I have recently been alerted to an article, which applied Daniel Kahneman's System 1 and System 2 to gender bias.
And indeed the application of Kahneman's System 1 and System 2 to gender bias and its operation in the workplace is certainly apt. However, I will have to disagree on one minor and one major point with the author's post.
The minor disagreement is with the equations presented:
score = perceived skill x perceived desire x perceived fit x luck
If anyone of the suggested factors is a zero, this kills the entire equation (multiplication) and I'm not sure if a single factor being zero would completely eliminate one's chances. Perhaps a '+' would be more apt? Of course, I have no idea and the proposal of an equation for success, or hire, is also hypothetical with the presumption that those factors are indeed determining variables for the boss-judge or whomever is doing the hiring.
I would also question: the perception of skill = true skill +/- ability to communicate. It is very possible to present the perception of skill without having any true skill whatsoever. One may easily give the impression of competence without having any. Just as it is easy to present the perception of a great product with advertising but when purchased and taken home it turns out to be a shit product. I would suggest the author re-examine hat relationship between perceived X and true X.
My major disagreement would be the seeming suggestion that System 2 is constantly dormant until it is "awakened" or when System 1 "can't cope". While I think this is partially correct, it leaves the impression that System 2 is a last resort. Lazy does not mean absent. Kahneman states in his book that both are indeed awake and operating together during our conscious waking hours. System 2 is active and serves as an executive function; "self-control". The relationship between the two is such that 'effort is minimized and performance optimized.' In this way, gender bias is a stereotype of women. It is easier to presume a stereotype and perform as if the stereotype is true than expend effort to discern whether it is true and delay any performance contingent upon that deliberation. In this regard, the author is correct in stating that System 2 tends to corroborate the biases of System 1. However, System 2 does insert itself when System 1 runs into difficulty. In another area of research this is arguably what has been called 'cognitive dissonance'. In this sense, my view would be to continue to create difficulties for the gender biases existing in System 1 by targeting the activation of System 2. To draw attention in such a way that System 2 recognizes that the biases of System 1 do not necessarily apply. And hopefully, over time, the changes we would like to see are operative in System 1.
I do agree that precedent helps. The prior success of "a woman to whom we bear some resemblance" making it 'big' certainly progresses and diminishes the gender bias that is operating. Success can indeed breed success, which the author notes with the 'availability heuristic.' However, I am a bit cautious of the author's second suggestion: to target the boss-judge's System 1 and "provide what it needs to make sense of the world, or where necessary, shock System 1 enough to awaken and engage System 2 in our favour". This seems to be the dilemma in the application of the 'representative' heuristic. One of the ways the author suggests to reduce gender bias is confronting the bias and explicating through coherent communication such that the boss-judge will make sense of the individual outside of a stereotype. While I think this helps and engages with the boss-judge's System 2 to a degree depending on how System 1 understands the explanation, the scenario of confronting a boss-judge and explaining to him that he's operating on a stereotype can be a difficult situation. Calling a boss 'sexist' or 'racist' can be a sticky situation. I think this may be why the author suggested that only when it is necessary we "shock System 1 enough to awaken and engage System 2 in our favour". So the author states that we target the boss-judge's System 1 and only when necessary "awaken System 2".
I would disagree. Targeting system 1 potentially reinforces pre-existing gender biases of the boss-judge and creates a dependence on a prior standard of successful women for which one is then dependent on the cognitive capacity of the boss-judge to make that reference in his mind. If persuasion is the objective then I recommend a book by Robert Levine, social psychologist, 'The Power of Persuasion'. The book is well written, very easy to read, accessible and discusses the psychology of persuasion in depth.
Alternately, if the objective is towards the elimination of female stereotypes and gender bias then I think the route should be different. Kahneman states that System 2 can "change the way System 1 works, by programming the normally automatic functions of attention and memory". And I agree. In this vein, the target should be System 2 rather than System 1. Some types of gradual conversion engage the reflexive dimension of being human. Engaging System 2 is not a matter of "shock". But to be unexpected in the context of expected gender norms conceived by gender biases operating in System 1. This isn't to say that a woman should adopt a standard of masculinity, as the author so points out about wearing pants and a suit and compromising one's fashion sensibilities, which only furthers another domain of System 1 for the boss-judge. But instead, to adopt the existentialist exercise of redefinition and creation; to redefine what it means to be a woman. This may affirm some and deny other preconceived gender norms. It is, as Nietzsche put it a 'will to power'; to be bold and be the creator of one's own values - the master of one's morality. Every action one takes reinforces an existing impression (gender bias) or creates a new one in the perceiver. This is the burden of responsibility that Sartre talks about. Each of us is a representative of all of the things we can't help but be - female, male, skin tone, nationality, sexual orientation, etc. etc. To paraphrase Sartre in the context of gender bias, by fahsioning one's self one fashions woman. That is, by being the woman you want to be you fashion an impression for all women. It is a call to actively participate in the deconstruction and reconstruction of culture - in this case, the culture of gender biases. (I make a similar, albeit perhaps not so well written, argument with regard to a post-secular society: here)
I don't mean to put the burden on women alone men are just as critical in this endeavor. But seeing that the article is directed as a strategy for women I engaged it on that front.
Update 10/29: 6 myths about female ascendance in the workplace
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