Q&A #2 - Mrs CH's Questions

In my recent post asking for questions from readers, MrsCH offered up the following (my answers are beneath each quoted question):

1. One of my office mates just left to start a new job. The week before he left, he put up stuff around the office, gave everyone in the group a hat with the group's logo, and even gave us a framed copy of his letter of offer. What do you think possesses someone to leave things behind, while others don't?

I'm not sure that anyone has actually studied this, and seeing as my journal access is nonexistent right now, I can't answer you using any scientific basis. Disclaimer in place, I would venture to guess that it has to do with the level of connection a person feels to his/her place of work. He may have felt as though he was closing a chapter in his life that was very important to him, and didn't want to forget it or be forgotten. The people who did not leave things behind or make a big deal of their departure may have had more of the "Good riddance!" mentality. 

2. I bought a book recently called Women Don't Ask, and it's about how women are not as good at negotiating as men. What do you think about this?

This has been scientifically investigated, and there is some merit to this. Women consistently undervalue themselves. If a woman is asked to give her desired salary for a new job, for example, their $$ amounts are often significantly lower than a man would give for the exact same job. Women are also less likely to flat-out ask for a raise. 

Jost, J. T. (1997). An experimental replication of the depressed entitlement effect among women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 387-393.

Major, B. (1994). From social inequality to personal entitlement: The role of social comparisons, legitimacy appraisals, and group membership. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 26 (pp. 293-355). New York: Academic Press. 

Steil, J. M., McGann, V. L.,  & Kahn, A. S. (2001). Entitlement. In J. Worell (Ed.), Encyclopedia of women and gender (pp.403-410). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

3. I'm reading a book right now called The Female Brain, and it describes what our hormones do to our thoughts/actions throughout our lives. Do you think our thoughts/actions are governed more by our biochemistry or by our environment?

The Female Brain is bullshit. If you look up the referenced articles in the back of the book and read them, you'll find that none of them actually support any of her claims. It was a very ballsy move on her part to do that - assuming none of her readers would actually look up her sources.

The only part of her book that I found interesting was the idea that hormone exposure in utero might determine levels of masculinity and femininity. However, rather than consider that in terms of gender, I was made to wonder if it might have implications for sexual orientation. But there is no way to ethically test that. And even then, it would assume a link between sex hormones specifically and sexual orientation, which I'm not sure that's even remotely valid. 

But beyond that book, you're referring to the nature/nurture debate, which is moot at this point. It is always a combination of both influences, and it is ethically impossible for us to scientifically sort out the level of influence of each. For example, I would love to take an infant and raise it in a lab under controlled conditions to find out to what extent nature plays a role in determining gender. But no IRB on the face of the earth would let me do that. But it's the only way to really know the answer to that question. 

I have long been vocal against the idea that hormones dictate behavior, but I had no hard and fast evidence. Ambivalent Academic referred me to a scienceblog and the subsequent journal article it referenced dealing with this very issue. Find it Here. There is much more work to be done in this area, but this is a fantastic start. 

4. What is the deal with people one-upping each other when they talk about negative things in their lives?

I have no evidence-based answer for you here. But using speculation only, I would say that it might have to do with misguided attempts at expressing empathy. As in, "I know how you must be feeling, because I went through X, Y, and Z." In most cultures, a high value is placed on experience. People we believe to have more experience are sought out for guidance. It's logical. So maybe in our desire to help someone, to position ourselves as a guide and a mentor, we feel we have to demonstrate that we have more experience than they do with these negative events and emotions. But in truth, I have no idea. 

5. Why are women their own worst enemies? I find this to be the case especially in the blog world when sexism comes up - why do women have a hard time agreeing to disagree?

I think I need you to be more specific with this question. Otherwise I risk assuming what your question is about when I could be totally wrong. And the idea of women versus women is a very broad subject with tons of applications to different circumstances. 

Very interesting questions, Mrs. CH. I've really enjoyed answering them, and I hope that if you have more that you'll share them! :)

When We ASS-U-ME

There is a discussion going on over at Dr. Isis in response to a reader who asked how to respond when a senior male collaborator called her "dear" during a phone call. The context given was "Okay, dear. Sounds good."

