When I was asked to write this article about diversity and leadership in cognitive psychology, I was ecstatic! As an Asian American woman serving as a member of our college’s leadership team, I have thought about the impact of my identity on my leadership journey extensively. Diversifying academic leadership contributes significantly to diversifying academia overall – which will in turn benefit students, future researchers, and all members of the community. In this article, I will focus on a discussion of the factors that affect women and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in achieving full professorship and other academic leadership positions, such as journal editorship and other senior leadership positions in departments, schools, or university levels. I will then offer suggestions on what we could do as a field and a community to move the needle on creating a more inclusive discipline.
Psychology is a field that is now highly dominated by women students, however, when one examines professionals at the rank of full professor, the number is relatively low. Penny Pexman and Debra Titone nicely summarized work related to this “leaky pipeline” and provided suggestions for its repair in this post back on 2018. Specifically, Pexman and Titone pointed to data that showed that even though more women were awarded undergraduate and graduate research awards, more men received postdoctoral and faculty awards than women in psychology. A similar pattern is observed when one examines data related to BIPOC representation in our discipline. Based on reports from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR), BIPOC made up 18% of all psychology faculty positions in 2020-2021, with the rate being 25% across all disciplines. Their data showed a steep decline in the number of BIPOC faculty moving through the promotion ladder to full professorship within the 5 years of data collection. For example, 7.56% of assistant professors in psychology identified as Black vs. 2.77% at full professor level; 6.81% of assistant professors identified as Hispanic vs. 3.82% at full professor rank; and 9.06% identified as Asian as assistant professors vs. 4.18% at full professor level. Women psychologists of all backgrounds, including White women, are also less represented at higher ranks. These data clearly show a pattern of inequity and signal that there is much more we need to do to move our discipline toward inclusive excellence.
Creating a more inclusive discipline is our responsibility and is an effortful process. I believe that the following steps are critical for all psychologists to embark on together to change the dynamics of the field:
1) Genuine mentorship and sponsorship
2) Crediting the invisible labor of women and BIPOC individuals
3) Careful examination of our hiring, tenure, and promotion practices
4) Reimagine the publication process to reduce implicit bias
Genuine Mentorship and Sponsorship
Let’s start with mentorship and sponsorship. The meaning of mentorship is to guide and advise a less experienced individual in their life or career journey. Research has shown the immense career benefits to both mentors and mentees; and also shows that individuals are more likely to provide mentoring to others once they have received mentoring. However, the reality is that most people tend to mentor others who remind them of themselves. This tendency feeds into the cycle of “leadership cloning,” which does not help in the goal of diversifying and improving inclusion at higher ranks of the profession. Thus, it is crucial that we encourage a culture where men are invited to serve as mentors to women scientists. Similarly, the same argument goes for White scientists being open and willing to mentor BIPOC mentees. Sponsorship adds a component of externally-facing support, such as promotion, advocacy, and connections. This active link to an appropriate audience is critical in supporting individuals who may not necessarily be immediately included in established networks and circles due to historical or societal reasons. This in-group vs. out-group situation intensifies as one climbs up the rank and could be one of the main reasons why women and BIPOC individuals do not stay in positions in leadership, even if they were recruited to enter. With the lack of representation, they simply do not feel welcome and do not have an established structure to help them succeed. It is critical for existing leaders such as department heads, deans, and other academic leaders to acknowledge this barrier and to help women and BIPOC individuals to envision clear and achievable professional goals, at all points of their careers. Be transparent with opportunities for advancement. Encourage individuals to design a personal 2 to 5-year professional development plan and invest in them by supporting their participation in relevant professional development opportunities, career/leadership coaching, and national-level leadership organizations.
