Stereotype Threat in Tech

After my Xth all-male engineering interview panel, I was talking with another engineer about how frustrating this experience was when she brought up the idea of “stereotype threat.” What….there’s a word for this?

What is stereotype threat?

Stereotype threat is when somebody is in a situation where they feel at risk of confirming a stereotype that applies to their group. This leads to anxiety, which can lead to diminished performance, which can lead to loss of interest in the area. Importantly the threatened person doesn’t have to believe this stereotype is true; it’s enough to know the stereotype exists and others are aware of it.

The concept was originally defined by Claude Steele and is described for a general audience in his book Whistling Vivaldi. More than 300 research studies have shown this effect, so I will not recap it all, but a few good articles are:

• Stereotype Threat Identity Lecture talk by Claude Steele
• It’s Not Me, It’s You article by Annie Murphy Paul
• Thin Ice: Stereotype Threat and Black College Students article by Claude Steele
• How Stereotypes Can Drive Women To Quit Science audio from NPR’s All Things Considered by Shankar Vedantam
• Stereotype Threat and Women’s Math Performance paper by Spencer, Steele, and Quinn (1999)

Who can be affected by stereotype threat?

Any group that has a negative stereotype about them can be affected by stereotype threat. In tech, these can be stereotypes about race, gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality, socioeconomic status, disability status, mental health status, the school(s) you went to, and so many other characteristics.

How does stereotype threat work?

People who care deeply about the outcome of a situation are fighting on two fronts: 1) to complete the task at hand and 2) to slay the dragon of the stereotype — while people who aren’t stereotyped can just focus on the tasks in front of them. People from stereotyped groups will never know when the dragon is slain and will eventually burn themselves out with the unpaid labor of disproving stereotypes, on top of their regular paid work.

While the reaction to stereotypes is internal, the cues that trigger it are external: the stereotype already exists out in the world. As a result, a candidate has no way of knowing whether the interviewer believes in the stereotype or not, and it’s natural to assume that it is held.

You might say, “But I don’t hold that stereotype.” We are proud of you, but since such a large percentage of the world does, you (whether as interviewer, coworker, or manager) need to explicitly signal that this stereotype does not apply. Organizations can combat these stereotypes even better, by creating an environment and culture that continually affirms individuals and protects them from these kinds of stereotypes.

How can we fix it?

Let’s split this into two categories: hiring and inclusion, or, getting people into your organization and then making sure they can thrive inside. While much of the research on stereotype threat comes from academic environments, I’m going to show how these rules could be applied to a tech workplace.

Hiring

The goal of an engineering interview is to accurately understand a candidate’s ability. A lot of organizations go out of their way to make an interview as sterile, academic, and test-like an environment as possible to “remove bias.” But maybe we are actually introducing another kind of bias and preventing an accurate assessment of many candidates.

I never felt able to perform to my true ability when interviewed by an all-male panel. My impression was confirmed by an experiment that showed that, on average, a woman who took a math test with 2 other women in the room got 70% of the answers right vs a woman who took it with two men in the room got 55%. So even if a candidate is not explicitly asked about their gender, simply being in an all-male environment can still trigger stereotype threat and impact performance.

I wanted to see how we could change our strategy and the cues we give in order to minimize stereotype threat in interviews. So, I sent a survey to underrepresented groups (URGs) in Affirm’s engineering department, including the womeng group (Womxn in Engineering). The following suggestions come from that survey, though I combined them with other methods used in the literature (which were usually meant for academia).

Advice for candidates:

• Take five minutes at the top of the interview to talk about past success. You are a successful individual, not just a stereotype.
• Give feedback to your recruiter, since the company can’t change what they aren’t aware of. Most companies aren’t perfect but want to improve and they need feedback to do so. Personally, I’m always a bit afraid that giving constructive feedback will prevent me from getting the job. What I’ve learned as I’ve interviewed and worked at more places is: 1) very few recruiters share the source of the feedback with the hiring team and 2) I want to work where I can openly give constructive feedback. If constructive feedback is a deal breaker for them, it’s probably a deal breaker for me.
• Ask about diversity statistics and programs, specifically for the team you are interviewing with.

Here is my advice for companies and interviewers. If some of these points feel obvious, remember that a lot of people still have the opposite experience:

• Have more people from URGs on the interview panel. Details in the 4 points below:

1. This is for the onsite portion, not just the phone screen or lunch interview. And yes the recruiter may be a woman, but if that is the only woman your candidate speaks to at your company it won’t make your woman engineer feel super welcome.
2. Place interviewers from URGs earlier in the schedule, as this can boost performance early in the process and shows that people like the candidate are welcome at the organization. If it’s the last interview, it might not have the same impact.
3. Have candidates talk to someone from the same URG if possible. This can be a heavy lift if the URG is particularly underrepresented, so also take steps to make sure the few URG interviewers are not being overwhelmed.
4. Bonus points: Have multiple interviewers from URGs (requires you to have multiple URGs on your team)