I responded in the comments as follows:

"Definitely a tough situation.

But consider this, does he also have a tendency to use words like that for his younger male collaborators or students? Like "Kid, kiddo, buddy, son, etc?"

I don't think "dear" is marginalizing, sexist, or any of that. Is it gender specific? Yeah, if a male is saying it, because he would probably never call a male student "dear" for fear of getting labeled as gay. But what if it was a female collaborator or mentor who said it? Would you be offended then? Or would you believe it to be a term of affection?

We really have to be careful with this shit. If you make assumptions about his intentions based on his gender, then you're just as sexist as you imagine him to be. Period. Now, if you make the assumption based on his personality - not sexist. That's why I ask you to consider how you would feel if a woman said it to you. If the answer is the same, then consider speaking up and respond as you would to a woman who used the term.

Also, if you bristle at every pet name someone in academia throws at you, I have to imagine it's going to be a very long, hard road for you. Sometimes a pet name is just a pet name. I call my friends "sweetie" all the time, regardless of gender, and it is never meant to marginalize them. My husband gets pissed when I call him "kid" just like you would have every right to go apeshit if someone calls you "Little Miss." THAT would be offensive no matter WHO said it."

The parts I've highlighted in bold are what I really want to focus on here. 

I understand that in my head I live in this imaginary world where everything is fair and everyone knows the social psychological reasons behind everything and uses that information to make life better for everyone. I get it, but bear with me. 

Intention matters, folks. It's the difference between a Murder conviction and Manslaughter. (Well, there's more to it than that, but again bear with me.)

If a female mentor calls you "dear" or "sweetie" - do you have an immediate problem with that? If not, why not? If she starts calling you "sexy" or "little miss" then we have a whole different sort of problem. 

We can't run around assuming that men are being sexist when they use terms like "dear" to refer to a female. "Dear" is in and of itself neutral. We begin letters with it all the time, regardless of the gender of the recipient. The name that follows it depends on the perceived nature of our relationship with that person. 

When we assume intention using gender as our only evidence, we are being sexist. Making assumptions about anyone based on a group of which they are a member, whether it's men, women, a racial or ethnic group, an age group, etc. is the very definition of stereotyping. 

Some men are sexist. And if a particular man is sexist, a larger pattern will emerge where he consistently belittles and patronizes women he comes in contact with. We can then label him as a sexist. 

WE MUST PRACTICE WHAT WE PREACH.

You may recall that I recently met with a self-proclaimed feminist department head regarding my possible enrollment in her graduate program. She assumed that, because of my dedication to my marriage and concern for my husband's prospects regarding the move, that I am not committed to my education and career. 

But if I was a male student who was meeting with her who was concerned about my wife's prospects and expressed dedication to my marriage, would she have made the same assumption? Probably not. In fact, she might have done whatever she could to help me figure it out, thinking how nice it was for a guy to be so concerned about his wife rather than putting her second to his career. 

That's not equality. That's not feminism. She made an assumption based on my gender. And it pissed me off. 

I am willing to bet that if the post-doc who wrote the letter to Dr. Isis called out the collaborator on his use of the term "dear" - he would be shocked. If she is truly uncomfortable with it and would be regardless of the gender of the person using the term, she should say something. And if a future female collaborator uses the term, she should say something then, too. 

Q&A #1 - Hostile Environments for Women

Oh, Toaster Sunshine. You have brought up one of the most complex issues in gender research. 

On my previous post, I asked readers to tell me what they wanted to learn about with regard to human social behavior. Toaster asked the following:

"2) Men are socialized to think of women in terms of conquest and possession (e.g., "chasing tail", "she's my girl", etc.). Traditionally male-dominated workplaces, such as scientific research, are usually perceived as hostile by women due to the men still working in them. Could this be due to men not being able to dissociate their professional endeavors from the women-as-conquest mentality? At the same time, men have bluntly coded normative body langauges that reinforce group inclusiveness through communication forms homogeneity. Women have their own forms. Men don't always understand these. Could additional hostility in professional settings also be due to men not understanding women's body language or language subtexts and therefore prescribing stereotypical labels (e.g., "office floozy", "administrative bitch", etc.)?"

