Postdoctoral Fellowship: SPRF: Examining the Role of Defaults in Faculty Recruitment

Muragishi, Gregg A, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Sapna Cheryan at The University of Washington, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating how to increase representation in tenure-track Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) faculty positions. Research on representation in STEM faculty positions has primarily focused on eliminating the differential treatment; but it is suggested that eliminating differential treatment is not enough to fully address the partiality that perpetuates underrepresentation in faculty STEM positions. Drawing on social and cultural psychology, a suggested first step in effectively increasing the representation amongst faculty is to directly examine and redefine the defaults that reinforce and reproduce bias in faculty recruitment. Defaults are the default beliefs of which attributes are rewarded, valued, and deemed important or necessary in a setting. This work will focus on defaults and examine whether the overemphasis on certain defaults (e.g., independence, competitiveness) in faculty job ads impacts applicants' motivations in pursuing those positions. Using correlational and experimental methods, this work will investigate: (1) defaults in academic job ads reduce application rates for tenure-track faculty positions, and show that this is mediated by increased anticipated partiality; (2) whether faculty members are more likely to endorse heterogeneous default job ads than inclusive ads, and show that this is mediated by faculty member’s beliefs about the quality of the applicant pool; and (3) test and intervention to increase faculty members’ endorsement of inclusive job ads. This work will highlight one explanation to why some initiatives to improve representation do not always produce lasting outcomes. While these initiatives focus on reducing differential treatment, they often leave the defaults that perpetuate inequalities intact. This work will serve as evidence of the importance of broadening the defaults of what attributes are necessary for success to begin to create academic department change to increase representation within tenure-track faculty positions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.