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Open thread on issues in the profession for the week of March 23, 2015

Brian Leiter

Post your comment only once, it may take awhile to appear.  Let me suggest as one possible topic an earlier thread on the empirical literature on implicit bias and stereotype threat.  What I took from that thread is that the evidence for stereotype threat is quite weak, but the evidence for implicit bias is quite strong.  On the other hand, the evidence that implicit bias operates when people engage in careful review of scholarship is weak.   Are these correct take-aways?  Citations and references welcome.

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14 responses to “Open thread on issues in the profession for the week of March 23, 2015”

  1. anonymous

    Implicit bias against women has been said to be an explanatory factor for the gender ratio in academic philosophy. For instance, women's objective accomplishments such as publication counts are said to be downplayed in favor of stereotypes of male genius. However, studies of the recent job market have failed to support the hypothesis that there is such an anti female bias.

    Instead, the evidence indicates there is a pro female bias, where among those hired for junior jobs (and especially their first jobs), women have fewer publications on average than men. The publication bias favoring women is even stronger than the bias favoring candidates from high prestige PhD programs. Combining the two biases for new hires, high prestige women have a mean publication count that is about one third that of the low prestige males.

    See the analysis, based on the data collected by Carolyn Dicey Jennings, at:
    http://genderandprestige.blogspot.com/

    Reply
  2. grad student

    One issue I'd like to see discussed is how social media can lead to the perception that certain views are widespread, due perhaps to the ability of a single person to incessantly post about a particular topic. Is this a forum for such incessant posting? Anonymous above makes the rounds at all the blogs, at every open thread on this blog, philosophers anon, the phil. smoker, among others, posting this stuff repeatedly about "prestige bias" and "gender bias" … does this lead to the perception that his(?) views are widespread, rather than limited to, well, him and perhaps a few vocal others? I'm interested in the perceptions of others.

    Reply
  3. grad student

    Also, more to the topic at hand, I wonder if stereotype threat is more operative in relatively anonymous settings — like, for instance, the internet, or large classrooms, or new settings, as opposed to settings in which one has established an identity that is not limited to those superficially identified features (race, gender, age). My guess is that it would be, since (I would think) we tend to think in these categories when there is nothing to override them (for instance, knowledge of personalities, interests, etc.). I would also think that this would counteract implicit bias — I'm hoping someone who is more familiar with literature on these things can point me to the right place.

    Reply
  4. Gerhardt van Feldterberger

    Not only an issue for the profession, but an issue for the world: I'm sick to death of the term, "Social Media" flung around to explain this and that (e.g. comment #2).

    Social media is going to burn itself out as soon as the millennials get bored with it. Same with "Mobile".

    There should be an area — "Philosophy of Controlled Mind" (maybe there is) whose goal is to to study how Apple created a generation of idiots who walk around the streets with their heads at a precise 16.25 degree angle glued to the smart phone.

    My prediction is that Apple will *not* create a new generation of idiots who walk around with their arm raised parallel to their eyes, tapping inputs to their iWatch with their free hand like Mr. Data from Star Trek TNG. But I could be wrong, given the smart phone phenomenon described above

    Reply
  5. Anonymous

    We could have "gotten scientific" about whether and to what degree gender affects hiring, but Arvan on Philosophers' Cocoon refused to include gender as a category in his survey, despite several people suggesting that he do so. Oh well–I guess we'll continue to speculate.

    UPDATE: I suppose Prof. Arvan may have preferred not to court controversy and abuse by even venturing into that territory. Given the current climate in philosophy, one can hardly blame him if that was his reason.

    Reply
  6. R.L.

    I *really* liked this statement (recently linked from the femphil blog) by Adrian Currie of a set of personal policies that he thinks would foster a more inclusive and productive environment in philosophy. I think it's worth having a look at. https://sites.google.com/site/adrianmitchellcurrie/inclusiveness

    Reply
  7. Jonathan Birch

    There is continuing debate regarding the 'predictive validity' of IAT scores as predictors of discriminatory behaviour. In a 2009 meta-analysis, Greenwald et al. argued that IAT scores, while not very strong predictors of behaviour, are often better than explicit self-reports. Oswald et al. (2013) challenged this, arguing that the effect sizes should be revised downward. There is a reply from Greenwald et al. in press, as well as a reply to the reply from Oswald et al. As far as I can tell, both camps agree that the effect sizes are small. Greenwald et al. maintain that these small effects could still have major societal consequences. Oswald et al. reply that the societal consequences are unknown.

    One should not exaggerate the extent of the disagreement here. No one is claiming that implicit biases do not exist, and no one is claiming that they have no behavioural effects. At the same time, it's important to bear in mind that the effect sizes are small and that their social consequences are not well understood.