This question/issue deals with the very heart of what has come to be known as Objectification Theory. Objectification Theory was first proposed by Barbara Frederickson:

"Objectification Theory posits that girls and women are typically acculturated to internalize an observer's perspective as a primary view of their physical selves. This perspective on self can lead to habitual body monitoring, which, in turn, can increase women's opportunities for shame and anxiety, reduce opportunities for peak motivational states, and diminish awareness of internal bodily states.....Although sexual objectification is but one form of gender oppression, it is one that factors into - and perhaps enables - a host of other oppressions women face, ranging from employment discrimination and sexual violence to the trivialization of women's work and accomplishments."

(Frederickson, B. L. & Roberts, T. (1997). Objectification theory: Toward understanding women's lived experiences and mental health risks. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 173-206.)

The first thing I want to say here is that until recently, objectification research focused on the effects it has on women. We have since learned that men are affected by it as well. No one can clearly demonstrate that the effects are as strong or less strong than they are on women. So what I am going to do here is give you the answer that MOST researchers would give to this question. Then I'm going to give you my own answer, based on personal experience and the social psychological framework from which I, personally, operate. 

Generally, it is believed that men have a tendency to immediately evaluate women's attractiveness upon encountering them. Most of the time, this evaluation is sexual in nature. "Would you do her" is a question that men seem to pose to themselves and sometimes to their peers whenever they see a woman. Women know this. It is often referred to as "the male gaze" and has been discussed on many occasions here in the blogosphere, most recently at Comrade PhysioProf and the connected ScienceBlog pages. (See my post on Norah Vincent's book "Self-Made Man" for an example of this.)

The basic idea of how objectification creates a sense of hostility in a woman's work environment is this: a woman feels as though she is under constant scrutiny for something over which she has little to no control. She is an object rather than a person. Her appearance matters more than her accomplishments and contributions. 

I have a lot of problems with this. First, there is the problem of experiencing objectification as a woman considered attractive compared to one who is not. Second, there are many women out there who experience the male gaze and feel objectified in the workplace frequently, but would not describe their environment as hostile. Thirdly, it has been demonstrated that women objectify other women to almost the same extent, but how this impacts the workplace has not been explored to my knowledge. Fourthly, as I mentioned previously, we now know that objectification impacts men, but we do not have enough research looking at workplace interactions to throw discrimination of women under the umbrella of objectification. In other words, if both men and women experience it but only women are affected by it, there must be something else going on. 

Toaster brings up several other issues as well - differences in communication, in-group processes, and male cognitive dissonance. That's a lot of complexity for such a seemingly simple phenomenon. 

My own take on this issue stems from personal experience and from research I have done on women in science and their perceptions of workplace hostility and stigma consciousness. 

Women in male-dominated fields tend to feel pressure to conform to certain male characteristics - a way of communicating, a way of dressing, etc. In order to succeed, one might feel as though she needs to minimize obvious characteristics of difference. In other words, she doesn't want to stand out. Standing out leads to stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is when a person's performance is affected by their awareness of being in a position where they might be seen as conforming to a stereotype. Often, the performance deficit leads to BEING the stereotype that threatens them. It turns out that stereotype threat also has a physiological component (see Murphy, Steele, & Gross. (2007). Signaling Threat. Psychological Science, 18(10).)

The most well-known experiments dealing with stereotype threat in women have to do with math performance. If you prime women with information that females have lesser math ability than men, they will perform worse on mathematical tests than women who are given positive or neutral priming. Women under stereotype threat also show heightened physiological signs of stress. 

(I'm losing steam here, because I think my brain might explode from trying to organize my thoughts and translate them into coherent sentences. Bear with me.)

I believe that much of perceived workplace hostility can be boiled down to stereotype threat. It does not require an active component on the part of the men in the case of women's stress. It only requires an awareness of having the status of "other." Being outnumbered, in other words, can be enough to trigger stereotype threat and the resulting physiological effects. 

