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Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation (2023)

Chapter: 6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help

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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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6

The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help

The previous chapter focused on minoritized individuals who aspire to be in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). It included data examining experiences of racism, consequences of racism, and how minoritized individuals may respond to racism. It also covered strategies on how to improve minoritized individuals’ experiences in STEMM. The current chapter builds on this work by continuing to focus on individual and interpersonal bias but flipping the attention from the perspective of minoritized individuals to what the committee refers to as the gatekeepers of STEMM. There is a substantial body of research in each of these areas, and this chapter can stand alone from the previous one. However, Chapters 5 and 6 are meant to be read and understood together as they are not mutually exclusive phenomena, but rather two sides of the same coin. Like the previous chapter, the current chapter addresses the charge in the statement of task on reviewing the research and evidence on the ways in which racism at the individual level impedes STEMM careers for minoritized individuals. Here, the committee also addresses the charge to identify methods of improving recruitment, retention, and advancement.

This chapter comprises three sections, beginning with a definition of who the gatekeepers are in STEMM. The second section describes different types of racial bias gatekeepers exhibit and discusses the unique function of each type. The third section describes several social motives gatekeepers have and how larger demographic shifts in the nation can inform individual-level decisions of gatekeepers.

Overall, this chapter shows that gatekeepers possess power and can determine who is and who is not included in STEMM fields. The chapter

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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centers on the research, which describes that most often in STEMM, non-Hispanic White males occupy the gatekeeper role, and that these individuals define the skills, identities, and values necessary for minoritized individuals to persist in STEMM. Furthermore, as discussed in detail below, gatekeepers can perpetuate racism at the individual and interpersonal levels. Racial bias is not only more automatic, but also more ambivalent and ambiguous than most people think, which means that individuals, including gatekeepers, cannot monitor their own bias and will unwittingly perpetuate it. Finally, gatekeepers hold social motives that keep the White status quo of gatekeeping intact. These factors are at odds with promoting antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEMM and make gatekeepers unlikely to be change agents. Given these factors, fully explored below, STEMM professionals who want to help advance antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEMM should seek to develop accountability structures at the level of the organization to help identify potential patterns of racial bias among gatekeepers.

The literature on individual and interpersonal racism covered in this chapter focuses largely on White-on-Black racism. Clearly, racism targets Latine, Indigenous, and Asian individuals as well, but in comparison, these groups have not been studied as much. Therefore, as noted in the beginning of this report, the committee urges creating similar reports on the distinctive forms of racism where sufficient research exists. In addition, the committee urges that more research be conducted on the experiences of each racial and ethnic group, including additional research on understanding the impact of those experiences in STEMM.

The committee urges this for several reasons. First, each of these groups has a distinct history and a distinct set of experiences with White gatekeepers, and each group faces its own unique set of stereotypes, prejudices, and discriminatory behaviors. Thus, forms of racism can differ across groups (Fiske, 1998). For instance, Latine immigrants have varied origins, but White discrimination targets them in a categorical way, almost as much as Black individuals (e.g., Fernández et al., 2021). Latine individuals are often viewed as foreign, criminal, and low-skilled (Harris et al., 2020), hardly conducive to STEMM recruitment. White individuals tend to view Native Americans through varied lenses also: the noble, wise, nature-loving elder Indian stereotype versus the ignoble, disreputable alcoholic stereotype (Burkeley et al., 2017); the former stereotype touches on ways of knowing. Other dimensions of racism find White, anti-Asian bias as judging Asians more competent than White people but less socially skilled, so less suited to leadership positions (Lin et al., 2005). In this chapter, the committee does not presume to directly compare experiences across groups. Rather, the committee’s intention is to address some general principles of gatekeepers that tend to cut across their aggregate reactions to various minoritized individuals.

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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DEFINING AND EXAMINING GATEKEEPERS

The following section begins by defining gatekeepers and providing several examples of which individuals in STEMM can occupy the role of gatekeeper. This discussion demonstrates how power is central to defining and identifying gatekeepers and how gatekeepers’ decisions can directly shape antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion outcomes in STEMM environments. Subsequently, the chapter reviews the literature examining gatekeepers through the lens of race and ethnicity and demonstrates that in STEMM contexts, like many other contexts in American society, credentialed non-Hispanic White men are most likely to occupy the role of gatekeepers.

Defining Gatekeepers

The term gatekeeper is defined simply as any individual who possesses power in a given STEMM context or situation, where power includes the control over valued outcomes and resources (DiTomaso et al., 2007; Torelli et al., 2020; Yu and Zhao, 2019). Gatekeepers in STEMM can exert their power across a range of everyday behaviors. For example, they can define boundaries, decide who does or does not get tenure, decide who should be hired, decide who gets recognition and praise, and direct the flow of and use of resources. Individuals such as managers, supervisors, admissions officers, principal investigators, heads of laboratories and research groups, deans, university presidents, and chief executive officers represent some of the most common gatekeepers in STEMM.

In the context of STEMM, gatekeepers can exert their individual power as a single actor (e.g., a boss promoting an employee) or as an actor within a larger group of other gatekeepers (e.g., a committee). Understanding gatekeepers as a source of power and influence has important implications for antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion-related outcomes in STEMM environments. They can directly shape minoritized individuals’ ability to access, be included, and thrive in STEMM, as they define the skills, identities, and values necessary for minoritized individuals to persist (Estrada et al., 2011). Therefore, gatekeepers are the central focus of this chapter.

Even though power and status are often correlated, status is not a necessary feature of the gatekeeper role. Status is defined broadly as the social prestige that comes with an individual’s position within a group (DiTomaso et al., 2007; Torelli et al., 2020; Yu and Zhao, 2019). For example, a graduate student in physics may be tasked with directly informing who is admitted to a Ph.D. program. While the graduate student does not necessarily possess status in an academic STEMM context, in this situation they do possess power to inform admissions. Therefore, individuals who do not

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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always have status but possess power on a more situational basis can also occupy the role of gatekeeper.

Conversely, some individuals possess both power and status, and their gatekeeping role may persist over time and incorporate power over decisions that have large-scale or organizational-level impact. For example, a university president whose term spans several years will likely make decisions that affect the entire student body.

White Gatekeepers in STEMM

Chapter 2 covers an extensive history of how a racial hierarchy was created and reinforced in the United States to systematically advantage White individuals (structural racism), and Chapter 3 provides detailed figures on racial disparities in STEMM contexts. The section below is meant to complement these chapters by providing additional analysis of White advantage in STEMM from the perspective of the psychological literature at the individual and interpersonal levels (gatekeepers).

