Aneeta Rattan’s research while affiliated with London Business School and other places

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Publications (15)


Support for Increasing Low-Wage Workers’ Compensation: The Role of Fixed-Growth Mindsets About Intelligence
  • Article
  • Publisher preview available

October 2022

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60 Reads

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5 Citations

Journal of Experimental Psychology General

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Anyi Ma

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Approximately 44% of U.S. workers are low-wage workers. Recent years have witnessed a raging debate about whether to raise their minimum wages. Why do some decision-makers support raising wages and others do not? Ten studies (four preregistered) examined people’s beliefs about the malleability of intelligence as a key antecedent. The more U.S. human resource managers (Study 1) and Indian business owners (Study 2) believed that people’s intelligence can grow (i.e., had a growth mindset), the more they supported increasing low-wage workers’ compensation. In key U.S. swing states (Study 3a), and a nationally representative sample (Study 3b), residents with a more growth mindset were more willing to support ballot propositions increasing the minimum wage and other compensation. Study 4 provided causal evidence. The next two studies confirmed the specificity of the predictor. People’s beliefs about the malleability of intelligence, but not personality (Study 5a) or effort (Study 5b), predicted their support for increasing low-wage workers’ compensation. Study 6 examined multiple potential mechanisms, including empathy, attributions for poverty, and environmental affordances. The relationship between growth mindset and support for raising low-wage workers’ wages was explained by more situational rather than dispositional attributions for poverty. Finally, Studies 7a and 7b replicated the effect of growth mindset on support for increasing low-wage workers’ compensation and provided confirmatory evidence for the mediator—situational, rather than dispositional, attributions of poverty. These findings suggest that growth mindsets about intelligence promote support for increasing low-wage workers’ wages; we discuss the theoretical and practical implications.

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Culturally Relevant Frames Increase Individuals’ Motivation to Contribute to Carbon Emissions Offsets

July 2022

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24 Reads

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

We theorized that culturally-relevant frames—language that invokes valued cultural concepts without changing the communicated information—canincrease people’s willingness to engage in environmental action. Across eight experiments ( N = 10,294) in two national contexts, we adjusted the language of a carbon offset request that people received as part of a simulated flight purchase. We investigated the role of five constructs that are valued across cultures but vary in their importance: choice, economic growth, social change, moral responsibility, and sanctity. We found that the social change, moral responsibility, and sanctity frames did not differ from the control condition in either culture. Invoking the concept of economic development increased Indians’ willingness to contribute to a carbon offset compared to the control frame, whereas invoking the concept of choice increased US Americans’ willingness. If these simulated decisions translate into actual actions, the findings suggest that framing environmental requests using culturally-relevant frames have the potential to promote sustainable behavior. More generally, the findings highlight the importance of paying attention to culture to motivate environmental action.


A Bias Toward Kindness Goals in Performance Feedback to Women (vs. Men)

June 2022

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70 Reads

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2 Citations

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

While research has documented positivity biases in workplace feedback to women versus men, this phenomenon is not fully understood. We take a motivational perspective, theorizing that the gender stereotype of warmth shapes feedback givers' goals, amplifying the importance placed on kindness when giving critical feedback to a woman versus a man. We found support for this hypothesis in a survey of professionals giving real developmental feedback (Study 1, N = 4,842 raters evaluating N = 423 individuals) and five experiments with MBA students, lab participants, and managers (Studies 2-5, N = 1,589). Across studies, people prioritized the goal of kindness more when they gave, or anticipated giving, critical feedback to a woman versus a man. Studies 1, 3, and 5 suggest that this kindness bias relates to gendered positivity biases, and Studies 4a and 4b tested potential mechanisms and supported an indirect effect through warmth. We discuss implications for the study of motivation and workplace gender bias.


Lay Beliefs About Who Can Bridge the Black–White Racial Gap During Interracial Exchanges

September 2021

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51 Reads

Social Psychological and Personality Science

For group discussions about fraught racial topics between Black and White Americans to be beneficial, conversation participants must view the person who facilitates as effective at communicating both the perspectives of Black and White Americans. We identify a biracial advantage in this domain. In three studies (total N = 710), we tested how a facilitator’s race affects their perceived effectiveness in communicating with both Black and White Americans. Both Black and White participants expected Black and White monoracial facilitators to more effectively engage with racial in-group than racial out-group members. However, they expected biracial facilitators to be equally effective in communicating with both Black and White groups. Both Black and White participants also expected biracial facilitators to use productive learning strategies (perspective taking, showing empathy) more than White facilitators, and either more than or equally to Black facilitators, suggesting one reason why people expect biracial facilitators to perform well in these moments.