Being afraid to cry at work, dress in feminine clothing, communicate openly, etc., can be triggered or mitigated by the gender makeup of the group. If you are a woman in a large group of men, you are going to feel more on-edge and perceive a higher level of potential hostility than in a group that is more gender balanced. 

I do not mean to say that the hostility does not actually exist. It had to, at some point, to create the phenomenon of stereotype threat in the first place. But researchers can induce stereotype threat in imagined scenarios. It doesn't have to be real to have an effect!

Okay, I have to stop now. LOL. I know that there are things missing from this post, but if I keep going I will be writing this blog all day. So I will leave it to you folks to point out the gaps in the comments so that I can at least focus on the parts you find interesting and important, rather than what I consider to be interesting and important. 

Q&A Series?

Okay, folks. I need to hop back on the blogging wagon to help keep myself focused on something other than drinking and watching House and Fringe. (And Rescue Me, and Lie To Me, and the Daily Show, and......)

Ambivalent Academic and I have a very sexy series of posts coming up for you in May dealing with sociobiology and social psychology. We will be talking about sex. That's right - S-E-X. It's gonna be awesome. 

But in the meantime, what Hot Social Psychology would you like to hear about? Is there a question you have about human behavior that you'd like to know the current theories on? (I know you do........)

Test me, folks! The vast majority of you are not in psychology, but all of us have questions about the behavior of the people around us and sometimes about ourselves. PhizzleDizzle, for example, recently asked about the assumptions we make about people we have never met.  

I don't claim to be an expert. But I am a big fan of generating discussion and answering questions to the best of my ability. So lemme have it. If I can't answer your question, I will say so, but in most cases I should be able to provide you with a decent amount of knowledge on the subject. 

(In case you can't tell, I anticipate boredom this weekend.)

Blogger Shout-Out

Professor Anonymous is the funniest blogger in the blogosphere right now. If you haven't gone over there to check it out yet, you need to. 

I think every comment I've left over there has included at least one "LMAO" in it. If you need a good laugh, that's the place to go. 

The R2 Experience

I'm going to warn you now, this is going to be a long post. I still don't know how to split posts. 

What a drastic, dramatic difference this experience was from my previous interview at Program #4 back in February. 

I arrived in Western City on Sunday afternoon to find beautiful, perfect weather and my ride waiting for me at the airport. Having never ventured this far west in the US before, and having lived my entire life in New England, I could not get over how vastly different the landscape and everything was. I was like "Wow, so that's what REAL mountains look like!" I was standing in 75 degree weather looking up at snow-capped peaks off in the distance. It was amazing. 

I was brought to another student's house for a homecooked Easter dinner that was de-lic-ious. The first couple of students I met were nontraditional students with spouses, kids, actual LIVES and experiences. Everyone was so incredibly friendly, warm, easygoing, and funny. They actually seemed really excited to have me there, and it was very cool to feel so welcomed. They spoke to me openly and frankly about the program, the faculty, and the students so I feel as though I got an honest assessment of what it's like to be a student there. One was a 3rd year, and the other was a 5th year. 

Before heading off to bed, I was fed homemade chicken and dumplings. YUM! I felt like a family member coming for a visit, not a stranger from the other side of the country or a temporary inconvenience. 

The following day I met with a bunch of faculty members beginning with the department head, attended a 1st year graduate class, was treated to a delicious lunch at the student union with a bunch of other grad students ranging from 2nd-6th year. I felt like the new exchange student in high school, with everyone scrambling to get a chance to talk to me. One of the students accidentally got pregnant around admissions time, and had her first baby in the first semester of her first year there. She was very blunt about it: "I don't recommend it. It was a nightmare. 2nd year, absolutely. But not your first year."

I got to spend time with a variety of students, with different people escorting me to each meeting, taking me on campus tours, showing me around facilities. Though I got sick of repeating the same information about myself twice an hour all day, it was fantastic to talk to so many people about their experiences there. 

