Out-of-the-loop' experiences, or situations where people perceive being uninformed of information mutually known by others, pervade people's lives. Two experiments examined the psychological impact of this form of partial ostracism. In Experiment 1, compared to in-the-loop participants, out-of-the-loop participants experienced a variety of deleterious effects (e.g. depleted fundamental needs), even without signifi cant costs for being uninformed. In Experiment 2, out-of-the-loop participants were led to believe that their lack of information resulted from their group members' decisions or chance. Unlike those who experience complete ostracism, participants typically reported negative psychological consequences only when group members were responsible for the exclusion decision. Information exclusion also affected factors related to group dynamics (e.g. liking and trust of group members), which may ultimately harm group functioning. Taken together, these studies demonstrate the social and psychological importance of being in the information loop in group settings.

There has been extensive discussion about gender gaps in representation and career advancement in the sciences. However, psychological science itself has yet to be the focus of discussion or systematic review, despite our field’s investment in questions of equity, status, well-being, gender bias, and gender disparities. In the present article, we consider 10 topics relevant for women’s career advancement in psychological science. We focus on issues that have been the subject of empirical study, discuss relevant evidence within and outside of psychological science, and draw on established psychological theory and social-science research to begin to chart a path forward. We hope that better understanding of these issues within the field will shed light on areas of existing gender gaps in the discipline and areas where positive change has happened, and spark conversation within our field about how to create lasting change to mitigate remaining gender differences in psychological science.

No abstract

No abstract

Research on the retention of women in academia has focused on challenges, including a “chilly climate,” devaluation, and incivility. The unique consequences of workplace ostracism – being ignored and excluded by others in an organizational setting – require focus on this experience as another interpersonal challenge for women in academia. The purpose of this study is to examine differences in the faculty experiences and outcomes of workplace ostracism, and to determine if these experiences are affected significantly by the gender composition of an employee’s specific department. Participants were recruited at two time points to complete campus climate surveys that were distributed to faculty at a large, public, research university. We examined the number of reported ostracism experiences (Study 1) and perceived information sharing (Study 2) among male and female university faculty. The findings indicated that female faculty members perceived more workplace ostracism than male faculty members. Analyses of department gender ratios suggested that the proportion of women in the department did not reduce the amount of workplace ostracism experienced by women. No gender differences were found in perceived information sharing. However, we found that Faculty of Color, both men and women, reported more frequent information exclusion than White faculty. These results have important implications for theoretical and practical understandings of workplace demography and suggest that it is necessary to look at subtle, ambiguous forms of discrimination in order to increase retention of faculty from underrepresented groups in academia.