Due to differences in structural power and status, some groups occupy the gatekeeper role in STEMM more often than others. A century of psychological research shows that in the United States, specific salient characteristics—including being White, male, English-speaking, middle-aged, and credentialed—individually and together confer higher power and status, and with them, respect, and influence. Thus, research shows that non-Hispanic, White, male, credentialed individuals, as the racial group with higher power and status, are the most frequent gatekeepers in STEMM and elsewhere (for reviews, see Bobo and Charles, 2009; Fiske, 1998, 2010; Richeson, in press). Though not all gatekeepers are White and not all White individuals are gatekeepers, the two are correlated.

Some areas within STEMM, such as anthropology, sociology, geoscience, biology, and psychology, are more diverse than others, including engineering, chemistry, math, physics, economics, computer science, and political science (Langbert, 2018). However, as a whole, STEMM has a particular lack of diversity compared with other fields (see Chapter 3 on the recent demographic data of STEMM). For example, 80 percent of university and college faculty are White, but in STEM, 91 percent are White and 96 percent are White at more selective schools (Li and Koedel, 2017; Nelson et al., 2010).

While power and status are disproportionally located within this group, there is research demonstrating that many White individuals express discomfort identifying as White because of the association with White supremacy (Grzanka et al., 2019; Thomann and Suyemoto, 2018). However, ignoring one’s race does not make its privileges, power, and status vanish (Helms, 1990). Salient characteristics convey status without the individual choosing to, so certain immediately apparent features anchor interpersonal

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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interactions in any human’s situation, including STEMM environments (Berger et al., 1972; Carter et al., 2019; Ridgeway, 2019). Whether or not it is acknowledged, in the West generally and the United States specifically, White individuals carry higher status in countless ways (Fiske, 2010). For example, “White” is the default assumption for citizens (Devos and Banaji, 2005), just as “male” is the default for “scientist” (Cheryan and Markus, 2020). The linguistic standard dialect comes from White speech (Labov, 1972), and research has found that White individuals widely favor other White individuals and have anti-non-White prejudices (Charlesworth and Banaji, 2019; Dovidio and Gaertner, 2010).

Importantly, from this structural position of power follows the risk of enacting racism (also sexism, heterosexism, etc.; Fiske, 1993). In U.S. society, White individuals have largely controlled social constructions of race and have historically defined it as essential, even biological. Furthermore, to maintain these beliefs, they tend to favor more neighborhood segregation and limit discretionary contact (e.g., Charles, 2000). Most White individuals are not routinely interdependent with (i.e., on teams with) minoritized individuals. As other chapters elaborate, these factors underlie structural racism (see Chapters 2 and 3).

These practices may find their way into STEMM contexts, and racism may also be enacted at the individual and interpersonal levels via gatekeepers. For example, White gatekeepers may frame local cultural “fit” in terms such as “requires brilliance” or “innate/fixed talent” that alienate, discourage, and undermine minoritized individuals who aspire to that career (Chestnut et al., 2018; Muradoglu et al., 2022; Storage et al., 2016). On the other hand, the use of other, more welcoming terms such as “learn-able skills” and “can grow” implies support, encouragement, and growth (Burnette et al., 2020). Even though this welcoming interpersonal approach is possible, the later sections in this chapter will show that on average, White individuals hold beliefs that maintain their power and privilege, scoring higher on social dominance, conservatism, and system justification. Thus, gatekeepers tend to favor power, status, homogeneity, similarity, and familiarity. That is, on average White individuals are prone to keeping their surroundings White (Charles, 2000). The next section examines in detail how gatekeepers manifest and perpetuate racism at the individual.

EXAMINING RACISM PERPETUATED BY GATEKEEPERS

Gatekeepers (as well as other individuals) possess three kinds of psychological bias: cognitive stereotyping, emotional prejudice, and behavioral discrimination, all of which perpetuate racism at an individual level and undermine antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Each of these is explained below. Following that, the section explores several different clusters

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
×

by which racism can take form, including old-fashioned or blatant racism; more modern or aversive racism; and cognitive biases that can perpetuate racism but occur automatically.

Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination

Cognitive stereotyping, emotional prejudice, and behavioral discrimination are forms of psychological bias that tend to correlate but operate differentially (Bodenhausen et al., in press). Additionally, all three forms of bias tend to target members of an outgroup (e.g., another racial group or “others”) as a category, more than the individuals’ own ingroup, whom they tend to individuate or personalize.

Stereotyping is where an individual overgeneralizes a set of characteristics, such as being untrustworthy, unfriendly, incompetent, pushy, unattractive, or contagious, to outgroup members as a whole (Nicolas et al., 2021). This cognitive bias occurs as the result of social categorization, where individuals put people into different groups based on perceived similarity (see Chapter 5 for more on social categorization and its relation to stereotyping; Leonardelli and Toh, 2015). This categorization occurs for all people across time in order to quickly determine which social environments are safe and which are threatening.

Prejudice is an evaluative bias, where individuals attach affective values to groups that might range from simple negative-positive attitudes to complex emotions, such as envy, resentment, scorn, pity, and fear (Cottrell and Neuberg, 2005; Fiske et al., 2002; Smith et al., 2007). Positive prejudices include admiration and pride (Cuddy et al., 2007). Emotional prejudices predict discriminatory behavior twice as well as cognitive stereotypes do (Talaska et al., 2008).

Discrimination is behaving distinctly toward an outgroup member, based on stereotypic assumptions or emotional prejudices. Discrimination includes both active harm (attack) and passive harm (neglect), as well as active help (protect) and passive help (tolerate; Cuddy et al., 2007). As other chapters show, discrimination occurs in everyday interactions, including within STEMM organizations. For example, common discriminatory behaviors include not being hired or promoted, qualifications judged as supposedly insufficient, being unfairly fired, unfairly denied services, and being unfairly stopped, searched, and treated by the police (Williams et al., 1997, 2008).

Explicit Bias, Old-fashioned Racism, and Dehumanization

White Americans, as the dominant racial group and most frequent gatekeepers in STEMM, can sometimes be explicitly biased (Bobo and Charles,

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
×

2009; Fiske, 1998, 2010; Richeson, in press). Explicit bias is also referred to as overt or “old-fashioned” racism. Overt racism, forged in years of slavery and oppression, inaccurately views Black individuals as inferior to White individuals, even as subhuman, dating back to pseudo-logic justifying slavery (Oh, 2020).

No group of individuals are immune from expressing bias; even educators show some racial biases (Turetsky et al., 2021). However, over time, overt or “old-fashioned” expressions of bias have been on the decline. Multiple factors, such as systemic-level shifts in policies (see Chapter 2) have, in part, helped reduce the occurrence of blatant bias, even at the individual level. Examples of this trend include integrated housing (Jahoda and West, 1951) and integrated neighborhoods leading to less racial bias (Oliver and Wong, 2003). Systemic change also includes implementation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. § 2000e - 2000e17), which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of a number of protected “classes,” including race (National Archives, n.d.; U.S. Code, n.d.). Research demonstrates that racial attitudes changed significantly for most White Americans over the 20th century, in part because of these systemic-level policy changes (Schuman et al., 1985; Smelser et al., 2001).

