(Illustration by Adam McCauley)
As an undergraduate majoring in psychology, Lucy De Souza became interested in masculinity. She wanted to look at culture and men’s experiences. At the University of British Columbia, where De Souza is now a doctoral candidate, she began mulling over the role that men play in the struggle to achieve gender equality.
De Souza teamed up with her advisor, Toni Schmader, a professor of psychology at UBC who studies gender and the workplace, especially in STEM contexts. The pair investigated what prevents men from enacting allyship, or “behaviors that actively support and aim to improve the status of marginalized individuals and groups.” Why is it so difficult for men to speak up and support women in public situations? Why do men who strongly believe in gender equality, at least in private, remain mum when gender bias is on display?
Specifically, De Souza and Schmader examined the role of pluralistic ignorance, or “the misperception of group attitudes.” They devised three experiments to test their research questions. First, the authors wanted to know whether men underestimated the extent to which other men cared about gender disparities in STEM fields, a likely consequence of stereotypes of men as encouraging or enabling sexism. Second, they analyzed what happened when men (and women) failed to accurately perceive what men thought about gender equality. Did misperceiving the beliefs of others inhibit their own willingness to enact allyship? Third, the authors were interested in how views of masculinity constrained men’s actions. They hypothesized that men with higher “masculinity concerns,” or sensitivity to the judgments of other men about their own masculinity, would be more reluctant to enact allyship. The authors found that both men and women misperceived men’s private beliefs about gender bias, which resulted in decreased allyship behavior, especially for men who showed higher masculinity concerns.
After recruiting hundreds of participants who worked in a STEM profession and identified as a man or woman, De Souza and Schmader conducted online surveys to gauge attitudes about diversity and inclusion in STEM. They rated perceptions of gender bias from the perspective of survey participants who were then asked to share their perceptions of what others thought. Allyship intentions were measured in responses to eight imaginary scenarios. The final part of the survey assessed men for “precarious masculinity,” or higher masculinity concerns.
The results confirmed what the authors suspected: Pluralistic ignorance had a profound dampening effect on men’s willingness to confront gender bias in STEM. “The core of pluralistic ignorance is that people in a group might act differently than what they actually think,” De Souza says.
The classic work in social psychology on pluralistic ignorance studied drinking behavior at college, where students tended to assume that everyone endorsed drinking, so they drank to follow a perceived norm, with potentially dangerous consequences. “Social psychologists emphasize the power of the context and the situation,” De Souza says. “But in our research, we began by asking people about their beliefs. We consistently found that men perceived sexism as a problem much more than they perceived other men sharing this concern.” Adhering to a (mis)perceived social norm, men preferred not to confront others about sexism, especially in public.
For Leslie Ashburn-Nardo, a professor of psychology at Indiana University, the findings offer a novel way to explore how more men can be recruited as allies in STEM. “If all we do is talk about sexism creating barriers for women in STEM, many people may assume that men are the perpetrators and that most men are unconcerned about this problem,” Ashburn-Nardo says. “Ironically, as the authors demonstrate, such perceptions can undermine allyship intentions, particularly among men with strong concerns about how masculine they appear in the eyes of others.”
Most researchers define allyship broadly, but De Souza and Schmader distinguish between proactive allyship intentions, or actions carried out publicly, and a reactive form of allyship that occurs in private. “This more nuanced conceptualization aids with the development of theory around allyship,” explains Ashburn-Nardo. “Researchers can make more specific predictions about which type of allyship might occur under which conditions. This will serve to develop more effective interventions to engage new allies.”
As the authors note, confronting bias remains a risky proposition for women. And while social change requires allies, men seeing gender bias as a problem in STEM isn’t enough to increase their allyship behavior. “People needed to see others walk the walk and not just talk the talk,” Ashburn-Nardo says.
Lucy De Souza and Toni Schmader, “The Misjudgment of Men: Does Pluralistic Ignorance Inhibit Allyship?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming.
Read more stories by Daniela Blei.