The faculty there are fantastic. They are not intimidating, arrogant, or any of the things I experienced at Program #4. Many of them are quietly well-connected and networked to important researchers throughout the country, without tying those connections to their own reputations. I noticed that several of the textbooks used in the graduate courses were written by faculty members at my undergrad MRU, which was very cool to see. One of the professors I met with keeps a Wall of Fame in her office, where students put their name and a little blurb about a project when they publish it with her. It was a pretty big wall. But the important thing about it was the pride with which she showed it to me - it was blatantly obvious how much she WANTS her students to succeed. 

One of my biggest concerns about this program was that it was an R2, and there was a lack of major journal publications on the part of the faculty. I wanted to make sure that I would have adequate opportunities to publish so that I would be marketable in academia when I graduate. One 5th year student I spoke to has 8 publications, 11 presentations, and 7 more publications under review. A 3rd year student had 5 publications and 6 presentations. This was the pattern I saw. 

When I asked the students about the deficit in major journals, they brought up and issue that has been discussed over at ScienceBlogs many, many times - the Least Publishable Unit. They told me that if they wanted to go for a major journal, there was adequate support and knowledge there for them to do so, but most of the students prefer to send their research to high-impact niche journals where they feel it will make the most difference. 

I had a frank discussion about this with several students and a couple of faculty members. The general consensus (and I know this to be true from my own MRU), is that JPSP (the major journal of my field) has become highly politicized and incredibly difficult to get into. They keep publishing the same authors over and over and over again, and the material is becoming less and less accessible to readers. In other words, JPSP is putting itself into a position where it is a major journal because of prestige, NOT actual impact and visibility. I heard stories from students who had submitted there, received a "No thank you" email within 24 hours of submission, and a month later received a very excited message from a 2nd-tier journal saying "Yes, absolutely! We love this study!" I now have the understanding that the lack of JPSP articles has more to do with pragmatism than lack of quality research. 

The students are all very passionate about the work they do. Because of a specific, unique quality of this program, many of the students are working toward industry jobs rather than academia. About 1/3 are pursuing faculty positions. This means that the competition between students is simply not there. They are a pretty cohesive group, albeit quite large. You are able to work with any faculty member you want who is willing to work with you - there is none of that "You're MY student, you will study what I'M interested in, dammit!" Though you do choose a primary advisor, you can change that at any time and faculty members can also "pluck" you from another faculty member if they want to and no one gives a shit. I mean, they do, but not in the political sense. You know what I mean. 

This is a great quality for me in this particular program, because as I have mentioned before there is no single faculty member there whose research interests are perfectly aligned with my own. But the nature of the department is such that for any given project, I can consult with as many different faculty members as I need to in order to incorporate their specific expertise in my research. The boundaries there are nonexistent. 

The grad student body is pretty diverse. The ages range from 21 to 50's. There are married students, single students, divorced students. Students with kids and students without. When they do have kids, they range from age 2 to age 35. There is religious diversity and ethnic diversity, though I did not meet a single African-American grad student. This bothered me to some extent, but apparently there is a black male student who would be in my cohort if I decided to go there this fall. It is a politically liberal city that shares many of my personal views, though apparently the outskirts contain the gun-loving, homophobic, racist, Republican good ole boys that are common to rural areas pretty much everywhere. 

It was the cleanest city I have ever seen in my life. It makes New England look like a glorified trash heap. Especially if you compare it to Boston (no offense, anyone). It was absolutely fucking beautiful. Every outdoor activity you could possibly imagine is available to you in great variety. From the moment I arrived I could see my husband and I living there and raising our kids there. And here's the kicker - there's no TRAFFIC! I was like "Wtf? What do you mean you can be anywhere in the city in 15 minutes? What about rush hour?" Only the folks from LA knew what "rush hour" was. Everyone else just gave me a blank stare. 

Okay, so that about sums up all of the positive things. On to the concerns. 

The state economy there is in serious trouble. Jobs are somewhat hard to come by, because it is not an industrial city. When my husband was laid off from his job here a couple of years ago, it took him 4 months to find a new one. It would probably take a lot longer for him to get a job out there. My student stipend is not large (of course), though it is enough for both of us to live very frugally on. Under normal circumstances, this would not be a problem. But given my impending unemployment this summer, the recent news of my husband's military pay being much lower than previously thought, the dwindling savings under these circumstances, the incredibly high cost of moving to the other side of the country, not knowing whether the military will be able to transfer him out there and not knowing whether he will lose his signing bonus if they do, and not having a job for him when he arrives all combine to create an incredibly scary situation for me. 

