Three years ago, Y Magazine published unprecedented research on what it takes for women to truly be heard in group settings. According to the Brigham Young University (BYU) professors who conducted the study, “There’s a lot more that’s happened since then.” I sat down with BYU economics professor Olga Stoddard and political science professors Jessica R. Preece and Christopher F. Karpowitz to discuss their further research and how Utah businesses can be better. 

What is the history of the research and your findings?

Olga Stoddard | BYU Economics Assistant Professor

Chris has a lot of prior research on how the gender composition of groups affects their dynamic, including talk time, speaking turns and interruptions. Motivated by these previous important findings, we were curious whether laboratory-obtained results appeared in natural labor or educational settings. We partnered with a top-10 accounting program that used to assign just one woman per team of five and randomized the gender composition of teams. In some groups, there was still only one woman in a group of five. In other groups, there were three women. This allowed us to test whether group composition mattered for things like women’s perceived influence, the evaluation of women’s influence given by group members, and their actual influence, women’s actual ability to impact group decisions and fully participate in the deliberative process. That was the basis for the original Y Magazine article, where we found that when women were in the minority, there was a significant deficit in influence and authority compared to equally qualified women who were in the majority in their groups.

What new updates do you have?

Christopher F. Karpowitz | BYU Political Science Professor

We’re really interested in how this works outside of very artificial laboratory settings because real groups meet repeatedly, not just one time. After working with the top-10 accounting program, we wanted to do the research again in a setting where more women were involved; only about a quarter of the students in the accounting program were women. We did it again with a large university GE class. 

We created an opportunity for group work within the class that people could volunteer to be part of. Again, we randomly assigned people to six-person groups with either two or four women in each group. The nice thing about this was we had exactly analogous experimental conditions. There were groups where men were the majority in the same numbers that women were the majority in corresponding groups. 

We also wanted to explore what happens when people receive formal authority within the group. Halfway through the semester, we randomly assigned half of the groups to have a woman leader and the other half to have a man leader, allowing us to look at the effects of formal authority. We almost perfectly replicated what happened in the first study during the second study. Although the setting and population were a bit different, we still found that women who were placed in groups with a majority of men had less influence than women who were in groups with the majority of women, even after we account for the fact that women were a lower proportion of the group. 

For example, in a group with two women and four men, you would expect women to be most influential about a third of the time. That’s not what we find. We find lower influence. It was interesting and helpful to see what we found in the first study replicated again, now over the course of multiple studies performed by us and others. That’s pretty good evidence that women face this sort of authority deficit, which is problematic because women often bring a distinct perspective and set of life experiences. If those perspectives and experiences are seen as less authoritative and less influential then those experiences and perspectives don’t get represented in the group’s decisions. 

Jessica R. Preece | BYU Political Science Associate Professor

We were really curious about if we moved from having this lone, token woman in the first study to having a buddy, another woman, if that was enough to even things out. But no, we see these same basic results. Anytime women are in the minority, they will be at a disadvantage.

Christopher F. Karpowitz | BYU Political Science Professor

It’s a disadvantage that men don’t face. When men are in the minority, they don’t face the same disadvantages that women do. It’s not just a matter of being the numerical minority in the group. There’s something distinct about the disadvantages that women face.

What is the biggest takeaway for companies from this research?

Jessica R. Preece | BYU Political Science Associate Professor

First, these findings are not because women are doing something wrong. Saying things like, “Women just need to lean in, speak up, advocate for themselves or negotiate more (or better),” puts the onus on women to change and fix things. But it’s not women’s individual behavior causing this. There are structural things happening that make it very difficult for any individual woman to fix this. 

Second, you need more women in the room; you need more women in leadership positions. Making decisions through consensus seems to help, but who’s in the room and leading the discussion matters a lot. If you actually want to hear everybody’s voices and take women seriously, you may have to make more structural changes. There’s a lot of self-examination we all need to be doing here as organizations and individuals. It’s not comfortable.

Third, this is not a problem of individual people. Individual people are capable of behaving well. We know because we have groups where people take women seriously. And the people in those groups are, on average, identical to those in the groups that are not taking women seriously. This is not about individuals going out trying to marginalize women; it’s that we have been soaked in a culture that pushes us to behave in certain ways when we’re in certain rooms with certain groups.

Christopher F. Karpowitz | BYU Political Science Professor

Companies often want the one trick that will solve the problem. I don’t know that there is any one simple thing. But we have found things that matter. The first is having more women. That’s not always possible or easy, but if you’re concerned about these sorts of inequalities in influence and authority, then increasing the number of women in the decision-making group matters. 

The second is giving formal authority to women. This changes people’s assessment of women’s influence and benefits the woman named leader and other women in the group. Being willing to give formal authority to women helps people see women as more influential and raises the ability of women to influence the group in the direction of their experiences and perspectives.

Have you seen any significant, positive changes made based on your research?

