Men tend to justify or deny evidence of bias.
Clear demonstrations of gender bias may not be enough to change attitudes. Researchers examined hundreds of online responses to reports of a study that showed experimental evidence of gender bias in science faculty members. Comments that either justified bias or denied its existence were three times more likely to come from men than from women (C. A. Moss-Racusin, A. K. Molenda and C. R. Cramer Psychol Women. Q. http://doi.org/zqn; 2015). Initiatives to combat gender and other bias will need to do more than offer proof that it exists, says lead investigator Corinne Moss-Racusin at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. “We need to understand whether people are open to that evidence.”
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Gender bias: Seeing is not believing. Nature 518, 129 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7537-129b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7537-129b