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Field
Abstract
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Before
The goal of this project is to evaluate the impact of institutions promoting diversity in a controlled environment. The motivation for the study stems from concerns about diversity in academia, and specifically gender diversity, that appears particularly difficult to achieve. We conjecture that institutions promoting gender diversity may not promote diversity of ideas in a world where there are gender differences in taste and expertise for certain fields, leading to some fields being more appealing to men and others to women.
If there is an incentive to hire women, preference may be given to women, but possibly mostly those in male fields. As a consequence, institutions promoting gender diversity may achieve more gender diversity but not necessarily more diversity of ideas. We propose a novel experimental design to study what ideas people choose to get exposed to and that will help us evaluate how institutions that promote gender diversity or diversity of fields may affect gender and idea diversity.
Specifically, we propose an experimental set up in which an individual, which we call employer, has to choose one presentation to watch from a set of presentations. This presentation can be either be by a man or a woman and can either be in a female or a male field. We provide an incentive to choose a presentation of better quality, and also provide incentives to pay attention to the presentation itself.
The goal is to mimic hiring decisions in professional contexts, and academia in particular, where hiring someone has implications for exposure to their ideas.
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After
The goal of this project is to evaluate the impact of institutions promoting diversity in a controlled environment. The motivation for the study stems from concerns about diversity in academia, and specifically gender diversity, that appears particularly difficult to achieve. We want to explore whether institutions promoting gender diversity may or may not promote diversity of ideas in a world where there are gender differences in taste and expertise for certain fields, leading to some fields being more appealing to men and others to women.
If there is an incentive to hire women, preference may be given to women, but possibly mostly those in male fields. As a consequence, institutions promoting gender diversity may achieve more gender diversity but not necessarily more diversity of ideas. We propose a novel experimental design to study what ideas people choose to get exposed to and that will help us evaluate how institutions that promote gender diversity or diversity of fields may affect gender and idea diversity.
Specifically, we propose an experimental set up in which an individual, which we call “employer”, has to choose one presentation to watch from a set of presentations. This presentation can be either presented by a man or a woman and can either be in a female or a male field. We provide an incentive to choose a presentation of better quality, and also provide incentives to pay attention to the presentation itself.
The goal is to mimic hiring decisions in professional contexts, and academia in particular, where hiring someone has implications for exposure to their ideas.
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Last Published
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Before
May 12, 2023 05:14 PM
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After
July 26, 2023 04:11 AM
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Intervention (Public)
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Before
See pre-analysis plan for description.
Note: The study will include two stages: A pre-experimental stage (Stage 1) where we will collect data that we will use in the main experiment, and the main experiment (Stage 2). The first stage will be launched on April 27th 2023. The main experiment (Stage 2) will be launched in June/July 2023.
The first pre-registration of the analysis plan has been done on April 25th 2023, before launching Stage 1. At that date, the pre-analysis plan for the second stage was not finalized yet. We will therefore update the pre-analysis plan before launching Stage 2. Note that the analysis does not depend in any way on the outcome of Stage 1.
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After
See pre-analysis plan for description.
Note: The study will include two stages: A pre-experimental stage (Stage 1) where we will collect data that we will use in the main experiment, and the main experiment (Stage 2). The first stage will be launched on April 27th 2023. The main experiment (Stage 2) will be launched in July 2023.
The first pre-registration of the analysis plan has been done on April 25th 2023, before launching Stage 1. At that date, the pre-analysis plan for the second stage was not finalized yet. We will therefore update the pre-analysis plan before launching Stage 2. Note that the analysis does not depend in any way on the outcome of Stage 1.
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Field
Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
(1) Share of female presenters selected as first ranked (Number divided by 8)
(2) Share of presentations in 'female fields' (health and environment) selected as first ranked (Number divided by 8)
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After
(1) Share of female presenters chosen (SF-Presenter) = Number of female presenters chosen (NF-Presenter)/ Total number of presenters chosen
(2) Share of presentations in female fields (SF-Field) = Number of presentations in female fields chosen (NF-Field) / Total number of presenters chosen
(3) Share of women in female fields (SFF) = Number of chosen presentations by female presenters in female fields (NFF) / Total number of presenters chosen
(4) Share of women in male fields (SFM) = Number of chosen presentations by female presenters in male fields (NFM)/ Total number of presenters chosen
(5) Diversity of Ideas
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Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
See attached document for details. Participants in the second stage of the experiment will be assigned at random (using Qualtrics random assignment mechanism) in one of 6 treatments in a 3 x 2 design.
The first experimental variation will be whether participants have an additional incentive to pick a presentation by a woman (gender incentive) or in a certain field (field incentive), or have no additional incentive to pick a specific presentation.
The second experimental variation will be whether participants are asked attention questions that require no specific expertise in the topic ("was this sentence said") or attention questions that are easier to answer if one has expertise in the topic.
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After
See attached document for details. Participants in the second stage of the experiment will be assigned at random (using Qualtrics random assignment mechanism) in one of 6 treatments in a 3 x 2 design.
Experimental variation 1: The questions asked to participants will either be “non-expertise attention questions” (that require no expertise in the topic) or “expertise attention questions” (that are easier to answer if one has some expertise in the topic). Both type of questions are single choice questions and have been designed by the research team. The non-expertise questions are of the format “what this sentence said?” giving a choice of four possible sentences, one of them taken from the script. The “expertise questions” relate to the substance of the talk. They are presumably easier to answer if one has some expertise or knowledge on the topic.
Experimental variation 2: An additional incentive will be given to select either a woman (Gender Incentive Treatment) or a presentation from a female field (“Health” or “Environment”) (Field Incentive Treatment) in comparison to a treatment with no preferential incentive (Baseline Treatment) .
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Planned Number of Observations
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Before
432 prolific participants
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After
504 prolific participants
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Power calculation: Minimum Detectable Effect Size for Main Outcomes
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Before
To be added before launching stage 2
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After
See document attached.
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Secondary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
(1) Share of female presenters selected as first, second or third ranked (Number divided by 8)
(2) Share of presentations in 'female fields' (health and environment) selected as first, second or third ranked (Number divided by 8)
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After
(1) Share of female presenters ranked first, second or third (SF-Presenter) = Number of female presenters ranked first, second or third (NF-Presenter)/ Total number of presenters ranked first, second or third
(2) Share of presentations in female fields ranked first, second or third (SF-Field) = Number of presentations in female fields ranked first, second or third (NF-Field) / Total number of presenters ranked first, second or third
(3) Share of women in female fields ranked first, second or third (SFF) = Number of presentations by female presenters in female fields ranked first, second or third (NFF) / Total number of presenters ranked first, second or third
(4) Share of women in male fields ranked first, second or third (SFM) = Number of presentations by female presenters in male fields ranked first, second or third (NFM)/ Total number of presenters ranked first, second or third
(5) Diversity of Ideas
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Secondary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Before
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After
See above
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