The department head was not very sympathetic to this, saying "Well, our students do this all the time. I'm not sure I understand why it's any different for you." She seemed to take it as a lack of committment on my part, which I tried to dispel. I understand that I would be moving from a very high cost of living area to a very low cost of living area. But losing 60% of my salary and not having savings in the bank terrifies me. If my car died, I'd be fucked unless my husband was working. I get that people do this all the time with no problems. I GET IT. But I inherited from my father this constant anxiety over finances. I spent several years in my twenties living paycheck to paycheck, and I really don't want to do that again. I don't want my life to be harder than it has to be, and I don't think that's unreasonable. It's not about being able to spend money on frivolous things (I don't do that now). It's about having a cushion for emergencies and unexpected events. And in this real estate market, it is highly unlikely that my husband and I could sell our house and get any money back from the sale at all. 

The department head suggested that my husband return to New England when he gets out of the military and live here until he finds a job and gets his military transfer. My reaction was "Hell the fuck no." I did not explain to her that we had been separated last summer and that I am unwilling to be apart from my husband for a moment longer than I have to, because I got the impression that she would think of my marriage as unstable and me as being co-dependent. She said, "Who knows, maybe this could be a good test of your relationship." I told her quite bluntly that if I had to choose between my husband and my degree, I would choose my husband because there is always a way to work it out. If graduate school was such that I could NOT have both, I would choose the degree and be away from him for awhile. But the fact is that there ARE ways to have both and I will seek them out to the exclusion of the alternative. 

This led to my asking about a deferral of admission for one year. She wasn't sure if this was possible but said she would look into it, followed by telling me that she gets the impression that I am ready to jump into this right now. I told her I feel that R2 is where I definitely want to go, and while I would love to start the program immediately I also don't want to cause myself an unnecessary amount of stress. The whole conversation kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. I don't like it when my level of dedication to my field is called into question. I also don't like it when my dedication to feminist principles is called into question because I express that my spouse is important to me. I could not get her to understand that this is a timing issue, and one that was not anticipated because of changing financial circumstances. 

A couple students had told me that this faculty member doesn't seem to understand work/family issues. One student didn't tell her that she was pregnant because she didn't want to hear what she would say. Everyone there is apparently very supportive of family issues and balance, but this one person just doesn't seem to understand it on a personal level according to what they told me. So I'm not taking it personally, but it does make the decision more difficult. 

I should note that a seemingly-fantastic assistantship has been offered to me that incorporates both my experience and interests, but if I wait a year to start it will most likely no longer be available to me. There would be something else, but there is no guarantee that it would be as good or better than this one. 

Part of me wants to say "fuck it" and fly by the seat of my pants into the program this fall. But part of me is really enamored with the idea of taking the year to spend time with my husband when he gets back, get some money saved, and take on the move as a team - taking our time to get him transferred, find him a job, get him enrolled in their engineering program. Doing this would put off starting a family for another year, or going into my first year with an infant in tow. There is low-cost, on-site daycare at the campus, but it apparently has a very long waiting list. 

They are giving me plenty of time to make the decision, so I can relax about it somewhat for right now. I am still applying for the RA job at my MRU. I feel like if I get that job, I will defer for a year. If I don't, I will go this fall. But that's not set in stone. I really don't know what to do. I wish I could talk to my husband to find out what he thinks. He's more of a Jump In Headfirst kind of guy than I am, but it's possible that being away has made him want to enjoy some downtime with me when he gets back. He does not like to be without a job. I think he would go crazy in a new city with all new people and nothing to do with himself. I know he wants to move out there - he was more excited about it at first than I was. That's not an issue. 

So I don't know. What do you guys think?

Quick Update from the Wild, Wild West

I love it here. I have some concerns, mostly financial, but I love it here. I will elaborate when I get back.....