GSE/RES Taking credit for one's success: Reducing stereotypic attributional bias can improve women's science and engineering outcomes

智力优势：在非传统女性领域学习的女性，包括科学和工程，被建议表现出一种自发的内隐成就归因模式，称为“刻板印象归因偏见”(SAB)。SAB被定义为一种微妙的刻板印象偏见，即女性在科学和工程方面的成功自发地归因于外部原因(如运气)，而她们的失败自然归因于内部原因(如能力不足)。这项研究探索了在被认为不欢迎女性的教育环境中，是否会促进参与SAB的倾向。不受欢迎的环境的特征包括很少或没有其他女性同事或榜样，以及见证了有利于男性的微妙的行为偏见。有人建议，攻读理工科的女学生可能会参与SAB，而不受她们明确表示的关于女性和科学的信仰的影响，因为她们所处的环境中遇到了刻板印象的信息。这项研究结合了三个强有力的理论视角(性别差异、内隐刻板印象和成就归因)，以促进对女性在科学和工程领域的参与率低于男性的理解。SAB概念是一项独特的贡献，它基于社会心理学中合理的研究证据，被置于一个新的理论框架中，即作为一种意外的、内隐的归因偏差，它会因刻板印象的环境线索而增加，并影响学业成绩。该项目还促进了基本的实验和应用干预方法，以了解、预测和提高女性理科学生的学业成绩。在七项实验室研究中，这项研究验证了这些假设：1)在被认为不欢迎女性的环境中(例如，男性主导的环境和/或存在偏爱男性的行为偏见的环境中)，女性学生在更欢迎女性的环境中会表现出比女性更大的SAB；2)SAB预测女性对科学和工程的动机和表现会减弱；3)没有表现出SAB的女性理工科学生在成功反馈后表现出更强的学习毅力，而参与SAB的女性则没有；4)由于关于种族/民族的刻板印象的内容不同，SAB对白人妇女和非裔美国妇女的影响将不同；5)旨在减少SAB的干预措施可以改善妇女的科学成果，因为她们的科学和工程成功在内部得到了更多的归因。更广泛的影响：拟议的研究在发现影响女性理科学生的因素的同时促进了教学、培训和学习，因为本科生和研究生将作为学生合作者全面参与该项目的所有方面。代表不足群体的成员将参加拟议的研究，因为该项目直接侧重于代表人数不足的重要群体(科学界的女性)，并为少数族裔和占多数的男女学生保留了作为研究助理和答复者的关键角色。拟议的研究将有助于加强研究和教育的基础设施，因为将开发计算机技术，并将与大学的教学研究和学习中心、工程学院和相关部门进行合作联系，以鼓励和促进未来的研究合作。研究结果的广泛传播将包括心理学和教育学杂志上的研究报告和出版物。此外，这些成果将与教育、研究和多样性项目共享。最后，该项目将为社会带来重要和重大的好处，因为了解影响科学领域妇女的过程对于实现提高妇女在科学和科学创新中的代表性的目标至关重要。

Intellectual merit: Women studying in fields non-traditional for women, including science and engineering, are proposed to show a spontaneous pattern of implicit achievement attribution, termed "stereotypic attributional bias" (SAB). SAB is defined as a subtle form of stereotypic bias in which women's science and engineering successes are spontaneously attributed to external causes (such as luck) and their failures spontaneously attributed to internal causes (such as lack of ability). This research explores whether the tendency to engage in SAB is promoted by being in educational environments perceived as unwelcoming to women. Features of unwelcoming environments include having few or no other female colleagues or role models, and witnessing subtle behavioral biases favoring men. It is proposed that female students pursuing science and engineering may come to engage in SAB, independent of their explicitly stated beliefs about women and science, as a result of stereotypic messages encountered in their environments. This research unites three strong theoretical perspectives (gender distinctiveness, implicit stereotyping, and achievement attribution) to advance understanding of women's lower participation in science and engineering compared to men. The SAB concept is a unique contribution based on sound research evidence in social psychology placed in a new theoretical framework, i.e. as an unintended, implicit attributional bias that is increased by stereotypic environmental cues and that influences academic outcomes. This project also promotes both basic experimental and applied intervention approaches to understanding, predicting, and improving academic outcomes among female science students. In seven laboratory studies, the research tests these hypotheses: 1) female students in settings perceived to be unwelcoming to women [e.g., male-dominated settings and/or those in which behavioral biases favoring men exist] will show greater SAB than women in settings more welcoming to women; 2) SAB predicts diminished motivation for and performance in science and engineering among women; 3) female science and engineering students who do not evince SAB show increased academic persistence after success feedback, whereas women who engage in SAB do not; 4) the implications of SAB will be different for White vs. African American women due to differences in the content of stereotypes regarding their race/ethnicity; and 5) an intervention designed to reduce SAB can improve women's science outcomes, as a result of increasing internal attributions for their science and engineering success. Broader impacts: The proposed research advances discovery about factors influencing female science students while promoting teaching, training and learning as undergraduate and graduate students will participate fully as student collaborators in all aspects of the project. Members of underrepresented groups will participate in the proposed research, as this project focuses directly on an important underrepresented population (women in science), and reserves key roles for racial minority and majority male and female students as research assistants as well as respondents. The proposed research will serve to enhance infrastructure for research and education, as computer technologies will be developed and collaborative contacts will be made with the university's Center for Research and Learning on Teaching, the College of Engineering, and related departments, encouraging and facilitating future research collaborations. Broad dissemination of the results of the research will include research presentations and publications, in both psychology and education journals. Moreover, these results will be shared with educational, research, and diversity programs. Finally, this project will offer important and significant benefits to society, as understanding the processes influencing women in science is critical in moving toward the goal of greater representation of women in science and scientific innovation.