Although overt biases have on average become less common as measured on surveys, they have not become extinct. A hardcore resistant 10–20 percent of the population (depending on the measure; see Figure 6-1; National Research Council, 2001), almost all White, still express overt biases by openly endorsing segregation, White supremacy, and Black inferiority. Research focused on bias toward Black Americans has shown that forms of overt bias include, expressed outward hostility and degradation, beliefs that minoritized individuals are unintelligent and criminal, a general overall negative “feeling thermometer” about Black individuals, and support for formal forms of racial discrimination (Henry and Sears, 2002). Demographic groups scoring high on these scales are often White individuals, who dominate gatekeeper roles, and less educated people whose own status is precarious, except for their perceived White superiority (e.g., Henry and Sears, 2002). Research also shows that Black individuals on average still experience and perceive more discrimination than White individuals do (Earle and Hodson, 2020). In fact, White individuals on average are more likely to deny Black individual’s reports of discrimination. Instead, White individuals on average view their own group as losing ground, as Black individuals gain civil rights. Conversely, research demonstrates Black individuals less often view civil rights as a zero-sum game over time (Peacock and Biernat, 2021).

Besides endorsing salient stereotypes of being criminal, lazy, and unintelligent, extreme racists have been found to rate Black individuals as being less than human (Kteily et al., 2015). Using the graphic of silhouettes showing the “Ascent of Man (sic)” from quadrupedal apes to our modern upright form,

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
×
Image
FIGURE 6-1 Trends in White’s attitudes about racial intermarriage. Oppose Laws: Do you think there should be laws against marriages between Blacks and Whites? Favor Intermarriage: Do you approve or disapprove of marriage between Whites and Non-Whites? (Adapted from Shuman et al., 1997).
SOURCE: National Research Council, 2001.

42 percent of a representative sample of Americans rate African Americans as being less than fully human (Jardina and Piston, 2022). Although most participants (57%) rated African Americans and White individuals the same, the study demonstrated that African Americans were not always perceived as fully human by everyone as a result of the variation in this perception among participants. Furthermore, these ratings predict consequential behavior, such as presidential voting. In addition, these ratings correlate with denying that Black people as a group have typically human attributes, such as being warm and good-natured (Haslam and Loughnan, 2014). Studies have demonstrated that overt, subhuman racist epithets and metaphors that liken Black individuals to primates are also found in police dispatch tapes and newspaper crime reports (Goff et al., 2008), and early visual processing links them to criminality (Eberhardt et al., 2004).

Most White individual do not subscribe to these overtly racist and inaccurate views, but there are certain attributes that are predictive of such biases. One such difference is by political party; there is data demonstrating that White Republicans believe that anti-White discrimination outweighs anti-Black discrimination (Earle and Hodson, 2020; Peacock and Biernat, 2021). Another difference is by personality; certain personalities among White individuals are predictive of tendencies toward exhibiting biases more than others. For example, a cluster of three conceptually related

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
×

traits that are usually self-serving and are socially adverse—narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy (Furnham et al., 2013; Paulhus and Williams, 2002)—significantly correlate with increased outgroup prejudice (Hodson et al., 2009; Koehn et al., 2019), racism, (Jonason et al., 2020), and social dominance orientation, which is a tendency toward maintaining social inequalities (Ho et al., 2015; Hodson et al., 2009).

Narcissism, a strong or inflated sense of the self and entitlement, also devalues others and lacks empathy (Rauthmann and Kolar, 2012). Machiavellianism focuses on deceit and exploiting others, often manipulatively, working in logical yet immoral ways to gain power, while psychopathy entails a substantial lack of empathy and regard for others, often accompanied by antisocial behavior, and irresponsibility (Hodson et al., 2009). While there is as yet no research linking these personality types to STEMM settings, there is no reason to expect individuals with these personality types to be absent from such settings (Logan et al., 2019). That said, although certain personalities may be more inclined to hold racist prejudices and to discriminate overtly, these explicit biases can be and are held by others as well.

Despite the variability in White individuals’ expressions of racial biases, overt bias continues to be the rarest form. As the next section will show, more indirect or covert forms of racism are even more common and pervasive, including in academic environments, among White individuals despite their better intentions. This makes covert biases difficult to control.

Aversive, Symbolic, and Modern Racism

Because most well-socialized individuals believe old-fashioned, overt racism to be unacceptable, verbalized racial attitudes became less direct, enabling “modern” racism to often fly under the radar (Dovidio and Gaertner, 1986). Various forms of less obvious contemporary racism uphold current systems of racial inequality (Gaertner and Dovidio, 1986; McConahay, 1986; Sears et al., 2000). Aversive racism is where individuals who hold and may express outwardly egalitarian attitudes nevertheless have an aversion to members of their outgroups (e.g., White individuals having an aversion to Black individuals, Indigenous individuals, Latine individuals). Aversive racism describes a subtler racism than old-fashioned racism that is not recognized by White individuals as inappropriate, based on contemporary standards, but this aversion shows they still harbor negatively prejudiced attitudes (Dovidio and Gaertner, 2004). These prejudices leak out in nonverbal responses, described below.

Symbolic racism, a related form of modern racism, occurs when members of the dominant racial group hold what seem like cohesive beliefs, but their beliefs are actually informed by underlying bias. Empirically, their attitudes stem from anti-Black sentiment such as Black individuals are

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
×

intrinsically lacking, being lazy, and too demanding; that they are no longer victims of discrimination; and that Black individuals are allegedly getting more than they deserve (Henry and Sears, 2002). As such, individuals who are likely to endorse symbolic racism, tend to disfavor race-based policy related to minoritized racial groups (e.g., affirmative action; Brandt and Reyna, 2012). These modern forms of racism are generally not recognized as discriminatory and do not necessarily violate the law, but may still reinforce racial inequalities.

Two related forms of indirectly racist behaviors include microaggressions and incivility (Andersson and Pearson, 1999; Sue, 2010; Torino et al., 2019). Incivility is defined as low-intensity types of conduct that may not be obvious to others in their intent to harm, unlike overt discrimination (Cortina et al., 2013; Kabat-Farr et al., 2020). While microaggressions can be similar to incivilities, some scholars have noted that microaggressions are usually targeted toward groups that face marginalization (Patterson, 2017). Some examples of these behaviors may include disrespectful verbal behaviors, such as premature use of a person’s first name, and distant nonverbal behaviors, such as not making eye contact and being distracted. At work, this may include behaviors such as exclusion (Martin and Hine, 2005). Microaggressions and incivilities appear in STEMM contexts, with some evidence suggesting they can be targeted against minoritized individuals; research has looked specifically at the experiences of Latine engineering students (Smith et al., 2022) and minoritized students in STEMM programs in colleges (Dortch and Patel, 2017; Lee et al., 2020; Miles et al., 2020). A study of college students found that microaggressions and incivilities may not occur as isolated incidents, but are ingrained within the larger campus culture, so minoritized individuals may frequently encounter them from multiple sources on campus (Lee et al., 2020). Furthermore, these experiences of microaggressions act as a major barrier because they reduce minoritized individuals’ sense of belonging within STEMM contexts (Miles et al., 2020; Smith et al., 2022).

