial biases among children, to name a few.
My Ph.D. dissertation research, however, focused on the intersection of race and nonverbal behavior, suggesting that race can change the meanings that we draw from other peoples’ body positions. To demonstrate this, in a series of studies, participants viewed standardized photographs of White and Black men. Results revealed that White men in expansive compared to constrictive poses were perceived as more dominant and competent, more professionally successful, and were chosen more often as a partner for an upcoming partner task. Black men in the same expansive compared to constrictive poses, however, were perceived as more dominant but not more competent and more aggressive and unwarm. Although Black men in expansive compared to constrictive poses were perceived as more professionally successful, this effect was significantly stronger for White men. Finally, unlike White men, Black men in expansive poses were not more likely to be chosen as a partner. This work revealed that although White men benefited from expansive poses, Black men experienced significantly fewer advantages from the same body pose, providing novel evidence that stereotypes of Blacks can impact how we perceive their bodies. This perceptual bias might have serious implications for the lives of Blacks (e.g., think Black Lives Matter).
What are you currently working on within the ESS research team as a postdoc at University of Toronto?
I am excited to be collaborating with Project SINC on a variety of research projects generally aimed at understanding and then removing the barriers that women in STEM face during their transition from academic to professional contexts. For example, in one program of research, we are recruiting STEM university students who are in their first co-op placement to report on their workplace interactions. Specifically, using daily log and experience sampling methodologies, we are investigating whether women are more likely than men to experience negative social interactions associated with feelings of social identity threat during their first workplace experiences, and whether these types of interactions predict less identification with STEM, psychological burnout, and impairments in working memory. By providing a window into women’s daily encounters and the consequences of these experiences for their success in STEM, this research can inform inclusion intervention strategies. We are also conducting a series of studies comparing the efficiency and precision of various ambulatory devises that measure physiological activity. This work will help advance our future research examining the role of physiological stress in women’s experiences when transitioning from university to the workplace.
What was your main inspiration for joining the ESS team?
I am thrilled to be a member of the ESS research team because of the opportunity to work on such important research questions. Since beginning research in Social Psychology, I have been motivated by goals that align with the goals of ESS; understanding and intervening social inequalities. The inspirational research being conducted at ESS have direct implications for the success of girls and women struggling to contend with stereotypes that create barriers in STEM. My post-doc supervisor, Dr. Elizabeth Page-Gould, who has been incredibly supportive and encouraging, was also a huge inspiration and motivator for joining ESS. I also feel tremendously lucky and honoured to be working alongside so many brilliant and inspiring researchers that I have admired for years. ESS Director Dr. Toni Schmader and the other professors and professionals at ESS have been so warm and welcoming. The friendly atmosphere has made my first few months with ESS an absolute pleasure! ESS is also filled with enthusiastic and bright grad students and post-docs and I am so excited to be part of this amazing consortium!
How do you see your research as applying to gender inclusion and diversity more broadly?
So far, my research has focused on racial biases and their consequences, but its theoretical implications apply to social category biases more broadly. Results related to my research comparing predicted versus actual responses to outgroup racism, for instance, may have implications for investigations into responses to sexism. For example, if a manager inaccurately predicts how they would respond to sexism in the workplace (expect they would be angry rather than scared) they may question a sexual harassment victim’s credibility after learning that the woman did not immediately confront her harasser.
Furthermore, research suggests a large portion of communication during social interaction happen through nonverbal channels. My dissertation research more broadly suggests that meanings inferred from nonverbal behaviors can be impacted by social category information. Future research can examine whether gender impacts the trait information we glean from nonverbal behaviors, whether these gender biases have implications for women’s professional and interpersonal success in STEM, and whether interventions that combat nonverbal gender biases can improve outcomes for women in STEM. Currently at the University of Toronto, I am observing engineering students during a group problem solving task in the lab and investigating the relationships between their nonverbal behaviors, perceptions of personality their traits, evaluations such as leadership and authenticity, and feelings of group harmony. This research will shed light on the kinds of nonverbal behaviors that men and women engineering students use during group work and how effective these nonverbal behaviors are at creating positive impressions and successful interactions.
