Corinne A. Moss-Racusin

Skidmore College · Department of Psychology

Some participants in the conversation about changing scientific norms have recommended that researchers articulate detailed, formalized theories from the outset. Also, leading psychology journals have historically prioritized research that conveys at least the appearance of a satisfying theoretical conclusion. We argue that simply demonstrating soc...

Although prior work reveals that gender bias against women produces gender gaps favoring men in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics engagement, research has yet to explore whether gender bias against men produces gender gaps favoring women in health care, early education, and domestic (HEED) engagement. Supporting preregistered predic...

Accumulated findings from studies in which implicit-bias measures correlate with discriminatory judgment and behavior have led many social scientists to conclude that implicit biases play a causal role in racial and other discrimination. In turn, that belief has promoted and sustained two lines of work to develop remedies: (a) individual treatment...

Gender stereotypes shape individuals’ behaviors, expectations, and perceptions of others. However, little is known about the content of gender stereotypes about people of different ages (e.g., do gender stereotypes about 1-year-olds differ from those about older individuals?). In our pre-registered study, 4,598 adults rated either the typicality of...

The reproducibility movement in psychology has resulted in numerous highly publicized instances of replication failures. The goal of the present work was to investigate people’s reactions to a psychology replication failure vs. success, and to test whether a failure elicits harsher reactions when the researcher is a woman vs. a man. We examined the...

Accumulated findings from studies in which implicit-bias measures correlate with discriminatory judgment and behavior have led many social scientists to conclude that implicit biases play a causal role in racial and other discrimination. In turn, that belief has promoted and sustained two lines of work to develop remedies: (a) individual treatment...

As an active interdisciplinary subfield, the psychology of gender has made major contributions to social psychology, and to psychological science more broadly. And yet, it has often been viewed as a special-interest area producing less rigorous work than other subfields. Such unduly negative perceptions may undermine the extent to which development...

We conducted the first experimental tests of the impact of men's access to paid parental leave on anticipated well‐being among heterosexual men and women in the United States. Participants read a news article reporting that paid paternity leave was either likely or unlikely in the United States in the near future, completed a future life‐brainstorm...

Women are missing from Science, Technology, Education, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, undermining intellectual inclusivity, meritocracy goals, national competitiveness, and high-quality advances. Solutions require not only hiring more women, but boosting their sustainable representation (i.e., their lasting, substantial presence and valued engageme...

We examined penalties against individuals who temporarily de‐prioritize their employee or parenting role. Experiment 1 (N = 488) utilized vignettes depicting a mother/father who briefly left their child with a babysitter to engage in work/self‐care/did not leave (control). Both mothers and fathers were viewed as less parentally competent, likeable,...

Significance Science is rapidly changing with the current movement to improve science focused largely on reproducibility/replicability and open science practices. Through network modeling and semantic analysis, this article provides an initial exploration of the structure, cultural frames of collaboration and prosociality, and representation of wom...

In efforts to promote equality and combat gender bias, traditionally male-occupied professions are investing resources into hiring more women. Looking forward, if women do become well represented in a profession, does this mean equality has been achieved? Are issues of bias resolved? Two studies including a randomized double-blind experiment demons...

Validated interventions that increase bias literacy (i.e., knowledge of gender bias) and decrease sexism are critical to addressing pervasive gender biases in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). However, interventions that highlight existing gender inequities may inadvertently act as a social identity threat cue for women. Inc...

Recent media campaigns, news articles, and political events have spotlighted sexism and collective action against sexism. In the face of these injustices, some women and men decide to confront sexist events, whereas others do not. In this chapter, we focus on the factors that motivate people to confront sexism with particular attention to the ways...

We explored whether the existence of gender bias causes gender gaps in STEM engagement. In Experiment 1 (n = 322), U.S. women projected less sense of belonging, positivity toward, and aspirations to participate in STEM than did men when exposed to the reality of STEM gender bias. These gender differences disappeared when participants were told that...

Scholars are increasingly responding to calls for interventions to address persistent gender disparities in the sciences. Yet, interventions that emphasize the pervasiveness of bias may inadvertently damage efficacy to confront sexism by creating the perception that bias is immutable. We examined this possibility in the context of a successful bias...