To summarize, gatekeepers are likely to hold racial attitudes that are covert, hidden from self and others, but still imply White superiority, support the status quo, and prefer racial hierarchy. These forms of bias are pervasive. For example, across most occupations, hiring managers favor a White over Black candidate (Bertrand and Mullainathan, 2004).

Unexamined Cognitive Bias: The Privilege of Not Thinking

Regardless of changing norms, individual racism has cognitive underpinnings that remain unchanged. Racial cognitive bias is thus harder to detect than overt racism. The following research will show that ordinary individual racial bias is not only more automatic, but also more ambivalent

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
×

and ambiguous than most people think—and often too much so for gatekeepers to notice at all. Because of their position as holders of disproportionate power, gatekeepers have the privilege of not thinking about their own stereotyping, making them vulnerable to doing more of it (Fiske, 1993). This means that individuals cannot easily monitor their own bias, and they will unwittingly perpetuate it. To counter racism in STEMM, systemic accountability at the organizational level will be essential.

Automatic Category Detection and Implicit Associations

The following research will show that ordinary individual racial bias is more automatic than most people think. As discussed in Chapter 5, social categorization is the process by which people categorize others into groups based on perceived similarities (Allport, 1954; Bodenhausen et al., in press), and research finds that the racial categorization effect is robust (Kubota and Ito, 2017; Pietraszewski, 2018).

As social beings, people categorize each other automatically by dimensions that are universal (gender, age) and those salient in a given culture (in the United States, race/ethnicity; Allport, 1954; Bodenhausen et al., in press). With defined racial categories come culturally associated stereotypes and prejudices. Even White introductory psychology students who do not endorse stereotypes and prejudices explicitly have been found to still carry those associations from the environment (Devine, 1989). For these individuals, their automatic racist associations will contrast with their more controlled, deliberate egalitarian responses. For those who explicitly endorse the stereotypes and prejudices, the two responses are the same.

Relatively automatic and controlled responses emerge in implicit biases versus explicit biases. Explicit bias includes the already-discussed overt expressions of prejudice and explicit endorsement of stereotypes. On the other hand, implicit bias refers to stereotypic beliefs and negative evaluations, about social groups that pop into mind quickly, often with little awareness or intention (Blair et al., 2015; Greenwald and Banaji, 1995). Implicit attitudes (prejudice) and beliefs (stereotypes) are conceptualized as strong mental associations connecting social groups with positive or negative evaluations in the case of implicit prejudice, or with specific attributes (brilliant vs. mediocre), in the case of implicit stereotypes. The stronger the mental association, the faster they get activated in a given situation.

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures implicit biases (stereotypes and prejudices) that would otherwise not be captured on standard or more explicit psychological measures. The IAT is a categorization test that measures the strengths of associations between a concept (such as a racial group; e.g., “Black” and “White”) and a series of attributes (e.g., “good” and “bad”). For example, participants taking the IAT may be

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
×

asked to categorize on the same side of the screen, one specific racial group (White) with one specific set of attributes (good), and on the other side a different racial group (Black) and a different set of attributes (bad). Then they do the opposite pairings (e.g., pairing Black and “good”). The faster they pair the ingroup/good and outgroup/bad than the reverse, the more implicit bias they are showing (Fazio and Olson, 2003; Greenwald et al., 1998). Research using a variety of racial outgroups, including Latines (Pérez, 2010) and probably Native Americans (Poitra and Norder, 2019), show similar patterns. White individuals, as the historical majority, are seen as “owning” the nation to the degree that “White” is more rapidly paired with “American” than are other racial and ethnic groups (Devos and Anderson, 2019).

Decades of research using the IAT have demonstrated a substantial prevalence of implicit bias against Black individuals, such that White individuals on average associate their own group labels (White, European-American) with positive attributes and the outgroup (Black, African Americans) with negative attributes (Banaji et al., 2021; Kurdi et al., 2019). The IAT website attracts millions of participants over the age 18, so results generalize to populations besides students, a common pool of research participants.1 In specific studies, participants include STEMM professionals who act as gatekeepers and who commonly show implicit bias against minoritized groups (Jost et al., 2009). Implicit bias correlates with social exclusion by race (Rudman and Ashmore, 2007), as well as employment decisions for a variety of protected groups, including race and ethnicity (Jost et al., 2009). In a meta-analysis of 217 studies, implicit associations reliably predicted intergroup behavior (Kurdi and Fiske, 2019).

Implicit bias is relatively automatic and unintentional but is still informed by intergroup motivation and context such as affiliation, where social networks, both small and large, shape implicit racial attitudes. Motives to affiliate with other people, to create a shared reality, can meaningfully influence the expression of automatic bias (Sinclair et al., 2005). For example, White Americans express less implicit racial bias in the presence of Black experimenters compared with White experimenters. For good or ill, these social tuning effects operate through affiliation networks, leading people to adopt the attitudes and perspectives of other network members (Jacoby-Senghor et al., 2015). These processes may be implicated in the persistence of societal racial disparities, despite reductions in individual levels of racial bias. People working in racially homogenous STEMM departments and organizations may be particularly susceptible to perpetuating racial biases, given they are not being challenged to question their existing worldviews.

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1https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Increased numeric diversity may be essential to interrupting existing social cognitive processes for White individuals.

Reviewing studies of real-world implicit bias in millions of online participants reveals its link to systemic discrimination in particular regions (Charlesworth and Banaji, in press). For example, anti-Black/pro-White IAT scores in a county’s teachers predicted racial gaps in children’s achievement tests and racial disparities in school discipline (Chin et al., 2020; Riddle and Sinclair, 2019). Regional implicit racial bias has also been found to be predictive of upward mobility from one generation to the next. Specifically, among low-poverty neighborhoods, a significant factor that was predictive of smaller Black-White intergenerational gaps included Black men growing up in tracts that have less racial bias among White individuals (Chetty et al., 2020). The point here is that implicit biases predict discriminatory behavior, whether between individuals or “in the air,” i.e., systemic.

