What We Know About Climate Problems in Philosophy:
Climate and the Methods/Content of Philosophy:
Climate and Representation of Women, Minorities in Philosophy:
Classroom Interventions from Social Psychology:
Effects of class content and teaching/assessment methods on student performance:
Effects of class content on sense of belonging, classroom unity:
Further information:
See also Virginia Valian’s tutorials on gender in science.
Works Cited:
Aberson, C. Porter, M. and A. Gaffney. (2008). “Friendships predict Hispanic student’s implicit attitudes toward Whites relative to African Americans,” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 30: 544–556.
Achtziger, A., Gollwitzer, P., and Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation Intentions and shielding goal striving from unwanted thoughts and feelings. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(3), 381-393.
Adleberg, T., Thompson, M., & Nahmias, E. (forthcoming). Do Men and Women Have Different Philosophical Intuitions? Further Data. Philosophical Psychology. Published online 2/14/14: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2013.878834
Ambady, N., Paik, S. K., Steele, J., Owen-Smith, A., & Mitchell, J. P. (2004). Deflecting negative self-relevant stereotype activation: The effects of individuation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 401-408.
Baron, S., Dougherty, T., & Miller, K. (Manuscript). Why is there female underrepresentation among philosophy majors? Evidence of pre-university effects.
Blair, Irene V.; Ma, Jennifer E.; Lenton, Alison P. (2001). Imagining stereotypes away: The moderation of implicit stereotypes through mental imagery. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 828-841.
Cheryan, S., Drury, B. J., & Vichayapai, M. (2013). Enduring influence of stereotypical computer science role models on women's academic aspirations. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 37, 72-79.
Cheryan, S., Plaut, V. C., Davies, P., & Steele, C. M. (2009). Ambient belonging: How stereotypical cues impact gender participation in computer science. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 1045-1060.
Cherry, M. (2013). The state of black women in philosophy. Diversity in Philosophy Conference. University of Dayton, Dayton, OH. 31 May 2013. Conference Presentation.
Cohen, G. L. & Steele, C. M. (2002). A barrier of mistrust: How stereotypes affect cross-race mentoring. In J. Aronson (Ed.), Improving academic achievement: Impact of psychological factors on education (pp. 305–331). Oxford, England: Academic Press.
Cohen, G. L., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., & Master, A. (2006). Reducing the racial achievement gap: A social-psychological intervention. Science, 313, 1307-1310.
Dar-Nimrod, I., Heine, S. (2006). Exposure to Scientific Theories Affects Women's Math Performance. Science, 314(5798), 435-435.
Dasgupta, N. & L. Rivera (2008). “When social context matters: The influence of long-term contact and short-term exposure to admired group members on implicit attitudes and behavioral intentions,” Social Cognition, 26: 112–123.
Drury, B. J., Siy, J. O., & Cheryan, S. (2011). When do female role models benefit women? The importance of differentiating recruitment from retention in STEM. Psychological Inquiry, 22, 265-269.
Dweck, C. (2008). Mindsets and Math/Science Achievement. Published at http://www.growthmindsetmaths.com/uploads/2/3/7/7/23776169/mindset_and_math_science_achievement_-_nov_2013.pdf
Good, C., Aronson, J., & Inzlicht, M. (2003). Improving adolescents’ standardized test performance: An intervention to reduce the effects of stereotype threat. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24(6), 645-662.
Good, C., Aronson, J., & Harder, J. (2008). Problems in the pipeline: Stereotype threat and women's achievement in high-level math courses. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29(1), 17-28.
Gresky, D. M.,Ten Eyck, L. L., Lord, C. G., & McIntyre, R. B. (2005). Effects of salient multiple identities on women’s performance under mathematics stereotype threat. Sex Roles, 53(9- 10), 703-716.
Johns, J., Inzlicht, M., & Schmader, T. (2008). Stereotype threat and executive resource depletion: Examining the influence of emotion regulation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 137, 691-705.
McIntyre, R. B., Paulson, R. M., & Lord, C. G. (2003). Alleviating women’s mathematics stereotype threat through salience of group achievements. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 83-90.
Mendoza, S., Gollwitzer, P., and Amodio, D. (2010). Reducing the Expression of Implicit Stereotypes: Reflexive Control Through Implementation Intentions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(4), 512-523.