Transgender individuals face high levels of stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination, and violence. However, there is a paucity of research (particularly experimental work) investigating the magnitude of gender identity bias (GIB) targeting transgender individuals, as well as interventions designed to ameliorate it. To address this gap, we conducted...

Gender biases contribute to the underrepresentation of women in STEM. In response, the scientific community has called for methods to reduce bias, but few validated interventions exist. Thus, an interdisciplinary group of researchers and filmmakers partnered to create VIDS (Video Interventions for Diversity in STEM), which are short videos that exp...

While there is substantial evidence that adults who violate gender stereotypes often face backlash (i.e. social and economic penalties), less is known about the nature of gender stereotypes for young children, and the penalties that children may face for violating them. We conducted three experiments, with over 2000 adults from the US, to better un...

Supplemental online materials. (DOCX)

Rationale: Clinician bias contributes to racial disparities in healthcare, but its effects may be indirect and culturally specific. Objective: The present work aims to investigate clinicians' perceptions of Black versus White patients' personal responsibility for their health, whether this variable predicts racial bias against Black patients, an...

Anecdotal evidence abounds suggesting that as compared to fathers, mothers report greater guilt regarding the negative impact of work on family (WIF-guilt), yet shockingly few quantitative studies have evaluated gender differences or correlates of WIF-guilt. In five studies, we provide an in-depth exploration of parents’ feelings of guilt regarding...

The transition to parenthood is a watershed moment for most parents, introducing the possibility of intra-individual and interpersonal growth or decline. Given the increasing number of dual-earner couples in the United States, new parents’ attitudes towards employment (as well as the ways in which they balance employment and personal demands) may h...

Despite evidence that gender biases contribute to the persistent underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, interventions that enhance gender bias literacy about these fields remain rare. The current research tested the effectiveness of two theoretically grounded sets of videos at increasing gender bias liter...

Research suggests that women weigh the perceived costs and benefits when deciding whether to confront sexism on behalf of themselves or other women. Novel to the present research, we tested whether men similarly weigh the anticipated costs and benefits when deciding whether to confront sexism on behalf of women. Using path analysis across 2 correla...

Mounting experimental evidence suggests that subtle gender biases favoring men contribute to the underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), including many subfields of the life sciences. However, there are relatively few evaluations of diversity interventions designed to reduce gender biases within the...

We investigated the existence, nature, and processes underscoring backlash (social and economic penalties) against men who violate gender stereotypes by working in education, and whether backlash is exacerbated by internal (vs. external) behavioral attributions. Participants (N = 303) rated one of six applications for an elementary teaching positio...

Significance Ever-growing empirical evidence documents a gender bias against women and their research—and favoring men—in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Our research examined how receptive the scientific and public communities are to experimental evidence demonstrating this gender bias, which may contribute to wome...

This research provided a novel experimental test of mental illness stigma and reactions to treatment seeking decisions for male and female targets. In Experiment 1 (N=420), robust stigma emerged for targets exhibiting major depressive disorder; they were rated as less likeable, competent, and hirable than comparable normatively functioning targets....

Our research capitalized on a naturalistic data collection opportunity to investigate responses to experimental evidence of gender bias within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). We analyzed 831 written comments made by members of the public in response to three prominent articles reporting on experimental evidence of science...

The present research examined whether confrontations of sexism lead to the same self-regulatory outcomes as confrontations of racism within STEM fields. Whereas people are generally concerned when confronted about racial biases, they may care about gender biases in specific domains.

Men and women are expected to exemplify the gendered traits of agency (masculinity) and communality (femininity). Research has yet to examine how the implicit adoption of these traits influences close relationships. To address these gaps, the current study used the Implicit Association Test (IAT) in a dyadic context to examine whether or not these...

The present studies examined whether colorblind diversity messages, relative to multicultural diversity messages, serve as an identity threat that undermines performance-related outcomes for individuals at the intersections of race and gender. We exposed racial/ethnic majority and minority women and men to either a colorblind or multicultural diver...

B. L. Benderly's Science Careers article “What is keeping women out of leadership jobs in academic medicine?”(7 January, ) about a recent report ([ 1 ][1]) misrepresents the study's findings and perpetuates gender biases by framing women's second-place standing in

Fair treatment of other scientists is an essential aspect of scientific integrity, warranting diversity interventions.