Both implicit and explicit biases are measurably decreasing, thanks to the millennial generation. In the nearly two million online respondents, race and skin-tone implicit biases have markedly improved over the past decade, faster than age and disability biases, but not as fast as sexuality biases (see Figure 6-2; Charlesworth and Banaji, 2019). The same holds for explicit biases (see Figure 6-2). These trends match nationally representative survey samples, as noted earlier. But individual change does not immediately or automatically change systemic factors. Even without individual-to-individual bias, structural disparities (housing segregation, wealth gaps, underfunded schools, over-policing—and more) persist (see Chapter 2 for a fuller history of structural racism in the United States). Still, automatic biases complicate the issue because individuals may perpetuate biases without even knowing they are carriers of contagion (Charlesworth and Banaji, in press), and this is true for STEMM educators and professionals.

Ambivalent, Plausibly Deniable Biases

Research shows that ordinary individual racial bias is more ambivalent than most people think. Most forms of bias have both positive and negative components, allowing individuals to claim and to feel unbiased. For example, a person might claim that Black individuals cannot do science, but they can do music and sports; this same individual can then claim to respect Black people, just not in STEMM. The two key dimensions of stereotypes enable this (Abele et al., 2021; Fiske et al., 2002). One dimension is the group’s perceived competence and status in society. Americans report in representative sample surveys (Cuddy et al., 2007) that our society views some racial and ethnic groups as more capable (Asians, Whites, Jews, British, Germans) than others (Italians, Turks, immigrants from Africa or

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Image
FIGURE 6-2 Change and predicted change in implicit and explicit attitudes from 2007 to 2020: observed monthly weighted averages (2007–2016) of implicit association test (IAT) D scores (implicit attitudes; top two rows) and explicit-preference scores (explicit attitudes; bottom two rows), as well as forecasts of the autoregressive-integrated-movingaverage (ARIMA) model (2017–2020). Solid black lines indicate decomposed trends of observed data (removing seasonality and noise), solid light-gray lines indicate the weighted monthly means from observed data, dotted black lines within the light-gray areas indicate the means of the ARIMA forecasts, light-gray areas indicate 80 percent confidence intervals (CIs), and dark-gray areas indicate 95% CIs of the ARIMA forecasts.
SOURCE: Charlesworth and Banaji, 2019.
Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Latin America). The other dimension is warmth (trustworthy, friendly). People believe that others like themselves are trustworthy.

Racial stereotypes about people viewed as Black depend on whom you ask about whom and in what context. Elite student samples (Princeton, from 1933 to 2003) report that Black Americans are stereotypically warm but incompetent, suggesting a patronizing bias, or liking without respecting (Bergsieker et al., 2012; Katz and Braly, 1933). If supported widely, this would reflect on Black STEMM students’ experiences with peers and colleagues. Perceived subtypes of Black people2 provide more differentiated but still stereotypic images. Native Americans are also viewed in terms of subtypes, including noble and ignoble, though the aggregate, overall generic image might seem neutral (Burkley et al., 2017). Immigrants, too, are subtyped into racialized groups: respected and liked Canadians and Western Europeans; threatening Asian and Jewish competitors; contemptible Mexican, Central American, and African migrants (note that “race” dominates the subtyping patterns; Lee and Fiske, 2006).

These nuances are important to the experiences of STEMM trainees, graduates, and professionals. To the extent a peer views a minoritized peer ambivalently (e.g., as nice but dumb) this is a deniable prejudice suggesting a condescending pity. Indeed, in online and laboratory studies, well-meaning liberal White respondents talk down to Black peers, dumbing down their vocabulary and topic choices (Dupree and Fiske, 2019). High-status people who want to “get-along” do the same competence downshift when interacting with a lower-status person (Swencionis and Fiske, 2016). If these results characterize STEMM interactions, it is possible that White individuals are unintentionally patronizing their Black colleagues, while feeling friendly in the attempt. Ambivalence is hard to detect because on a superficial level it seems pleasant. Again, a cognitive feature of individual racism makes individuals unaware or able to deny their prejudices. The larger context can monitor them better than they can monitor themselves.

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2 More of a puzzle is an adult sample’s report that Black Americans are viewed neutrally on warmth and competence, likely a deliberately careful response, given other measures of racial attitudes and the sensitive nature of expressing opinions on racism (Kervyn et al., 2015). Alternately, this may mask a combination of common subgroups that cancel out to neutral: low-income people (race unspecified) are stereotypically neither competent nor warm (representative sample; Cuddy et al., 2007). Black professionals are however stereotypically competent, and only moderately warm (nationally representative sample; Cuddy et al., 2007). Combining across low and high status would add up to neutral. Consistent with the idea that race and class combine to produce most non-Black adults’ stereotypes of Black people because of subgroups, a sample of online Black adults rated Black subgroups much as Black students did, with competence largely a function of social class (Fiske et al., 2009).

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Ambiguous Attributions Maintain Flexibility

The following research summarized here show that ordinary individual racial bias is more ambiguous than most people think. When gatekeepers are ambiguous about the reasons behind their decisions, they gain flexibility; that is, they can later plausibly deny that the choice was racist. To illustrate this, the committee has gathered examples that reveal this process of ambiguous attributions about feedback, performance, and discomfort. For example, was that person treated in a certain way because of their race or because of a bad interview? The implication of this ambiguity is that organizational-level accountability must rely on examining the gatekeeper’s aggregate patterns and choices, not on any single choice that may have ambiguous origins.

Minoritized individuals can experience attributional ambiguity (discussed in Chapter 5): Is this negative feedback a result of my performance or my race? (Major and O’Brien, 2003). Gatekeepers must also attribute minoritized individuals’ outcomes to either race or individual factors. How they introduce a new staff member, in terms of causal attributions, indicates the opposing views that can make or break a career: “This is Henry, hired under our new diversity plan” versus “This is Henry, whose excellence for this job made him our top choice.” Attributions to category, as in affirmative action, are stigmatizing (Heilman et al., 1992), but subtle and indirect. When the reason for the evaluator’s decision is ambiguous (either target’s individual factors or target’s category, such as race), it maintains flexibility and thus, deniability. Being accountable for a decision assumes that observers can pin it down.

Another attributional dilemma comes from distinguishing whether a gatekeeper’s decision mainly favored the ingroup or disfavored the outgroup (Tajfel and Turner, 1982). When White gatekeepers opt to choose others similar to self, they are not necessarily displaying hostility to minoritized individuals, but perhaps comfort with other ingroup White individuals. In a zero-sum game, the outcome for the excluded minoritized person is the same, but the cause differs. Responding to overt hostility, such as not being chosen because of being a minoritized individual, differs from responding to passive exclusion, such as not being chosen because the gatekeeper favors White individuals. When managers describe choices as a matter of fit (the ingroup “fits;” Heilman, 1983), they create attributional ambiguity and plausible deniability.