Monteith, M., 1993, “Self-regulation of prejudiced responses: Implications for progress in prejudice-reduction efforts,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(3): 469-485.
Monteith, M., Ashburn-Nardo, L., Voils, C., and A. Czopp, A., 2002, “Putting the brakes on prejudice: on the development and operation of cues for control,” Journal of personality and social psychology,” 83(5): 1029-1050.
Seyedsayamdost, H. (Forthcoming). On gender and philosophical intuition: Failure of replication and other negative results. Philosophical Psychology.
Shih, M., Pittinsky, T. L., & Ambady, N. (1999). Stereotype susceptibility: Identity salience and shifts in quantitative performance. Psychological Science, 10, 80-83.
Spencer, Q. (2013). How's it going for blacks in philosophy? Diversity in Philosophy Conference. University of Dayton, Dayton, OH. 31 May 2013. Conference Presentation.
Stephens, Hamedani, & Destin. (2014). Closing the Social-Class Achievement Gap: A Difference-Education Intervention Improves First-Generation Students’ Academic Performance and All Students’ College Transition. Psychological science, 25(4), 943-953.
Thoman, D. B., White, P. H., Yamawaki, N., & Koishi, H. (2008). Variations of gender-math stereotype content affect women’s vulnerability to stereotype threat. Sex Roles, 58, 702–712. doi:10.1007/s11199-008-9390.x
Thompson, M., Adleberg, T., Sims, S., & Nahmias, E. (Manuscript). Why do Women Leave Philosophy?
Thompson, M., Adleberg. T., Bright, L., Sims, S., & Nahmias, E. (Manuscript). Why do Blacks Leave Philosophy?
Walton, G. & Cohen, G.L. (2007). A question of belonging: Race, social fit, and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 82-96.
Walton, G. M., Logel, C., Peach, J. M., Spencer, S., & Zanna, M. P. (2014). Two interventions to boost women’s achievement in engineering: Social-belonging and self-affirmation-training. Journal of Educational Psychology.
Yeager, D., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., Brzustoski, P., Master, A., Hessert, W., Williams, M., & Cohen, G. (2011). Lifting a barrier of mistrust: “Wise” critical feedback to racial minorities. Unpublished manuscript.
Climate and the Methods/Content of Philosophy:
- Contra Buckwalter & Stich (2010/2014), women do not have different philosophical intuitions on a variety of thought experiments than men (Seyedsayamdost Forthcoming, Adleberg, Thompson, & Nahmias Forthcoming).
- The top 5 Areas of Study for Black philosophers are different than those of the discipline as a whole, suggesting that Black philosophers (and presumably, Black students) study particular areas of philosophy at a higher rate than non-Black philosophers. The reason for these differences are still unknown (Cherry 2013, Spencer 2013).
- Women to a greater extent than men prefer observational methods distinctive in psychology to the method of thought experiments to investigate the same topic (Turri & Buckwalter manuscript). Students who disliked the method of thought experiments were less likely to report wanting to continue taking philosophy classes (Thompson, Adleberg, Sims, & Nahmias manuscript).
- Female undergraduates did not perceive the philosophy classroom to be “too combative” and did not feel “uncomfortable with the confrontational nature of some philosophical discussions”. Their responses did not differ from male students’ responses on a climate survey given in Introduction to Philosophy courses at Georgia State University (Thompson, Adleberg, Sims, & Nahmias manuscript).
- Further, Thompson, Adleberg, Sims, & Nahmias (manuscript) found that both women and Black students are more like to perceive philosophy as useless for getting a job than men and White students. They found that although providing students with a 10-minute presentation on the usefulness of a philosophy major increased all students’ perceptions of the usefulness of philosophy for getting a job and their willingness to continue taking philosophy classes, the intervention did not disproportionately increase female and/or Black students’ willingness to continue taking philosophy classes compared to male and/or White students. (Though Baron, Dougherty, Miller manuscript did not find evidence for this hypothesis in their climate survey given to introductory students at the University of Sydney).
- Women students also feel like the issues discussed in their classes are less relevant to their lives than men. Black students were more likely than their White peers to agree that they would have enjoyed the course more if it had been different in a number of ways (e.g., more class discussion, more non-philosophy readings) (Thompson, Adleberg, Sims, & Nahmias manuscript).