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We talked with our partner, Susan Hollett, with the WinSETT Leadership Program, to learn more about what the organization does and their involvement in ESS:
Hi Susan, tell us a little bit about WinSETT.
The Canadian Centre for Women in Science, Engineering, Trades and Technology (the WinSETT Centre) is a wonderful federally incorporate not for profit focused solely on the retention, support and advancement of women in SETT.
We created the Women in SETT Leadership program (6 full day workshops for women in SETT that supports their success at work) and offer it to women across the country.
We support employers in their efforts to make their workplaces more respectful and inclusive through projects, advisory services and thirteen different 90-minute Special Topics.
We are the only national organization that has been working with women in all sectors in all occupations within science, engineering, trades and technology.
How do WinSETT's workshops help to advance the goals of gender inclusion and diversity?
The workshops are grounded in research with Canadian women in SETT and best practices in leadership growth. Like many leadership programs, the program includes self-assessment, self-reflection, group discussion, guest speakers, personal experience and best practices. The program provides key learnings in networking, mentorship, sponsorship, negotiation, communication, emotional intelligence, navigating politics and others, all based on the realities of women working in SETT workplaces.
As one of our key data collection partners, can you tell us about your involvement with Project RISE?
We had partnered with Dr. Toni Schmader in her work on gender bias in engineering and were delighted to be asked to continue that relationship as a Project RISE partner. We worked closely with the team in the creation of the Project RISE workshops and now that we are in implementation, WinSETT facilitators (we have 10 across the country) are co-delivering them. It is important work and we learn as much as we contribute from the Project RISE team.
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Susan Hollett facilitating table discussions at the 2019 ESS Symposium and Annual Meeting
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Photo credit: Paul Joseph / UBC Brand and Marketing
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Upcoming Events and Talks
RISE Workshops
Project RISE is currently developing two evidence-based workshops on collaborative cultures that are set to launch in 2019. This randomized control trial will use the best scientific practices to test the effectiveness of a cutting-edge intervention designed to mitigate implicit bias and create cultural change.
To read more about the RISE workshops, visit the RISE research page.
Interested in becoming a RISE partner? Visit the RISE project page to learn more about how your organization can contribute to ESS research and benefit through participation in the project.
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Select Talks and Presentations
- Andy Baron - Ramat Gan, Israel, December 2018. "Foundations of intergroup bias". Bar-Ilan University.
- Sheryl-Staub French - Vancouver, BC, May 2019. “Mentorship and Beyond: What you can do as an individual, community, and organization to create a more inclusive engineering profession". Engineers and Geoscientists of BC.
- Sheryl-Staub French - Vancouver, BC, May 2019. "Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Engineering: challenges and approaches to creating an inclusive culture”. Association of Consulting Engineering Companies, 2019 Young Professionals Conference.
- Toni Schmader - Vancouver, BC, May 2019. "Cultivating inclusive workplace cultures". Creating Connections. Vancouver, BC.
- Tara Dennehy - Vancouver, BC, May 2019. "Crafting Inclusive Job Ads". Creating Connections.
- Tara Dennehy - Webinar, May 2019. "Cues for Engineering Inclusion? Results from a Survey of Workplace Culture” [Presentation of findings from the RISE Workplace Culture Survey]. Mining Industry Human Resources Council webinar.
- Sheryl-Staub French - Vancouver, BC, June 2019. “Breaking Barriers & Building Careers: my approaches for overcoming challenges". Canadian Construction Women.
- Sheryl-Staub French - Montreal, QUE, June 2019. “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Engineering: the data, the challenges, and a path forward". Canadian Society of Civil Engineering Meeting of Department Heads.
- Tara Dennehy - San Diego, CA, June 2019. "Threatened belonging: Interpersonal consequences of stereotype threat and subtle sexism". Annual conference for the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.
- Tara Dennehy - Vancouver, BC, June 2019. “Gender bias in hiring: What it is (and isn’t), where it comes from, how to combat it.” University of British Columbia, Sauder School of Business.
- Toni Schmader - Visegrad, Hungary, July 2019. "Cracking the culture code: A tri-level model for cultivating inclusion in organizations". Symposium on Applications of Social Psychology.