When gatekeepers fail to put their response into words, they again obscure the decision. Gatekeepers maintain flexibility by communicating nonverbally, whether intentionally or not. In social interactions, nonverbal distance cues, such as sitting farther away or not facing the other, signal the gatekeeper’s lack of engagement, as well as an interaction not going well for

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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the more engaged, lower status person; this signal affects the minoritized person’s performance. For example, Black and White highschool students—trained to behave according to the same script—interviewed with White college students for a STEMM research assistant job (Fiske, 2010). White interviewers talking to Black interviewees displayed nonverbal discomfort, at a minimum, and possibly antipathy, given that they ended the interview sooner, oriented away, and conveyed disfluencies. In a second study, White interviewers were trained to display the same nonverbal cues directed toward the White or Black applicants in the first study. White interviewees, treated as if they were Black, performed worse and judged the interviewer as less competent, compared with White interviewees treated as White (Word et al., 1974).

Nonverbal behavior expresses gatekeepers’ racial category-based responses that are made outside of full consciousness or awareness. This has self-fulfilling effects on minoritized individuals (Rosenthal and Jacobson, 1968). In general, cognitive racial expectations come across in spoken words, while affective prejudices come across as nonverbal impressions (Dovidio et al., 2002). Gatekeepers are not called to account for their nonverbal behavior because the signal is often too ambiguous or noisy in any given instance.

While the previous chapter covered the psychological impacts of experiencing racism from the perspective of the minoritized individual, the committee was not able to incorporate a similar section in the current chapter—namely, the psychological impacts of perpetuating racism from the perspective of the gatekeeper in STEMM. This is a result of the dearth of research in this area; more is clearly needed.

A critic might argue, specifically with regard to STEMM gatekeepers and bias, that STEMM professionals are trained to observe, analyze, and interpret objectively, so they would not be vulnerable to errors and biases in judging others. Unfortunately, graduate training does not guarantee accuracy on the types of reasoning implicated in judging other people: statistics, confounds, or logic (Lehman et al., 1988). No research at this time demonstrates that STEMM gatekeepers are immune from perpetrating racial bias. The perpetual minoritization of Black, Indigenous, and Latine students, faculty, professionals implies that something is amiss.

GATEKEEPERS’ SOCIAL MOTIVES TO PRESERVE THE STATUS QUO

This section reviews literature demonstrating that gatekeepers tend to possess several social motives that enable the preservation the status quo of gatekeeping (i.e., that most gatekeepers tend to be White). The role of

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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gatekeeper selects for people with status-quo-perpetuating attitudes and encourages those attitudes because they preserve the position’s advantages. The same is true for the gatekeeper’s motives, which are self-serving because they can be. Gatekeepers see opportunities and rewards everywhere (Keltner et al., 2003). Gatekeepers can attend to their goals because they are not contingent or as dependent on other people (Guinote, 2017). Gatekeepers are prone to stereotyping outgroup others because powerholders by definition do not depend on their subordinates (Fiske, 1993). Likewise, White individuals tend to endorse beliefs that favor their continuing power and status (Fiske, 2010). All these self-serving tendencies appear in the core social motives that drive gatekeepers. These are loosely grouped into the following categories: (i) belonging; (ii) understanding and controlling, and (iii) esteeming and trusting. Comprehending these motives can suggest how to intervene in systemic structures that routinely advantage White individuals. Belonging works as the overarching social motive, while understanding and controlling are considered the more motivated cognitions, and esteeming and trusting are motivated affects. Each of these are discussed below.

Belonging as a Moral Credential

As discussed, minoritized individuals desire and often work toward a sense of belonging in STEMM, but are usually denied (see Chapter 5). On the other hand, it would seem that White gatekeepers automatically feel they belong in STEMM contexts, given U.S. history and given that they are most likely to occupy those positions. Thus, belonging for gatekeepers is not necessarily a recognition of their competence and achievement, as belonging would be to minoritized individuals (Dupree and Fiske, 2019; Swencionis and Fiske, 2016). Furthermore, gatekeepers have power to determine who belongs and who does not belong in STEMM.

Organizations make tradeoffs between instrumental (practical) and moral (justice) reasons for policy, including policy pertaining to advancing diversity. Institutional justifications for antiracism, diversity, equity and inclusion, if they focus on profit or benefits to White individuals, are generally pleasing to White respondents (Starck et al., 2021), but they are instrumental justifications and not justice oriented. For example, this sentiment may reflect the belief that “diversity helps increase profit.” For Black respondents, the justification for belonging is often social justice, which communicates shared morality. For example, this sentiment may include the belief that “advancing diversity is the right thing to do.”

Instrumental justification correlates with academic settings that show greater racial disparities. Instrumentality sends the message to minoritized individuals that now they are welcome only because they are useful—not because equitable belonging is the right way to treat another human.

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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From the perspective of minoritized individuals, being useful for instrumental purposes, but not being part of the moral circle, is dehumanizing. Gatekeepers generally seek to be accepted as a good and unprejudiced person, and as such use diversity instrumentally and make belonging a moral credential (Dupree and Fiske, 2019; Swencionis and Fiske, 2016). For example, having chosen one minoritized individual for the shortlist demonstrates, in the mind of the gatekeeper, a lack of prejudice, while hiring a White person from the shortlist feels justified (Merritt et al., 2012; Monin and Miller, 2001).

Understanding and Controlling Resources

Gatekeepers are more likely to understand the social world as full of groups that will not change and that exist in dominance hierarchies. In that regard, gatekeepers tend to favor power, status, homogeneity, similarity, and familiarity, and altogether preserve the status quo, which they usually control. Several cognitive belief systems support these biased understandings, including essentialism, dominance, authoritarianism, system justification, and a need for closure. All of these create obstacles for antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion-related change, maintain White gatekeeper control over resources, and make gatekeepers unlikely to be change agents.

Essentialism is the belief that specific social categories, such as racial groups, are natural, and individuals who belong to specific social categories have essences, or underlying natures that are associated with that category (Medin and Ortony, 1989). These essences that relate to category membership are believed to be naturally occurring, inborn, and immutable characteristics. Consequently, essentialist beliefs are associated with more rigid and categorical thinking, and subsequently a greater stereotyping, prejudice, racism, and greater support for boundary enhancing policies (Keller, 2005; Mahalingam, 2003; Mandalaywala et al., 2018; Roberts et al., 2017). This cognitive bias is analogous to endorsing the belief that race is a biological and not a social construct (Schudson and Gelman, 2022). STEM faculty who view ability as fixed, for example, have bigger racial disparities regarding student motivation and achievement (Canning et al., 2019). More generally, a growth mindset, instead of a fixed mindset, facilitates student engagement and performance (Muenks et al., 2019).

Social dominance orientation is another belief system that tends to underpin support for the status quo. It is an individual-level difference in the preference for group-based hierarchy and inequality, and individuals who have higher levels of social dominance orientation tend to make decisions and judgments that serve to protect the status quo (Ho et al., 2020; Pratto et al., 1994). For example, this effect has been examined within the racial categorization of multiracial individuals (Ho et al., 2013, 2017).

