Rotman Management – April 2019

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who expressed the bias — and because of that, they are more
satisfied with their workplace and have a greater sense of
belonging.

How can organizations embrace these findings to reduce
experiences of prejudice in the workplace?
First of all, I want to emphasize that it is every organization’s
responsibility to create an institutional culture that prevents
bias. It is not up to employees. That being said, I think the real
takeaway is that employees will cope better if and when they
encounter bias only if they hold growth mindsets in an orga-
nizational context where they feel that they can confront.
Put simply, organizations will only get people to con-
front bias if they feel that they can. The organization can
play a real role in saying, ‘This is a behaviour that we value;
here are some norms and productive practices that you can
engage in if you encounter bias and want to address it’. Or-
ganizations that want to encourage these types of interac-
tions should also encourage growth mindsets among their
employees.

Social theorists argue that the most important predic-
tors of academic achievement for students are their par-
ents’ education and their socio-economic status. But you
believe the psychology of the student is equally critical to
academic success. Please explain.
I would start off by saying that it is absolutely the case
that your parents’ education and socio-economic status
strongly predict your academic outcome — and there is a lot
of work to be done to address the underlying social struc-
tures that foster this. But I would also say that it is not a
perfect correlation. By understanding the role of mindsets,
we can start to promote positive educational outcomes de-
spite socio-economic background. I make the argument

that the psychology of the student him or herself is just as

critical to achieving academic success.

Do the mindsets of teachers also influence educational

outcomes?

Teachers and faculty truly are the gatekeepers to industry.

In my work with Nanyang Technological University Profes-

sor Krishna Savani and our collaborators, we theorized

that when students perceive their teacher as holding the

belief that ‘intellectual potential is widespread’, they feel

more of a sense of belonging with respect to subjects such

as science, technology, engineering and math, and therefore

show more interest in them and get better grades compared

to when they perceive their teacher as holding the belief that

‘not everyone has equal potential’. The more students see

their teacher as endorsing the ‘universal’ mindset — the idea

that intellectual potential is widespread — the stronger their

sense of belonging, regardless of their gender or race.

Could you talk a bit about how a growth mindset can help

someone entering a context that is highly stereotyping?

I have been really interested in understanding the subjec-

tive experience of individuals who enter into organizational

contexts knowing full well that their group membership is

stereotyped. When these people look around, they don’t

see people like them at their level or at the next level — and

they very rarely see anyone like them at the highest level of

the organization. In my research, I have thought about the

linkage between this scenario and stereotypes about com-

petence — beliefs or generalizations that some groups have

less competence than others. For example, ‘women are less

competent in math and science than men’ or ‘certain ra-

cial minorities are less competent in academics’. These are

very broad generalizations about large groups, and certain

It is every organization’s responsibility to create

a culture that prevents bias.