- Emily Cyr - Waterloo, ON, August 21, 2019. "Inclusion at Google Waterloo: Workplace Culture Survey". Google Waterloo.
- Tara Dennehy - Vancouver, BC, September 2019. “Gender bias in STEM hiring: What it is (and isn’t), where it comes from, how to combat it.” TRIUMF.
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Academic Publications
- Gonzalez, A., Oh, H., & Baron, A.S. (in press). Implicit bias and the classroom. In. F. Worrell & T. Hughes (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Applied School Psychology. Cambridge University Press.
- Hall, W. M., Schmader, T., Aday, A., and Croft, E. (2019). Decoding the dynamics of social identity threat in the workplace: A within-person analysis of women’s and men’s interactions in STEM. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10, 542-552. doi/10.1177/1948550618772582
- He, J. C., Côté, S. (in press). Is self-insight into emotional and cognitive abilities related to adjustment? Nature Human Behaviour. *Registered Report
- He, J.C., Kang, S.K., Tse, K., & Toh, S.M. (in press). Stereotypes at work: Occupational stereotypes predict race and gender segregation in the workforce. Journal of Vocational Behavior.
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Régner, I., Thinus-Blanc, C., Netter, A., Schmader, T., & Huguet, P. (2019). Implicit bias predicts promoting fewer women in science when evaluators deny discrimination. Nature Human Behavior, DOI.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0686-32019)
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Croft, A., Schmader, T., & Block, K. (2019) Life in the balance: Are women’s career goals constrained by men’s domestic involvement? Personality and Social Psychological Bulletin, 45, 808-823. Doi.org/10.1177/0146167218797294
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Croft, A., Schmader, T., Beall, A., & Schaller, M. (in press). Breadwinner seeks bottle warmer: How women’s future goals predict their mate preferences. Sex Roles.
- Schmader, T., Bergsieker, H.B., & Hall, W.M. (in press). Cracking the culture code: A tri-level model for cultivating inclusion in organizations. Invited chapter to appear in J. Forgas, B. Crano & K. Fiedler (Eds.), Applications of Social Psychology.
Would you like a PDF of any of these publications? Send an email to ESS@psych.ubc.ca to request one.
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- "Not all instances of gender inequality are equally concerning..." - Kate Block, ESS Grad Student, Reddit, September, 2019
- "American Psychologists want you to understand how racism holds our country back" - Toni Schmader, ESS Faculty Member and Consortium Director, Los Angeles Times, December 21, 2018
- "How young women view men affects how they imagine their future selves" - Toni Schmader, ESS Faculty Member and Consortium Director, Science Daily, December 4, 2018
- "Bosses who do not believe in gender bias seen hiring few women" - Toni Schmader, ESS Faculty Member and Consortium Director, Reuters, August 26, 2019
- "Female scientists 'at disadvantage when applying for promotions' as majority of scientists associate career with masculinity" - Toni Schmader, ESS Faculty Member and Consortium Director, iNews, August 26, 2019
- "Is Gender Bias Really Impacting The Hiring Of Women In STEM" - Toni Schmader, ESS Faculty Member and Consortium Director, Forbes, August 29, 2019
- "Employers who ignore gender bias promote fewer women" - Toni Schmader, ESS Faculty Member and Consortium Director, CBC, August 27, 2019
- "Belief in Gender Bias and Promotions for Women" - Toni Schmader, ESS Faculty Member and Consortium Director, Inside Higher Ed, August 27, 2019
- "Scientists avoid gender bias when they know they’re being tested for bias" - Toni Schmader, ESS Faculty Member and Consortium Director, Ars Technica, August 27, 2019
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We welcome Alan (Liz Page-Gould) to our consortium! The engineering folk (as well as the broader scientific community) may appreciate that he is named after Alan Turing! :)
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ESS Website
Make sure to check out our redesigned website! Visit SuccessInSTEM.ca to view all the new features, including:
- Live Twitter feed
- Consortium news page
- Exclusive resources for partners
- Improved search features
- Updated project sites
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Contribute to ESS News
Interested in submitting content to our social media pages?
Follow this link to contribute content to the ESS News Centre: https://goo.gl/forms/gVGbsP5BoZ8GYxUt2
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Our social media channels are growing! Stay in touch with us.
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