Embedding mindsets in context: Theoretical considerations and opportunities for studying fixed-growth lay theories in the workplace

January 2021

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146 Reads

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26 Citations

Research in Organizational Behavior

The goal of the current manuscript is to embed the theory of mindsets about malleability in workplace contexts. We first define fixed-growth mindsets and the methods that have to date been used to study them. We then briefly review the domains in which mindsets have been documented to shape outcomes meaningfully, linking each to exciting research questions that we hope will soon be studied in workplace contexts. We also highlight some of the fascinating, new questions scholars can study by considering how mindsets might shape outcomes across a diversity of workplaces (e.g., the workforce of low wage and vulnerable populations). We further propose that studying mindsets in workplace contexts can develop mindset theory. We first ask whether workplace contexts provide opportunities to test for moderation on mindset expression. Second, we see opportunity for studying moderation of mindset processes – evaluating whether the psychological processes through which mindsets shape outcomes may differ based on contextual factors that vary across workplaces. We argue that investigating these possibilities will advance both the theory of mindsets about malleability and the study of human flourishing in the workplace. We invite scholars to join us in this endeavour.


“Why MANtoring is not the solution. A Rebuttal to ‘The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance.’”

December 2020

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261 Reads

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2 Citations

The findings of AlShebli Makovi & Rahwan1 highlight an endemic problem in science: co-authoring with men is associated with greater numbers of citations for junior scientists than co-authoring with women. The reasons for this likely stem from a long history and culture in science where White, straight, cisgender men are the dominant force. Under the authors’ assumption that authorship is equal to mentorship (a notion we criticize below), the reported citation disparity by coauthor gender for junior scientists may simply reflect that under the current status quo there are more barriers for women to establish strong mentorship programs and secure resources to support their mentees compared to men. In other words, citation disparity is the problem, not the solution as proposed by the authors. We argue that the citation disparity is uncorrelated with mentorship and the quality of the publication. Unfortunately, AlShebli Makovi & Rahwan err in their publication in two ways: they define mentorship as co-authorship (albeit with conditions), and they prescribe the problem as a solution suggesting that junior scientists, especially women, ought to be mentored by men - a proposal we have aptly named “MANtoring”. These faulty interpretations and conclusions reveal a broader problem in scholarship: failure to critically examine structural biases and assumptions when evaluating and interpreting data showing disparity. Much work is needed to improve the culture of science and to provide a more fair and equitable environment for individuals of any background (women in this case, but a similar reasoning would apply to people historically marginalized based on gender, race, sexuality, class, and other dimensions) to thrive2. The AlShebli et al article is a wakeup call to authors in all disciplines to take greater care in interpreting and acting on their disparity data. Failure to do so could have catastrophic effects on science including the irony of exacerbating the very problems researchers are attempting to address.


Fig. 1. Differences in author community structure: open science (A) vs. reproducibility (B). Each circle, or node, represents a scientific article. Articles share an edge (line connecting two nodes) if at least one author appears in both papers. While networks in both literatures are relatively sparse, the open science literature has formed a larger collaboration network (i.e., this community structure can be seen by the group of highly connected nodes in the center of the visualization), when compared with the reproducibility network. Data were visualized using Gephi (46).
Fig. 2. Distribution of communal and prosocial word density of abstracts in the open science and reproducibility literatures. Abstracts in the open science literature include significantly more words associated with communality and prosociality than those in the reproducibility literature.
Fig. 3. Gender representation in high-status author positions (first or last) in open science and reproducibility. (A) Single-author papers by gender. Women are underrepresented in single-authored papers in both the open science and reproducibility literatures, relative to gender parity. (B) Highstatus positions in multiauthor papers by gender. Women are underrepresented in high-status author positions in both literatures (relative to gender parity) but have greater representation in open science (with 47% with known female first or last author and 12% with known female first and last author) compared with the reproducibility literature (with only 34% with known female first or last author and only 5% with known female first and last author).
Fig. 4. Team size and women's representation in high-status positions in multiauthor papers. Women's representation in high-status authorship positions (first and last authorship) is patterned differently by team size in the open science and reproducibility literatures. Women assume high-status positions consistently across smaller and larger teams in open science, while they do so more frequently in larger teams in the reproducibility literature.
Fig. 5. Estimated regression effects of team size and year of publication on women's representation in high-status positions in multiauthor papers. (A) Women participation and team size. Women have higher rates of high-status authorship in larger teams within reproducibility, while rates are comparatively and consistently high in open science across team sizes. (B) Women's participation over time. In open science, the representation of women in high-status positions has grown over time, while in reproducibility, it has declined. Values are logistic regression estimates shown on the probability scale, with 95% CIs indicated in gray. To produce the estimates, the x-axis variable and literature category are varied, while the remaining model variables are fixed (see Methods for details).
Open science, communal culture, and women's participation in the movement to improve science

