Trust in Scientists: Many Labs Study

I’ve studied trust in leaders (and if it differs by team gender diversity and leader gender; here) and if humor affects trust in job interviews (here). But trust in scientists?

As part of the Swiss contingent of scholars working in a massive, Many Labs study led by Viktoria Cologna (Harvard) and Niels Mede (UZH), we surveyed more than 70,000 people across 67 countries to explore public trust in scientists.

Results show that average trust was high; people also agreed that scientific methods are the best way to test if something is true. However, these effects differed by country (e.g., trust in scientists was highest in Egypt, India, and Nigeria but lowest in Albania, Kazakhstan, and Bolivia) and political orientation (e.g., “left-leaning” orientation was positively associated with trust in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway, and China).

These findings have important and timely implications for scientists’ successful involvement in public policy as well as their engagement with areas of public concern (e.g., global pandemics and other grand challenges such as climate change).

For the pre-print, see here; the data will also be made publicly available after our paper is published (it’s current status is “revise and resubmit”).

We were delighted to see the paper awarded “Best Data Collection: Quantitative” at the Market Research Society conference, as well as featured by Nature News (and several German news outlets).

JOIN US! ***...in fall 2020. Conference postponed due to coronavirus!***

For the most up-to-date information on speakers, time tables, and conference submissions, see *HERE*.

My 1st FINT in snowy St. Gallen

Earlier this month, I attended my first FINT (First International Network on Trust) conference, which was conveniently located in the nearby Swiss city of St. Gallen. The conference included a fantastic line-up of speakers from academia, banking, and non-profit organizations, including UZH’s own Prof. Roberto Weber and St. Gallen’s Prof. Antoinette Weibel (she and her team seamlessly organized/hosted this fantastic event this year). I presented a “first cut” paper on humor as a trust cue as part of our current Swiss National Science Foundation project. I also actively participated in the many social events and Swiss experiences, including an Apéro with alphorn, Swiss fondue in a cheese factory, and yodeling with Appenzellers.

Attendees were encouraging and inclusive, even for me–a diversity researcher “outsider” who is merely beginning to dabble in trust research. Indeed, my first FINT was a cool experience (both metaphorically and literally). I’m delighted to have started the year off right with such inspiring presentations, interactions, and discussions.

For more information about FINT, see here. All photos credited to the official FINT photographer, Altius Media.

Researchathon: Leadership in the Digital Age

24 scholars + 24hrs + 4 mentors, teams, & innovative ideas = 1 successful researchathon!

Our team developed and presented an exciting new idea, “From a distance: Digital leaders’ trust building and repair.”

Thanks to Ellen Schmid, Ulf Steinberg, Emanuel Schreiner, & Simon Pfältzer for the organization. Thanks to Deanne Den Hartog, Ilke Inceoglu, Claudia Peus, & Ronit Kark for the mentorship. And last but not least, thanks to all of our enthusiastic attendees: Fabiola H. Gerpott, Brooke Gazdag, Tanja Hentschel, Kristin Knipfer, Stephanie Rehbock, Armin Pircher Verdorfer, Petra Kipfelsberger, Aldijana Bunjak, Corinna Bertling, Oliver Niebuhr, Paul Westhoff...and many more!

What a fabulous way to kick-off the new Technical University of Munich campus in Heibronn!

Fix the game, not the dame: Restoring equality in leadership evaluations

Fresh off the presses in Journal of Business Ethics:

Female leaders continue to face bias in the workplace compared to male leaders. When employees are evaluated differently because of who they are rather than how they perform, an ethical dilemma arises for leaders and organizations. Thus, bridging role congruity and social identity leadership theories, we propose that gender biases in leadership evaluations can be overcome by manipulating diversity at the team level. Across two multiple-source, multiple-wave, and randomized field experiments, we test whether team gender composition restores gender equity in leadership evaluations. In Study 1, we find that male leaders are rated as more prototypical in male-dominated groups, an advantage that is eliminated in gender-balanced groups. In Study 2, we replicate and extend this finding by showing that leader gender and team gender composition interact to predict trust in the leader via perceptions of leader prototypicality. The results show causal support for the social identity model of organizational leadership and a boundary condition of role congruity theory. Beyond moral arguments of fairness, our findings also show how, in the case of gender, team diversity can create a more level playing field for leaders. Finally, we outline the implications of our results for leaders, organizations, business ethics, and society.

This paper was part of my dissertation, coauthored with fantastic people: Manuela Morf (Erasmus University), Samantha Paustian-Underdahl (Florida State University), and Uschi Backes-Gellner (University of Zurich).