    References:
    Greenwald et al. (2009) Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: III. Meta-analysis of predictive validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 97:17-41.
    Greenwald et al. (in press) Statistically small effects of the Implicit Association Test can have societally large effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
    Oswald et al. (2013) Predicting ethnic and racial discrimination: a meta-analysis of IAT criterion studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 105:171-192.
    Oswald et al. (in press) Using the IAT to predict ethnic and racial discrimination: small effect sizes of unknown societal significance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

    Reply
  8. anonymous

    The "view" that there exists hiring bias for female and high prestige candidates is established by statistically significant correlations discovered in job market data (collected by a female philosopher who recently graduated from a lower prestige PhD program).

    Nobody denies the existence of prestige bias. The widespread view that there is job market bias against women is based on no data.

    BL COMMENT: I deny that so-called "prestige bias" is largely a case of "bias."

    Reply
  9. Rob

    In this recent talk (circa 75 mins.), cognitive psychologist Daniel Levitin characterizes the IAT as "a completely bogus test":

    http://www.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/videoAndAudio/channels/publicLecturesAndEvents/player.aspx?id=2838

    He also refers to his withering WSJ review of the IAT creators' recent book 'Blind Spot: Hidden Biases of Good People':

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323829504578272241035441214

    For a discussion of one of the IAT meta-analyses referenced by Jonathan Birch (comment #7):

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pop-psych/201502/the-implicit-assumptions-test

    For research challenging the significance attributed to the low levels of implicit-explicit correlation produced by the IAT, see pp. 28-29 for Hahn & Gawronski's commentary ("Do implicit evaluations reflect unconscious attitudes?") and pp. 52-53 for Newell & Shanks' agreement with it:

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2397729/Newell%20%26%20Shanks%20%282014%2C%20BBS%29.pdf

    Reply
  10. anonymous

    The gender bias in hiring is not only the reverse of the received wisdom, it is stronger than the prestige bias.

    Reply
  11. Anonymous

    I still think that there is a problem in the hiring-application process in Philosophy. I think changing this would help the already overburdened graduate students and others who apply for jobs. There are just too many damn components to the applications schools require. Many schools want cover letters, CV's, transcripts, research statements, teaching statements, syllabi, teaching evaluations, writing samples, and letters of recommendation. I know of no other place that requires so many materials, and tailoring these to different schools can be time consuming.

    For comparison, the History Department down the hall from me just did a job search. Their initial application required a CV, cover letter, and three letters. Other departments must think we're crazy.

    Reply
  12. anonymous

    The bias favoring women in junior philosophy hiring is even more dramatic when prestige of publications is taken into account, as per this update to http://genderandprestige.blogspot.com/

    "For the Top 15 journals, 27% of men hired had at least one such publication, while only 11% of women hired had at least one. For these journals, the average publication rate for men hired was 0.42 publications, while for women hired it was only 0.14 publications.

    …

    The null hypothesis ("no correlation") is rejected now with P-value around 0.001. In other words, if the null hypothesis is true, the probability of seeing this observed data is tiny: 0.1%."

    Reply
  13. anonymous

    Oh to be an op-ed writer! One needn't write as well as a writer; forget also the hard research of a reportage or the complex argumentation of a philosophizing. Instead, one can merely recycle old tropes. And don't worry about having the right qualifications either, writing a book on the Sabbath apparently makes one an expert on student movements in American colleges…

    It would be nice to see the end of the phrase "new infantilism" (coined by perhaps the most juvenile modern novelist) or at least have it applied more specifically e.g., to oversensitive reactions to criticism rather than, for instance, young people trying to deal with sexual assault. You can disagree with their methods, but many of the phenomenon these people are concerned with are very real and not matters of immaturity; sexism and sexual assault in academia are problems acknowledged frequently on this very blog. If the methods with which young people are now trying to address them are flawed, one can hardly blame them for not sticking with the old ways which have helped to perpetuate the issues in the first place. I see no evidence that the newest generation is anymore infantile than the last, just as the actions of a few members of the Boomers have failed to convince anyone they should be called "the old war criminals."

    Reply
  14. anon

    Brian – if Campos ever defamed you as you imply he did in your March 27, 2015 at 05:23 AM post, you should sue him. You obviously have no issues doing or threatening to do such to defend your rights and reputation.

    If you choose not to pursue this remedy, given your reputation as one who is willing to do so, it would seem to imply that the things you characterize as defamatory are actually… entirely true.

    BL COMMENT: On the off chance you're actually interested in the legal issues: I did not sue Campos for his various libels for a simple reason: he did not engage in defamation per se (i.e., defamation where damage is presumed), meaning I would have to show that his false statements of fact injured me, and that would be difficult to do given what a notorious clown Campos is in legal academia; it's simply not clear he could damage the reputation of any law professor given his standing in the profession. Because I am also almost certainly a "public figure" in debates about law school for purposes of American libel law, I would also have had to show not only that the statements were false (that would be the easy part), but that he must have known they were false, so that by making the false statements he acted recklessly or "maliciously." One of the travesties of American libel law is both how capacious the "public figure" doctrine is and how willing courts are to find that defendants did not act recklessly no matter how flimsy the basis for their false assertions. Given these two obstacles, I concluded with my lawyer it was not worth pursuing. (Other per se libel promulgated by other parties was dealt with, fortunately without litigation.)

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