Is it always this cold? Chilly interpersonal climates as a barrier to the well-being of early-career women faculty in STEM

• Published date: 11 March 2019
• Date: 11 March 2019
• Pages: 226-245
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-07-2018-0127
• Author: Kathi N. Miner,Samantha C. January,Kelly K. Dray,Adrienne R. Carter-Sowell
• Subject Matter: Hr & organizational behaviour

Is it always this cold? Chilly

interpersonal climates as a barrier

to the well-being of early-career

women faculty in STEM

Kathi N. Miner, Samantha C. January, Kelly K. Dray and

Adrienne R. Carter-Sowell

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Texas A&M University,

College Station, Texas, USA

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this project was to examine the extent to which early-career women faculty in

science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) experience working in a chilly interpersonal climate

(as indicated by experiences of ostracism and incivility) and how those experiences relate to work and

non-work well-being outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach –Data came from a sample of 96 early-career STEM faculty (Study 1) and

a sample of 68 early-career women STEM faculty (Study 2). Both samples completed online surveys assessing

their experiences of working in a chilly interpersonal climate and well-being.

Findings –In Study 1, early-career women STEM faculty reported greater experiences of ostracism and incivility

and more negative occupational well-being outcomes associated with these experiences compared to early-career

men STEM faculty. In Study 2, early-career women STEM faculty reported more ostracism and incivility from

their male colleagues than from their female colleagues. Experiences of ostracism (and, to a lesser extent, incivility)

from male colleagues also related to negative occupational and psychological well-being outcomes.

Originality/value –This paper documents that exposure to a chilly interpersonal climate in the form of

ostracism and incivility is a potential explanation for the lack and withdrawal of junior women faculty in

STEM academic fields.

Keywords Well-being, Ostracism, STEM, Incivility, Chilly climate

Paper type Research paper

Decades of research document that women are less likely to enter and more likely to exit

science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields compared to men (Hill et al., 2010;

Xie and Shauman, 2003), including academic faculty (Bilimoria and Liang, 2012; Demos

et al., 2014; Rosser, 2004; West and Curtis, 2006). For example, according the National

Science Board (2016), women earn only 40 percent of STEM PhDs and account for only

46 percent of assistant professors, 38 percent of associate professors and 25 percent of full

professors in STEM. Although researchers have been unable to identify a specific time point

in which women leave STEM academic fields, the greatest losses appear to occur early with

women becoming more and more underrepresented over time (Lichtenstein et al., 2014).

One explanation for the underrepresentation and departure of women from STEM academia

is that it has a “chilly”climate for women.

Chilly climate refers to the differential maltreatment that women experience in

academic settings. The term was introduced by Hall and Sandler (1982), who described it as

the tendency for faculty, whether intended or not, to interact with women and men students

differently in the classroom. More recent theoretical work has conceptualized chilly

climates for women as encompassing not just inequitable interpersonal interactions in

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 38 No. 2, 2019

pp. 226-245

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-07-2018-0127

Received 3 October 2017

Revised 14 July 2018

27 October 2018

Accepted 9 November 2018

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

This project was funded by the National Science Foundation under NSF Cooperative Agreement

No. HRD-1008385.

226

EDI

38,2

organizations, but also organizational structures and cultures including, for example, those

related to work-life balance and the allocation of resources and rewards (Britton, 2017;

Stewart et al., 2007). However, we focus solely on the interpersonal aspect of chilly climates

in the present research. Indeed, gender equity rests in part on micro-level relational

processes making quality interpersonal interac tions critical for women in STEM

(Bilimoria et al., 2006; Callister, 2006; Etzkowitz et al., 2000; Latimer et al., 2014; Morimoto

and Zajicek, 2014; Roos and Gatta, 2009; Xu and Martin, 2011).

Research on the interpersonal aspect of chilly climates has documented the subtle

mistreatment undergraduate women students experience in academic environments

(e.g. Hall and Sandler, 1982; Morris and Daniel, 2008; Pyke and Janz, 2000). Research has

also demonstrated the preponderance of ch illy interpersonal climates for women

academics (Blakemore et al., 1997; Gersick et al., 2000; Maranto and Griffin, 2011;

Riger et al., 1997), including in STEM fields (Carapinha et al., 2017; Greene et al., 2010; Settles

et al., 2006; Settles et al., 2007; Wright et al., 2003; Xie and Shauman, 2003; Xu, 2008).

Findings have also documented that chilly climates relate to a host of negative occupational

well-being outcomes for women faculty in STEM including lower job satisfaction and

higher turnover intentions (e.g. Callister, 2006; Carapinha et al., 2017; Riffle et al., 2013;

Settles et al., 2006, 2007; Xu, 2008).

Although research has linked chilly interpersonal climates for women faculty in STEM

to negative outcomes, a number of gaps in the literature remain. For example, little research

has isolated the effects of working in a chilly interpersonal climate for STEM women

academics early in their career, a time when they may be particularly vulnerable to leaving

(Lichtenstein et al., 2014). Further, it remains unclear the extent to which such experiences

and their effects may differ from their early-career male STEM faculty counterparts. There

is also a paucity of research examining how working in a chilly interpersonal climate affects

non-work outcomes for women STEM faculty. Research has also not examined the extent to

which the negative effects of chilly interpersonal climates differ depending on the gender of

the instigator; that is, it remains unclear the extent to which women faculty in STEM are

differentially harmed by chilly behavior from male and female colleagues.

The purpose of thepresent paper is to advance the literatureon the underrepresentation of

women facultyin STEM by examining the extent towhich junior women in STEM experience

workingin a chilly interpersonal climate andhow those experiences affect workand non-work

well-being outcomes for these women. We do so in two studies by utilizing data from

early-career faculty in STEM academia. In the first study, we assess gender differences in

experiences of two indicators of an chilly interpersonal climate (ostracism and incivility) and

the extent to which such experiences relate to two occupational well-being outcomes

(turnover intentions and affective organizational commitment) in a sample of male and female

junior academics in STEM at one university. We then extend these findings in the second

study using data from a sample of junior women faculty in STEM from various universities

by investigating the extent to which experiences of ostracism and incivility relate to

two additional occupational well-being outcomes (academic self-efficacy and future career

perceptions), as well as outcomes in two non-work domains: physical well-being (physical

health ailments) and psychological well-being (psychological distress). In Study 2, we also

examine the extent towhich junior women STEM faculty differentially experience ostracism

and incivility from their male and female colleagues and if those experiences differentially

relate to outcomes.

Texas A&M University (TAMU) ADVANCE-IT

The data for thepresent studies originatedfrom a National Science Foundation ADVANCE-IT

grant awarded to TAMU in 2010. In 2006, findings from a faculty campus climate study

showed that STEM women faculty perceived the workplace climate as much more negative

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Chilly

interpersonal

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