- Finally, women felt less belonging in the philosophy classroom than men; they were less comfortable speaking in class, less confident in the ability to perform well on exams and on papers, less likely to believe that “people like me” could succeed in philosophy (Thompson, Adleberg, Sims, & Nahmias manuscript).
- Some evidence suggests that women enter university philosophy courses already disproportionately less likely to major in philosophy, less interested in the subject, less likely to believe they could succeed in philosophy, less able to imagine themselves as philosophers, and already predicting that they would feel less comfortable during classroom discussions (Baron, Dougherty, Miller manuscript).
Climate and Representation of Women, Minorities in Philosophy:
- Although women made up only 10% of authors on introductory philosophy syllabi and women perceived the gender ratio of authors to be unfair, increasing the proportion of women authors to 20% did not make women more likely to consider continuing in philosophy (Thompson, Adleberg, Sims, & Nahmias manuscript). The increase in proportion did, however, increase all students’ perceptions of the fairness of the gender ratio of authors, although women continued to report that the gender ratio was unfair at a higher rate than men.
- Previous studies found a positive correlation between the number of female faculty members in a department and the number of female majors (Paxton, Figdor, Tiberius 2012), but later studies found no evidence that the gender of instructor influences women’s willingness to continue in philosophy (Thompson, Adleberg, Sims, & Nahmias manuscript, Baron, Dougherty, & Miller manuscript).
Classroom Interventions from Social Psychology:
Effects of class content and teaching/assessment methods on student performance:
- Class Content:
When asked to provide a list of 8 or more friends, many students failed to provide a full list. When Black students were provided with an alternative hypothesis for this perceived lack of friends (i.e., that all students face struggles during the transition to college), Black students earned better GPAs, spent more time studying each week, and felt less doubt about their social belonging (Walton & Cohen 2007).
If first generation college students are underrepresented in philosophy, then we may want to include interventions that make the philosophy classroom more welcoming for first-generation college students. Just acknowledging the social class issues experienced by first generational college students when providing success and struggle stories can encourage first generation college students to seek more help (e.g., from advisors) and so earn higher GPAs (Stephens, Hamedani, Destin 2014).
Encouraging students to focus on their own values and identities can improve women’s performance on math tests (Gresky, Teneyck, Lord, McIntyre 2005). Alternatively, activating the stereotype that Asian-Americans perform well on quantitative exams (vs. that women perform poorly on quantitative exams) improved Asian-American women’s performance on math exams (Shih, Pittinsky, and Ambady 1999).
African-American students who were asked to self-affirm their values in a classroom activity increased their GPAs by .3 grade points in all classes compared to the group asked to perform a non-self-affirmation task (Cohen, Garcia, Apfel, & Master 2006).
Merely reading an essay about successful women can improve women’s scores on a math test in comparison to women who read an essay about a successful corporation (McIntyre, Paulson, & Lord 2003).
When students are told that gender differences on a test are due to innate differences (as opposed to experience or effort), women performed less accurately on a following test (Thoman, White, Yamawaki, & Koishi 2008, Dar-Nimrod & Heine 2006).
- Teaching/Assessment Methods:
Grading anonymously can improve grades …. Communicating the fairness of assessments can help women perform just as well as men on math tests (Good, Aronson, & Harder 2008).
Other work suggests that appropriate framing of critical feedback (i.e., as reflecting the instructor’s high standards and their confidence in students’ abilities to meet those standards) can help improve outcomes (Cohen & Steele 2002, Yeager et al. 2011).
Some evidence suggests that teaching students to reappraise their arousal (i.e., anxiety) as a possible benefit for strong performance can help buffer students against stereotype threat (Johns, Inzlicht, & Schmader 2008). Reappraisal involves reinterpreting one’s arousal from a negative emotional state to an emotional state with the benefit of improving attention to details.
Teaching students that their brain is like a muscle that can gain strength through practice has proven effective in closing the gender gap in math performance (Dweck 2008).
Mentors can also help students by emphasizing the plasticity of intelligence or external, universal difficulties as the cause of academic struggles, both of which can close the gender gap in mathematical performance on standardized tests (Good, Aronson, & Inzlicht 2003).