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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One study found that White individuals who were strong endorsers of social dominance orientation, as compared to those White individuals who were not, were more likely to categorize a multiracial (Black-White) individual as being Black as compared to White. This was especially true when these White participants believed that their high status was threatened. This pattern of categorization—exclusion from a higher status racial group membership—is consistent with racial status boundaries that are reinforced by excluding multiracial people from the White racial group (Ho et al., 2013).

Greater endorsement of maintaining socially based inequalities is also a significant predictor of policy preference. One study found that the more that individuals held strong motivations to endorse hierarchy between groups, the less they perceive inequality between “higher status” and “lower status” groups. Furthermore, perceiving less inequality was significantly associated with rejecting egalitarian social policies (Kteily et al., 2017). Individual differences in social dominance orientation therefore predicts which STEMM gatekeepers will be open to leveling the playing field and which will favor hierarchies.

Another example of a belief system that often endorses and maintains the status quo is right-wing authoritarianism, which is a politically oriented motivation to submit to authority, acting aggressively with the purpose of supporting authority, and often displaying hostility toward outgroup members (Altemeyer, 1998). Research has defined two primary facets of right-wing authoritarianism that tend to drive behaviors. First, individuals who score high in right-wing authoritarianism tend to perceive individuals as being a part of either their ingroup or an outgroup. Furthermore, those who are deemed to belong in the outgroup are perceived as threatening authoritarianism values. Second, individuals who score high in right-wing authoritarianism tend to perceive themselves as possessing a greater sense of morals, and subsequently feel justified to behave in ways that uphold systems and figures of authority (Whitley, 1999). Increased endorsement of right-wing authoritarianism is associated with more negative attitudes and more prejudice toward outgroup members (Duckitt et al., 2002; Sibley and Duckitt, 2008).

Individuals with system justification beliefs tend to find society to be generally fair, that most policies serve the greater good, and that people generally get what they deserve. According to system justification theory (Jost and Banaji, 1994; Jost et al., 2004), people vary in their motivation to defend and uphold existing systems. That gatekeepers would be especially likely to favor stability is aligned with preserving the status quo, and indeed advantaged groups’ system-justifying beliefs correlate with higher self-esteem, well-being, and ingroup favoritism (Jost and Hunyady, 2003). The opposite holds for disadvantaged groups whose system-justification

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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beliefs correlate with lower self-esteem, lower well-being, and less ingroup favoritism, as well as self-stereotyping. When even low-power groups subscribe to system justification, it might not seem to serve their self-interest or group interest, but apparently many low-power group members prioritize predictability over their own interests, at least sometimes. Gatekeepers can exploit this, because justifying the system entails endorsing positive stereotypes about their own group. Indeed, system justification works better for White individuals than for Black individuals (Rankin et al., 2009).

Need for closure relates to an individual’s preference (or a situation’s demand) to arrive at an answer quickly rather than having persisting ambiguity (Kruglanski, 1990; Kruglanski and Webster, 1996; Webster and Kruglanski, 1994). As compared to individuals with a lower need for closure, individuals with a greater need for closure generally have a need to arrive at a decision quickly, and they have a need to create and maintain simple structures (Neuberg et al., 1997; Roets and van Hiel, 2007). As such, these individuals may tend to be more rigid in their thinking and are likely to endorse essentialist categorizations, rely on stereotypes, and support authoritarian ideologies. Consequently, the need for closure predicts bias (Roets and van Hiel, 2011; Theodorou and Kosic, 2021), with a higher need for closure significantly associated with prejudice against a range of outgroup members (e.g., Bianco et al., 2022; Burke et al., 2017; Shah et al., 1998).

Esteeming and Trusting as Meta-Perceptions

Besides motivated cognition that reflects understanding and control in favor of the status quo, gatekeepers seek esteem in the form of respect and appreciation. Because their higher status and power predicts that others will see them as competent, gatekeepers seek recognition of the other main social cognitive dimension, esteem for their warmth in terms of morality and friendliness. This occurs in high-status bosses interacting with subordinates (Swencionis and Fiske, 2016), and liberal White individuals prioritize conveying warmth in their interactions with Black interaction partners. However, because of a perceived warm-competence trade-off—if you are too smart, you must be cold—these well-intentioned White adults in online experiments downshift their competence to seem folksy and down with the people (see section above on ambivalent, plausibly deniable biases). White Democratic candidates for President do the same thing for Black and Latine audiences (Dupree and Fiske, 2019). Therefore, well-meaning STEMM mentors may be at risk of similarly patronizing behavior; in their attempts to make friends with their mentees, they could be too warm and not respectful enough.

Interracial meta-perceptions, or how each person thinks the other sees them and wanting others to see oneself positively, arise in interracial

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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interactions in dozens of laboratory studies (Shelton et al., 2006). Meta-perceptions are distinct from general perceptions because they are relational; they are one’s beliefs about how the interaction partner perceives the self (Shelton and Richeson, 2006). In other words, meta-perceptions are perceptions of the self, through the lens of the other. Much of the research has focused on interracial interactions between a White individual and a minoritized individual (Shelton and Richeson, 2005). On the one hand, researchers have focused on the perspective of the White individual, including experiences of anxiety (Plant and Devine, 2003) about how they are viewed. For example, in an interracial interaction between a Black individual and a White individual, the White individual’s meta-perceptions could include the extent to which their Black interaction partner would like them. White individuals express concern about their meta-perceptions in the context of interracial interactions, particularly, concerns about being perceived as prejudiced by the other individual (Shelton and Richeson, 2006). In contrast, Black individuals may care more about whether their White interaction partner respects them.

Taking these perceptions together, White individuals and minoritized individuals during interracial interactions may have different impression management goals stemming from their meta-perceptions (Fiske et al., 2015). White individuals want to be perceived as moral, fair, and unbiased (Bergsieker et al., 2010). Minoritized individuals want to be respected and perceived as competent. In a STEMM context, respect for one’s ability is more relevant than reassurance that one is not a racist.

As a foundational study has demonstrated, there are two primary motivations for White individuals not wanting to be perceived by their minoritized interaction partner as prejudiced (Plant and Devine, 1998). First, some White individuals are externally motived to respond and be perceived as not prejudiced. This motivation is driven out of fear of facing negative social consequences. On the other hand, some individuals may be internally motived to respond and be perceived as not prejudiced. This internal motivation is rooted in a set of personal values. Furthermore, individuals who are more internally motivated to respond without prejudice, as compared to individuals who are externally motivated, navigate interracial interactions in very different ways. Across a series of studies, White individuals who were internally motivated to respond without prejudice were more likely to engage in partner-focused behaviors toward their Black interaction partner. For example, they were more likely to show them the respect they wanted and remember more details about what they said and did. Conversely, individuals who were externally motivated were more likely to focus on the self by avoiding engaging in behaviors their partner may find as biased and were not as sensitive to their partner’s desire for respect (LaCosse and Plant, 2020).