September 2020

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492 Reads

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59 Citations

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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 women in the open science and reproducibility literatures. Network analyses reveal that the open science and reproducibility literatures are emerging relatively independently with few common papers or authors. Open science has a more collaborative structure and includes more explicit language reflecting communality and prosociality than does reproducibility. Finally, women publish more frequently in high-status author positions within open science compared with reproducibility. Implications for cultivating a diverse, collaborative culture of science are discussed.


Microsoft: instilling a growth mindset

October 2018

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1,564 Reads

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29 Citations

London Business School Review

When Satya Nadella became CEO of Microsoft in February 2014, the company seemed in danger of fading into irrelevance. Now its share price is at an all‐time high. How did he do it? By Herminia Ibarra and Aneeta Rattan


Support for Resettling Refugees: The Role of Fixed-Growth Mindsets

August 2018

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263 Reads

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19 Citations

Psychological Science

In six studies (N = 2,340), we identified one source of people’s differential support for resettling refugees in their country—their beliefs about whether the kind of person someone is can be changed (i.e., a growth mind-set) or is fixed (i.e., a fixed mind-set). U.S. and UK citizens who believed that the kind of person someone is can be changed were more likely to support resettling refugees in their country (Studies 1 and 2). Study 3 identified a causal relationship between the type of mind-set people hold and their support for resettling refugees. Importantly, people with a growth mind-set were more likely to believe that refugees can assimilate in the host society but not that they should assimilate, and the belief that refugees can assimilate mediated the relationship between people’s mind-sets and their support for resettling refugees (Studies 4–6). The findings identify an important antecedent of people’s support for resettling refugees and provide novel insights into the science of mind-sets.


Citations (10)


... Possessing a growth mindset is associated with numerous anti-prejudice outcomes including, willingness to reading information about intergroup biases (Kern et al., 2023) and more positive expectation associated with confronting bias in the workplace (Rattan & Dweck, 2018). Growth mindset is also associated with social justice position, such as support for resettling refugees (Madan et al., 2019), integration of immigrants (Lou & Noels, 2020), more just compensation for low-wage workers (Madan et al., 2023), and a lower tendency to legitimize inequities in educational settings (Brady et al., 2023). ...

Reference:

Growth mindset strengthens the relationship between intercultural attitudes and global citizenship competence in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand: a cross-cultural study of PISA 2018 data
Support for Increasing Low-Wage Workers’ Compensation: The Role of Fixed-Growth Mindsets About Intelligence

Journal of Experimental Psychology General

... But only three (0.5%) participants left comments that referenced gender in the study. A woman's name and pronouns may cue positive bias [23] to attempt to counteract historical discrimination against women scientists, or to mitigate concerns about appearing sexist. Finally, there were no interactions between reviewer and investigator gender for the overall or component scores, suggesting a lack of gender affinity bias-a preference for others of the same gender. ...

A Bias Toward Kindness Goals in Performance Feedback to Women (vs. Men)
  • Citing Article
  • June 2022

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

... This is even obligatory in some public institutions, for instance for universities in the UK that apply for certification needed to qualify for research funding (Athena SWAN Award Scheme for Gender Equality), and for individual scholars who sit in on research evaluation committees for the European Science Foundation [8]. However, there is little evidence for the diversity gains of such awareness and training efforts, prompting researchers to characterize exchanges of 'best practices' as no more than 'best guesses' [9][10][11]. ...

The Promises and Pitfalls of Diversity and Inclusion in Organizations and Society
  • Citing Article
  • August 2021

Academy of Management Proceedings

... Interestingly, research on implicit theories differs from other theories of psychological attributes (e.g., prospect theory, regulatory focus theory, five-factor personality) in that the mechanisms of implicit theories adapt seamlessly to group decision-making contexts. In fact, while research on implicit theories has examined individuallevel beliefs, the theory naturally extends to examining decision making at collective levels, including groups and organizations (Canning et al., 2019;Murphy & Dweck, 2009;Rattan & Ozgumus, 2019). ...