Gender egalitarian men are vital for women’s progress, yet attitudes toward and beliefs about them are underinvestigated. In three experiments, women liked gender egalitarian men more so than men did, but both genders stigmatized them as more feminine, weak, and likely to be gay, compared with control male targets. This was true even when the gende...

Nature 3/2013; 495(7439):35-8: Eight experts give their prescriptions for measures that will help to close the gender gap in nations from China to Sweden.

Backlash refers to social and economic penalties for counterstereotypical behavior (Rudman, 1998). By penalizing vanguards (atypical role models), backlash reinforces cultural stereotypes as normative rules. We present the Backlash and Stereotype Maintenance Model (BSMM), supported by studies of gender and racial vanguards (Phelan and Rudman, 2010a...

Despite efforts to recruit and retain more women, a stark gender disparity persists within academic science. Abundant research has demonstrated gender bias in many demographic groups, but has yet to experimentally investigate whether science faculty exhibit a bias against female students that could contribute to the gender disparity in academic sci...

The present research examined how a group's gender composition influences intragroup evaluations. Group members evaluated fellow group members and the group as a whole following a shared task. As predicted, no performance differences were found as a function of gender composition, but judgments of individuals’ task contributions, the group's effect...

Across two studies, we tested whether perceived social costs and benefits of confrontation would similarly predict confronting discrimination both when it was experienced and when it was observed as directed at others. Female undergraduate participants were asked to recall past experiences and observations of sexism, as well as their confronting be...

Occupying gender stereotype-incongruent roles can lead individuals to lose status and earn a lower salary. The present research examined whether merely working for a supervisor in a gender-atypical occupational role leads a subordinate to lose status. Two studies found that male subordinates of gender deviants (i.e., a female supervisor in a mascul...

Previous findings suggest that women are more likely than men to take on the submissive role during sexual activities (e.g., waiting for their partner to initiate and orchestrate sexual activities), often to the detriment of their sexual satisfaction. Extending previous research on gender role motivation, the authors recruited 181 heterosexual coup...

Agentic female leaders risk social and economic penalties for behaving counter-stereotypically (i.e., backlash; Rudman, 1998), but what motivates prejudice against female leaders? The status incongruity hypothesis (SIH) proposes that agentic women are penalized for status violations because doing so defends the gender hierarchy. Consistent with thi...

The historic 2008 Democratic presidential primary race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton posed a difficult choice for egalitarian White voters, and many commentators speculated that the election outcome would reflect pitting the effects of racism against sexism (Steinem, 2008). Because self-reported prejudices may be untrustworthy, we used t...

Women experience social and economic penalties (i.e., backlash) for self-promotion, a behavior that violates female gender stereotypes yet is necessary for professional success. However, it is unknown whether and how the threat of backlash interferes with women's ability to self-promote. The present research examined the effects of fear of backlash...

Adherence to masculine norms and stereotypes has been linked to negative consequences for men, suggesting that liberating men from the bonds of traditional masculinity would be beneficial (Courtenay, 2000; Pollack, 1998). However, when people deviate from stereotypic expectations, they encounter backlash (i.e., social and economic penalties; Rudman...

Deriving self-worth from romantic relationships (relationship contingency) may have implications for women's sexual motives in relationships. Because relationship contingency enhances motivation to sustain relationships to maintain positive self-worth, relationship contingent women may engage in sex to maintain and enhance their relationships (rela...

Although heterosexual men typically hold positions of dominance in society, negative aspects of masculinity could lead some men to feel that their gender group is not valued by others (D. A. Prentice & E. Carranza, 2002). Previous research has largely overlooked the impact of men’s own perceptions of their gender group membership on their relations...

We present evidence that shifting hiring criteria reflects backlash toward agentic (“masterful”) women (Rudman, 1998). Participants (N = 428) evaluated male or female agentic or communal managerial applicants on dimensions of competence, social skills, and hireability. Consistent with past research, agentic women were perceived as highly competent...

This study employed qualitative methods with a sample of overweight and obese adults to identify and describe their subjective experiences of weight bias. Participants (274 females and 44 males) completed an online battery of self-report questionnaires, including several open-ended questions about weight stigmatization. These questions asked them t...

This study examined the relationship between internalization of negative weight-based stereotypes and indices of eating behaviors and emotional well-being in a sample of overweight and obese women. Research Method and Procedures: The sample was comprised of 1013 women who belonged to a national, non-profit weight loss organization. Participants com...