Invisible Labor of Women and BIPOC Individuals
Research has shown that women and BIPOC individuals are often already open to mentorship/sponsorship relationships. We also know that women and BIPOC individuals are likely to be performing invisible labor at work and at home. Invisible labor at work, termed cultural taxation, could include mentoring or advising more students and junior colleagues, simply because there are more women students and junior faculty in psychology; and serving on committees related to diversity and inclusion because of BIPOC personal identities and interests. COVID-19 has shone a spotlight on the extra stress that many women carry at home due to household and childcare responsibilities. BIPOC individuals’ daily struggle with discrimination was no doubt highlighted with the extreme rise in race-related hate crimes and the disparity in health care access during the pandemic. All of these instances point to the fact that women and BIPOC individuals carry with them an emotional load that is constant and heavy, which needs to be addressed if we truly want equity in our discipline.
Hiring, Promotion, and Tenure Process
One of the most important places to start is in the hiring, tenure, and promotion process. It is essential that search committees and tenure/promotion committees are well-equipped with knowledge of the above patterns of gender and racial disparity, and are trained in identifying implicit biases in the search and recommendation process. Although many colleges and universities have implemented rubrics in search and promotion recommendation processes, research has found mixed results for this approach. Rubrics can sometimes exacerbate discriminatory behaviors, especially if committee members do not have a deep understanding of the implicit factors that may bias their judgments. Ultimately, it is about designing a holistic system where women and BIPOC scientists’ invisible work can be showcased and accounted for in the review process. For example, making sure faculty’s work on Antiracism/Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ADEI) initiatives are given the same weight and credit as other types of college service. Institutions should also encourage faculty to include diversity-related work as a core service to the college rather than an add-on statement to accompany narratives on scholarship, teaching, and research. It is crucial to ensure a standardized interview/review process plus diverse representation in all instances; but perhaps even more important is that all members who participate in these processes are carefully trained with regards to implicit bias. Apart from requiring ADEI trainings for anyone involved in hiring and faculty review processes, institutions could also assign a member from each team to serve as a diversity representative. This practice could ensure that ADEI principles are at the forefront of all discussions and that each member is held accountable for the goals of achieving an equitable search or faculty review.
Inequity in the Publication Process
As we all know, academics rely heavily on the quantity and quality of publications to get hired and promoted to high ranks, or to be considered for academic leadership positions such as journal editors. So, the natural question to ask is – are women and BIPOC scientists disadvantaged in the publishing realm? As a whole, we know that academic publishing is dominated by authors from the top 20 percent of universities worldwide. There is also evidence that BIPOC graduate students are less likely to publish in top-tier journals due to less encouragement from their advisors. Furthermore, even though journal impact factor may provide a guide to the importance of a scientific finding, the value of research should not be totally dependent on this number. In order to achieve inclusive excellence in cognitive science, we need to carefully assess our definition of scientific prestige and impact of research results in the faculty review process. Of course, we also need to acknowledge that there is existing implicit bias in the publication process, and that science in general needs to take concrete steps to combat these biases, e.g., by including diverse reviewers and editors in the publishing process, and releasing annual public diversity reports on authors, reviewers, editors, and participants to encourage diversity at all levels. In the faculty review process, emphasizing the need to assess the quality and impact of research rather than prestige or impact of the journals is one way to remedy this issue. Finally, as information accessibility increases through technology, it is also time for academia to rethink the way we make science accessible to all. Open access journals achieve this goal by making articles free to the public, but the cost of publication fees is yet another limiting factor for historically marginalized groups. Sponsorship for publication may be one immediate step institutions can take to support researchers. Ultimately, in the long run, it is essential for academia to rethink how the quality and impact of such work are evaluated.
Concluding Thoughts
I would like to end this post with a quote from Dr. Beverley Tatum’s book “Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”, which had a profound impact on the way I view the world:
“Active racist behavior is equivalent to walking fast on the conveyor belt…But unless they are walking actively in the opposite direction at a speed faster than the conveyor belt — unless they are actively anti racist — they will find themselves carried along with the others.”
This quote can be applied to gender discrimination and frankly, all other types of discrimination that are ingrained in our societal structure. It is our responsibility to walk against this conveyor belt and make a difference in our field and beyond!