Embedding mindsets in context: Theoretical considerations and opportunities for studying fixed-growth lay theories in the workplace
  • Citing Article
  • January 2021

Research in Organizational Behavior

... These findings stand in stark contrast to a recently published and then retracted paper by AlShebli, Makovi, and Rahwan (2020), which claimed that opposite-gender mentoring led to more positive career development outcomes. Like Mabry et al. (2020) who challenge the assumed benefits of what they call 'MANtoring', our research indicates that mentoring covers a range of career aspects and needs to address structural problems, and that sharing a female perspective can greatly help mentors and mentees in deriving career benefits. Importantly, while most mentoring is aimed at early career academics, the results stress that the participants perceived value in mentoring across all phases of an academic career. ...

“Why MANtoring is not the solution. A Rebuttal to ‘The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance.’”

... Filardo et al. [24] observed that the representation of women among first authors of original research in high-impact general medical journals was significantly higher in 2014 than 20 years ago, but has plateaued in recent years and declined in some journals. Similarly, Murphy et al. [61] discovered that women are more likely to be represented in high-status author positions in open science. ...

Open science, communal culture, and women's participation in the movement to improve science

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

... For example, the culture in India differs from that of the United States, with each perceiving the power distance differently (see figure 5) (Hofstede Insights, 2022), and they are also related to different country clusters according to GLOBE, with India included in the Southern Asia cluster, which has distinct characteristics than the USA that is included in the cluster of Anglo (Northouse, 2016). Before Nadella became CEO, employees were more focused on competing for more than collaboration, and the company was focusing on mobile more than cloud technology, whereas Nadella was attempting to shift the company's focus into modern management and empower the culture of collaboration, as well as focus more on the booming technologies of the day by shifting the culture into the coaching style and supporting continuous learning (Ibarra et al., 2018). He embraced the growth mindset and steered the company in a new strategic direction that prioritized customer obsession, diversity, inclusion, as well as the concept of "One Microsoft," which states that everyone has the same goal but may pursue it in different ways (Ryon, 2015). ...

Microsoft: instilling a growth mindset
  • Citing Article
  • October 2018

London Business School Review

... Possessing a growth mindset is associated with numerous anti-prejudice outcomes including, willingness to reading information about intergroup biases (Kern et al., 2023) and more positive expectation associated with confronting bias in the workplace (Rattan & Dweck, 2018). Growth mindset is also associated with social justice position, such as support for resettling refugees (Madan et al., 2019), integration of immigrants (Lou & Noels, 2020), more just compensation for low-wage workers (Madan et al., 2023), and a lower tendency to legitimize inequities in educational settings (Brady et al., 2023). ...

Support for Resettling Refugees: The Role of Fixed-Growth Mindsets

Psychological Science

... For example, researchers could study how GRO beliefs relate to universality beliefs, beliefs about whether everyone has the potential to reach excellence in a field (vs. only a select few; Rattan et al., 2018), or brilliance beliefs (also known as fieldspecific ability beliefs), whether innate talent is required for success in a field (Leslie et al., 2015;Rutten et al., under review). Indeed, recent work exploring mindsets, universality beliefs, and brilliance beliefs found that, despite large conceptual overlap between measures, each perspective contributed unique explanatory power and that the most accurate predictions were made only when considering all three simultaneously (Limeri et al., 2023). ...

Meta-Lay Theories of Scientific Potential Drive Underrepresented Students’ Sense of Belonging to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

... When bias occurs, as it so often does in workplace and social contexts (Sue & Spanierman, 2020), will confronting it signal anti-bias norms to those who observe the confrontation? Much research concerning bias confrontation focuses on outcomes at the interpersonal level, such as whether confrontation reduces bias for the person who has been confronted, and how confrontation affects evaluations of the confronter (Chaney & Sanchez, 2018;Hildebrand et al., 2023;Parker et al., 2018;Rattan et al., 2023;Wilton et al., 2018). However, the current research takes a more expansive perspective to investigate the possible norm-signaling function of bias confrontation. ...

White’s Perceptions of Biracial Individuals’ Race Shift When Biracials Speak Out Against Bias
  • Citing Article
  • September 2017

Social Psychological and Personality Science