Effects of class content on sense of belonging, classroom unity:
- For women who are already committed to a field, instructors can emphasize that all students have shared interest in the major with each other in order to promote social belonging (Walton, Logel, Peach, Spencer, & Zanna 2014). [meaning a little unclear, here.]
- Physical cues (e.g., posters, website photos) in an environment can also communicate to women and minorities that they do not belong in a field (Cheryan, Plaut, Davies, & Steele 2009). Alternatively, physical cues can be used to communicate to women and minorities that they belong in a classroom. For example, using mental imagery to imagine a counter-stereotypical member of a group (e.g., a strong woman) can reduce implicit bias as measured by an Implicit Association Test (IAT) (Blair, Ma, Lenton 2001). Similarly, Dasgupta and Greenwald (2001) found that showing participants images of liked Black individuals and disliked White individuals both reduced pro-White attitudes on IATs.
- Among students not majoring in computer science, exposure to non-stereotypical role models in the field of either gender were more effective at increasing women students’ interest in the field (Cheryan, Drury, and Vichayapai 2013). When recruiting women to a field, the gender of the role model is irrelevant for women’s willingness to continue in the field. Instead, it matters whether or not the role model is counter-stereotypical (e.g., a Computer Science professor who enjoys American Beauty instead of Star Wars) (Drury, Siy, & Cheryan 2011). However, other evidence suggests that the number of women leaders and course instructors students are exposed to (at a women’s college vs. a coed college) affects students’ automatic gender stereotypes (Dasgupta and Asgari 2004). In fact, students in classes that were taught by male faculty members in male-dominated disciplines experienced an increase in stereotypic beliefs only at coed colleges.
- Other research suggests that implementation intentions can be effective for attaining particular goals (e.g., decreasing implicit stereotypes): “If situation X arises, I will perform behavior Y to meet my goal Z” (Achtziger, Gollwitzer and Sheeran 2006, Mendoza, Gollwitzer, and Amodio 2010).
- Encouraging and facilitating intergroup contact can reduce implicit anti-gay bias. Dasgupta and Rivera (2008) presented participants with pictures and biographies of gay and lesbian individuals who were successful in their field (e.g., politics) and contributed to society. Participants who read biographies of these admired gay and lesbian individuals were found to have low anti-gay bias on an IAT regardless of their prior amount of contact with gay and lesbian individuals. Similarly, Hispanic students’ with more African-American friends than White (non-Hispanic) friends had less anti-African American implicit bias than those with more White (non-Hispanic) friends.
Further information:
See also Virginia Valian’s tutorials on gender in science.
Works Cited:
Aberson, C. Porter, M. and A. Gaffney. (2008). “Friendships predict Hispanic student’s implicit attitudes toward Whites relative to African Americans,” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 30: 544–556.
Achtziger, A., Gollwitzer, P., and Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation Intentions and shielding goal striving from unwanted thoughts and feelings. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(3), 381-393.
Adleberg, T., Thompson, M., & Nahmias, E. (forthcoming). Do Men and Women Have Different Philosophical Intuitions? Further Data. Philosophical Psychology. Published online 2/14/14: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2013.878834
Ambady, N., Paik, S. K., Steele, J., Owen-Smith, A., & Mitchell, J. P. (2004). Deflecting negative self-relevant stereotype activation: The effects of individuation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 401-408.
Baron, S., Dougherty, T., & Miller, K. (Manuscript). Why is there female underrepresentation among philosophy majors? Evidence of pre-university effects.
Blair, Irene V.; Ma, Jennifer E.; Lenton, Alison P. (2001). Imagining stereotypes away: The moderation of implicit stereotypes through mental imagery. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 828-841.
Cheryan, S., Drury, B. J., & Vichayapai, M. (2013). Enduring influence of stereotypical computer science role models on women's academic aspirations. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 37, 72-79.
Cheryan, S., Plaut, V. C., Davies, P., & Steele, C. M. (2009). Ambient belonging: How stereotypical cues impact gender participation in computer science. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97, 1045-1060.
Cherry, M. (2013). The state of black women in philosophy. Diversity in Philosophy Conference. University of Dayton, Dayton, OH. 31 May 2013. Conference Presentation.
Cohen, G. L. & Steele, C. M. (2002). A barrier of mistrust: How stereotypes affect cross-race mentoring. In J. Aronson (Ed.), Improving academic achievement: Impact of psychological factors on education (pp. 305–331). Oxford, England: Academic Press.