Olga Stoddard | BYU Economics Assistant Professor

Yes! The top-10 accounting program we partnered with, following the study and our presentation of the results, completely changed their process of group assignments. They no longer assign one woman per group; they now only assign groups in which women are in the majority. 

That has been one of the most fulfilling moments for me, realizing change occurred. Often when you do this kind of research, it gets published in an academic journal, 20 people read it and then nothing happens. In this case, we had a partner who took these results very seriously and implemented a significant change, which will be instrumental for women’s experience in these groups. 

Has this research changed the way you run your classes?

Christopher F. Karpowitz | BYU Political Science Professor

This research made me very aware of my own classroom dynamics and more sensitive to who is speaking and how often they are speaking. It has helped me find ways to underscore good ideas from women that get ignored by the group. These are not simple issues to solve, and I would never claim that I’ve solved them in my classroom, but I am definitely more sensitive to the dynamics and the need to promote the influence and authority of women whenever I can.

What is a challenge you faced with this research?

Jessica R. Preece | BYU Political Science Associate Professor

Everybody wants our results to be something else. They try to look for every other kind of explanation. People don’t want this to be about the numbers or who’s in charge because that has very direct implications for who’s in the room, who’s hired and who gets promotions. These are extremely sensitive, difficult decisions because they are related to power. It’s much easier to have the problem be about something else. But, it really is about who’s in the room and who’s in charge, and that is an uncomfortable reality to confront.

Have you gotten pushback on your results? 

Christopher F. Karpowitz | BYU Political Science Professor

Some people have said, “Oh, you must have had a sample of really sexist men to get these results.” But, it turns out, we don’t. The same dynamics show up in really liberal places and in really conservative places. Some of the most difficult conversations we’ve had as an author team are with people who see themselves as allies but can’t grasp that the findings we have may implicate their behavior at times. This is a bigger, more structural issue, which makes it a hard issue to tackle, and it means that there will be some discomfort in trying to address these issues.

Olga Stoddard | BYU Economics Assistant Professor

This is not a problem of men discriminating against women only. The deficit in women’s influence can be traced back to women under-voting women for positions of influence, too. This can be very consequential when you think of it in terms of careers. The team member chosen to present to the boss or client often gets the promotion. It’s not just that women are being voted as less influential; they are given fewer opportunities for visibility for promotions and advancements in their careers.

Jessica R. Preece | BYU Political Science Associate Professor

There’s a tension between the perception and reality of participation in my experience. For many men, their experiences have been that they are the dominant force in conversations. So, when anything deviates from that historical experience of dominating the conversation or the decision-making, it’s an uncomfortable experience for them.

What is the double bind women face?

Olga Stoddard | BYU Economics Assistant Professor

There’s this idea that if women were more like men, all of these problems would be solved. But we tested for this, and we got the same results. Another recent study shows that women who are forced to negotiate their salaries were not as successful at getting a pay raise because their managers perceived them to be too assertive and too aggressive. Even when you do everything right, you could overdo it and have negative results.

Jessica R. Preece | BYU Political Science Associate Professor

For me, the most meaningful aspect of this research is giving voice to a set of experiences that have been discounted. Hermeneutical injustice is the idea that there are sets of experiences without names, and when something doesn’t have a name, it’s harder for us to discuss it. Therefore, it’s harder for justice to be served. It’s really important for us to be able to have conversations about these experiences, to give voice to them and to reassure people that it is happening. From there, we can have conversations about what we should be doing about it, but having a shared understanding is an important part of solving the problem.

Have you ever personally dealt with this type of sexism?

Jessica R. Preece | BYU Political Science Associate Professor

I was the third woman ever hired by the BYU Political Science Department. The last woman had been hired 20-25 years before me; I was the only junior woman in a department of 25 or 30 people. It was tough. For the first couple of years, it was difficult for my colleagues to see me as authoritative. But, over time, that changed. I had a number of really frank conversations about my experiences in the department and, to their credit, my male colleagues listened and changed. 

That doesn’t happen very often. Normally, people are very defensive and uncomfortable with the idea that they are causing someone else problems; it requires quite a lot of humility. It started with them coming to me, asking what the right thing to do was and doing it. Now, we have far fewer of those conversations. 

I think that is a great example of people being humble, learning from each other and changing the environment. If you’d asked me during my second year on the job if I felt welcomed and a part of the department, I would have said no. Now, I say, “Absolutely, yes.” 

Do you have any final thoughts? 

Jessica R. Preece | BYU Political Science Associate Professor

Many people enter into these conversations with ignorance, and that’s OK. We all have to start somewhere. I would 100 percent take somebody coming from a position of not knowing, but interested and willing to change, over someone certain they are a feminist ally and would never do anything wrong. 

Christopher F. Karpowitz | BYU Political Science Professor

There aren’t simple fixes. It takes people of goodwill who are humble enough to think about how influence, authority and power are constructed in group settings.