• Frame technical interviews as a problem or a puzzle to be solved together, not a test. Try to make it more like the real collaborative problems you solve everyday.
• Prepare each candidate for the interview; let them know what to expect and what will be expected of them at each step.
• Have a diverse panel of interviewers from different backgrounds create and test your interview questions and have recruiters share this information with candidates as part of the preparation for the interview.
• Give the candidates five minutes at the top of the interview to talk about past success. Allow them to remind themselves they are successful individuals, not just a stereotype.
• Be polite. Always leave the candidate with a positive sentiment.
• Give positive feedback explicitly and regularly. People experiencing stereotype threat can take no feedback as bad feedback.
• Learn multiple ways to describe a problem and to provide examples. One of the worst experiences is when a candidate is confused with the problem statement but the interviewer just repeats the same written statement over and over. This will crush the candidate’s confidence for the rest of the onsite.
• Remember that communication is a two-way street. If you are speaking with a candidate from a different background, consider what would happen if the situation were reversed: what would your communication style look like if you were interviewed exclusively by people with this background?
• Talk about how your company values diversity with the candidate, mentioning specific programs that address the diversity, equity, and inclusion issues that are prevalent across all tech companies.

The list above is for all interviewers and all candidates. An interviewer can be from a non-stereotype threatened group and still be great at reducing stereotype threat, while someone from an underrepresented group can trigger them. And though a candidate may appear to you as part of the majority group, they might identify as a stereotype threatened group, or just have very bad interview anxiety. By trying to make the interview process better for the people we know have it the worst, hopefully we can make it better for everyone.

Inclusion

Now you have some tools to fairly evaluate candidates from URGs. How do you keep stereotype threat from leaking into feedback and performance reviews and enable people to perform their best in the workplace?

The biggest difference between groups facing stereotype threat and those who do not is the level of institutional trust. The paper Addressing Stereotype Threat is Critical to Diversity and Inclusion in Organizational Psychology says, “When a stigmatized person becomes aware that their stigmatized status may be relevant in a particular context, they may become vigilant and increase attention for environmental cues relevant to potential prejudice and discrimination.” People from URGs are much more likely to look for signs of discrimination, and much more likely to find them. This vigilance and looking for cues leaves less mental energy to focus on the task at hand, which may lead to reduced performance. Managers and coworkers trying to make a more equitable environment need to be aware of these cues as well, acknowledge when these issues are raised, and mitigate these cues to rebuild trust.

How can you help in your workplace:

• As managers, read the excellent blog post my co-worker wrote.
• When giving feedback to people from URGs, follow the 6 points below:

1. Keep in mind that it’s hard to distinguish real constructive feedback from being singled out because of their identity group.
2. Remember, you have to build a lot of personal trust because there is less trust in the institution.
3. Show explicit faith in the individual. Frame the feedback so it is clear that: 1) performance standards are universal, 2) you believe the person can meet these standards, and 3) offer to help them meet the standards.
4. Communication is a two way street. If someone is the only person of their racial group / ethinic background / gender expression / etc. on a team, before labeling them as a “bad communicator,” consider if they are actually a poor communicator or simply communicate differently than the majority.
5. Give specific examples and actionable feedback.
6. If someone is brave enough to bring up bias, listen to them. Don’t defend yourself or go straight to HR. It’s quite possible they are right, in which case you have an excellent opportunity to learn.

• Many times in tech, we are pressured to make stretch goals. This can trigger stereotype threat and make it even harder to achieve these goals. Break things down into small pieces and explicitly label what is really expected.
• Bringing up diversity issues, coming up with solutions, and explaining the repercussions to management are real work, though it is often treated as unpaid labor that falls primarily on URGs. Acknowledging efforts to create a more inclusive culture is important. Putting this kind of work (flagging issues, leading groups and initiatives, educating others) in a company’s feedback and development framework, and making sure managers support the employees leading these efforts, can help prevent people from URGs from burning out.
• Allow smaller subgroups within teams that have a higher percentage of URGs (a critical mass)–this creates a safe space to come forward with questions and suggestions. When I first got to Affirm, my larger team was less than 20% people from URGs. When I had a “stupid question,” I didn’t ask the larger group because I was afraid they’d say to themselves, “Wow, we shouldn’t hire any more women”. But on my smaller team that was about 50% women (and all of them brilliant), I felt comfortable asking the same stupid question.
• Make sure there aren’t people in the small group who disrupt the psychological safety of others. Even if you have 50% women, if one man talks about men’s natural abilities compared to women’s, then the space will not be safe and you’ll lose the benefits of critical mass.
• Create a narrative intervention. Share with new employees that people from similar backgrounds eventually came to feel as though they belong in your workplace.

Is Affirm doing every one of these bullet points perfectly? No, but we want to create a culture where we continually get feedback and continually improve.

Hiring and inclusion are two sides of the same coin, and either alone is ultimately self-defeating. We need to not only look at the pipeline of people coming in, but also what can we do to create a safe environment which continues to allow people from different groups to thrive.

We want real diversity, not just the brochure diversity of people who look different but who grew up in the same places, went to the same schools, and worked at the same companies. We want to be able to work with people who think, speak, and work differently because that is where the real value add lies. In order to do this, we need to create an environment that minimizes stereotype threats and lets every person bring their individuality to the table.