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
×

For gatekeepers to build trust between themselves and minoritized individuals, this means getting past a challenge for many White liberals—contemplating their race’s role in oppressing minoritized individuals, especially Black individuals. Although anti-social traits predict racism, individuals who mean well and are not necessarily anti-social can still perpetuate racism. Specifically, White individuals facing racial stress may be vulnerable to a range of emotions (e.g., fear, guilt; Grzanka et al., 2019). These emotions inform the display of behaviors that work to restore a sense of racial comfort as well as White superiority (DiAngelo et al., 2011). When affirmed, White individuals no longer feel threatened by Black people’s progress (Wilkins and Kaiser, 2014). Consistent with these ideas, White individuals scoring higher on a White “fragility” scale also endorsed modern racism, social inequalities, and allegedly colorblind racial attitudes (Langrehr et al., 2021).

THREATS TO GATEKEEPERS FROM DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFTS IN THE UNITED STATES: THREAT, ANXIETY, AND SYSTEM-REINFORCING BEHAVIORS

As discussed in the previous section, gatekeepers tend to possess several social motives that encourage the preservation of the status quo. The present section looks at how attempts to preserve the status quo, enacted at the individual and interpersonal levels by gatekeepers, might be informed by larger demographic shifts. The research reviewed below shows that specific societal-level demographic shifts occurring in the United States may be perceived as a potential threat to the preservation of the status quo and a source of anxiety around this possible loss of power and status. As such, cues signaling these demographic shifts can inform individual- and interpersonal-level outcomes among gatekeepers.

Even while minoritized individuals remain severely underrepresented across multiple STEMM contexts, the United States is experiencing a massive demographic shift (see Chapter 3 for more on this). Specifically, the population of minoritized individuals has been growing faster than White individuals, and minoritized individuals could attain majority-minority status by 2050 (Richeson and Sommers, 2016). While the percentage of non-Hispanic White individuals is decreasing over the years, scholars have noted that the changes regarding how race and ethnicity are measured and categorized through the U.S. Census over the years also increases the complexity of understanding the demographic shift. Nevertheless, the perception and framing of majority-minority has become more mainstream in recent political events and in the media (Craig et al., 2018).

Some researchers have focused on examining perceptions of this shift by White individuals. A body of research demonstrates that some

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
×

non-Hispanic White individuals may perceive the majority-minority shift as a threat to their power and status as a member of a dominant group. Furthermore, this perceived shift is associated with greater reported feelings of anxiety, and often greater support of policies that serve to promote White dominance (i.e., maintain their position in society; see Craig et al., 2018 for review).

Non-Hispanic White individuals’ perceptions of and outcomes associated with majority-minority shifts taking place in the United States (Perkins et al., 2022) have been captured in a series of experiments manipulating the salience of this shift. Research has found that cues signaling a majority-minority shift were associated with perceptions of threat, and subsequently a greater tendency to perceive mixed-race faces as belonging more so to minoritized racial groups, thus demonstrating an increased tendency to uphold racial boundaries and restrict who counts as White. This phenomenon increases the number of individuals who may be targeted with discrimination, as a greater number of individuals, including those of mixed race, may be perceived as minoritized individuals (Krosch et al., 2022). Similarly, perceptions of a decreasing White demographic group were associated with feelings of existential threat, and, subsequently, support of far-right extremism as displayed by more positive feelings toward the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and other alt-right and neo-Nazi groups (Bai and Frederico, 2021) and support for White supremacy (Fortunato et al., 2022). In a related series of experiments, researchers found that exposure to cues about majority-minority shifts was associated with non-Hispanic Whites’ concerns about facing anti-White discrimination (Craig and Richeson, 2017). In short, they fear experiencing the discrimination currently faced by minoritized individuals now.

CONCLUSIONS

As the previous sections have shown, many gatekeepers tend to possess several social motives that enable the preservation of the status quo. As discussed above, these social motives include belonging, understanding and controlling resources, and esteeming and trusting. These factors contribute to advantage gatekeepers and disadvantage minoritized individuals, their position challenges the gatekeepers’ proclivity to notice, let alone remedy racism in STEMM. Furthermore, additional research demonstrated demographic shifts occurring in the United States, specifically perceptions of the “majority-minority” shift, may be perceived as a potential threat to the preservation of the status quo, and a source of anxiety around this possible loss in power and status. These perceptions can further invoke support for far-right extremism and maintenance of the White status quo. Taken all together, though not impossible, these numerous factors and cognitive biases make gatekeepers unlikely to be change agents.

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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CONCLUSION 6-1: Like other people, gatekeepers often have attitudinal biases, cognitive mechanisms, and social motives that keep the White status quo intact. Racial bias is not only more automatic, but also more ambivalent and ambiguous than most people think. That means that individuals, including gatekeepers, may not be able to monitor their own bias impartially, and may unwittingly perpetuate it.

CONCLUSION 6-2: Additional research is needed to examine the psychological impacts of perpetuating racism from the perspective of the gatekeeper in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine.

ORGANIZATION OF THE RECOMMENDATION

As discussed in the chapter and the conclusions, gatekeepers may not be able to monitor their own bias, are unlikely to become change agents themselves, and yet they are still a source of power and influence over antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion-related outcomes in STEMM contexts. Therefore, the recommendation in the current chapter is aimed at intentionally creating links between two levels; the level of the organization and the level of the individual gatekeeper. The essence of the recommendation for this chapter involves generating systems of accountability at the organizational level, above gatekeepers, that can help identify behavioral patterns of individual gatekeepers. In turn, understanding and identifying behavioral patterns may shed light on potential patterns of bias, which can be helpful for initiating top-down change to improve conditions for minoritized individuals.

RECOMMENDATION 6-1: Leaders of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) organizations and directors of human resource offices can improve minoritized people’s individual and interpersonal experiences in STEMM educational and professional environments through the following practices:

Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
×

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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
×

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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Suggested Citation:"6 The Gatekeepers of STEMM: How Individual Bias and Inequality Persist and How STEMM Professionals Can Help." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26803.
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Individuals from minoritized racial and ethnic groups continue to face systemic barriers that impede their ability to access, persist, and thrive in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) higher education and workforce. Without actively dismantling policies and practices that disadvantage people from minoritized groups, STEMM organizations stand to lose much needed talent and innovation as well as the ideas that come from having a diverse workforce.

A new report from the Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences examines the backdrop of systemic racism in the United States that has harmed and continues to harm people from minoritized groups, which is critical for understanding the unequal representation in STEMM. The report outlines actions that top leaders and gatekeepers in STEMM organizations, such as presidents and chief executive officers, can take to foster a culture and climate of antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion that is genuinely accessible and supportive to all.

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