Cohen, G. L., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., & Master, A. (2006). Reducing the racial achievement gap: A social-psychological intervention. Science, 313, 1307-1310.
Dar-Nimrod, I., Heine, S. (2006). Exposure to Scientific Theories Affects Women's Math Performance. Science, 314(5798), 435-435.
Dasgupta, N. & L. Rivera (2008). “When social context matters: The influence of long-term contact and short-term exposure to admired group members on implicit attitudes and behavioral intentions,” Social Cognition, 26: 112–123.
Drury, B. J., Siy, J. O., & Cheryan, S. (2011). When do female role models benefit women? The importance of differentiating recruitment from retention in STEM. Psychological Inquiry, 22, 265-269.
Dweck, C. (2008). Mindsets and Math/Science Achievement. Published at http://www.growthmindsetmaths.com/uploads/2/3/7/7/23776169/mindset_and_math_science_achievement_-_nov_2013.pdf
Good, C., Aronson, J., & Inzlicht, M. (2003). Improving adolescents’ standardized test performance: An intervention to reduce the effects of stereotype threat. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24(6), 645-662.
Good, C., Aronson, J., & Harder, J. (2008). Problems in the pipeline: Stereotype threat and women's achievement in high-level math courses. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29(1), 17-28.
Gresky, D. M.,Ten Eyck, L. L., Lord, C. G., & McIntyre, R. B. (2005). Effects of salient multiple identities on women’s performance under mathematics stereotype threat. Sex Roles, 53(9- 10), 703-716.
Johns, J., Inzlicht, M., & Schmader, T. (2008). Stereotype threat and executive resource depletion: Examining the influence of emotion regulation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 137, 691-705.
McIntyre, R. B., Paulson, R. M., & Lord, C. G. (2003). Alleviating women’s mathematics stereotype threat through salience of group achievements. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 83-90.
Mendoza, S., Gollwitzer, P., and Amodio, D. (2010). Reducing the Expression of Implicit Stereotypes: Reflexive Control Through Implementation Intentions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(4), 512-523.
Monteith, M., 1993, “Self-regulation of prejudiced responses: Implications for progress in prejudice-reduction efforts,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(3): 469-485.
Monteith, M., Ashburn-Nardo, L., Voils, C., and A. Czopp, A., 2002, “Putting the brakes on prejudice: on the development and operation of cues for control,” Journal of personality and social psychology,” 83(5): 1029-1050.
Seyedsayamdost, H. (Forthcoming). On gender and philosophical intuition: Failure of replication and other negative results. Philosophical Psychology.
Shih, M., Pittinsky, T. L., & Ambady, N. (1999). Stereotype susceptibility: Identity salience and shifts in quantitative performance. Psychological Science, 10, 80-83.
Spencer, Q. (2013). How's it going for blacks in philosophy? Diversity in Philosophy Conference. University of Dayton, Dayton, OH. 31 May 2013. Conference Presentation.
Stephens, Hamedani, & Destin. (2014). Closing the Social-Class Achievement Gap: A Difference-Education Intervention Improves First-Generation Students’ Academic Performance and All Students’ College Transition. Psychological science, 25(4), 943-953.
Thoman, D. B., White, P. H., Yamawaki, N., & Koishi, H. (2008). Variations of gender-math stereotype content affect women’s vulnerability to stereotype threat. Sex Roles, 58, 702–712. doi:10.1007/s11199-008-9390.x
Thompson, M., Adleberg, T., Sims, S., & Nahmias, E. (Manuscript). Why do Women Leave Philosophy?
Thompson, M., Adleberg. T., Bright, L., Sims, S., & Nahmias, E. (Manuscript). Why do Blacks Leave Philosophy?
Walton, G. & Cohen, G.L. (2007). A question of belonging: Race, social fit, and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 82-96.
Walton, G. M., Logel, C., Peach, J. M., Spencer, S., & Zanna, M. P. (2014). Two interventions to boost women’s achievement in engineering: Social-belonging and self-affirmation-training. Journal of Educational Psychology.
Yeager, D., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., Brzustoski, P., Master, A., Hessert, W., Williams, M., & Cohen, G. (2011). Lifting a barrier of mistrust: “Wise” critical feedback to racial minorities. Unpublished manuscript.
