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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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LILY JAMPOL: So I want to
ask you guys a question.

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Do you-- yes or no-- consider
yourselves, generally speaking,

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to be nice?

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A nice person?

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AUDIENCE: Yes.

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LILY JAMPOL: Yes.

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Of course you are.

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[LAUGHS] Now I'm
going to upset you

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by telling you about
how sometimes being nice

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can have unintended and ironic
consequences for the workplace.

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So in the 2009 film
"Up in the Air,"

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George Clooney plays a character
who is hired by other companies

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to go and fire
their employees so

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that they don't have to do it.

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Besides being a
pretty good film,

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what the plot
captures perfectly is

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that giving feedback to others
is pretty terrible for everyone

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involved, especially if
it's negative feedback.

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In fact, research has
found that supervisors

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will delay giving feedback,
not give it at all,

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or even distort the
contents of that feedback

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so that it's not quite as harsh.

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What we know as white lies.

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And this tension between
truthfulness but also

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not wanting to hurt
people's feelings

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can be exacerbated when the
recipient of that feedback

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is particularly
empathy-eliciting.

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And historically speaking,
women have stereotypically

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been seen to be less
competent than men

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but also more emotionally
unstable and vulnerable.

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And these beliefs, despite being
often subconscious or implicit,

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can lead to protective or
sometimes even patronizing

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attitudes and behaviors
towards women.

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So my question was, if
it's hard to give feedback

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and women are seen
with more empathy,

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does that mean that
women are going

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to be told more white lies about
their performance than men?

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And in order to
test this question,

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we put people in
a situation that

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would mimic this tension between
truthfulness and empathy.

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And we asked them to
give feedback directly

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to some other participants.

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So we told our
participants that they

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were going to be
working remotely

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with two other students, who
we identified as AM and SB,

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and who were,
unbeknownst to them,

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actually computer-generated
programs.

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So they weren't
real participants.

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And we asked them
to evaluate essays

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that AM and SB had written
and evaluate them on a 0

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to 100 scale and tell
us what they thought

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about these particular essays.

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So this is phase one.

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Once they had submitted those
ratings to us, in phase two,

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we told them, now you're
gonna have a chance

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to give feedback directly
to these other students.

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And this time, we had
the other fake students

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introduce themselves using their
real names, Andrew and Sarah,

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which we used as a subtle
manipulation of gender.

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So now they were both
assigned genders.

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And then we asked the
participants to rate

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the essays again using
the exact same scale

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as they had before,
only this time they

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would submit those ratings
directly to the participants.

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And then we measured
the degree of white lie

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by taking the difference
between phase two and phase one.

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And what we found is
despite there being

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no difference in the phase
one ratings-- that is,

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before they knew the gender,
people were rating equally bad

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the essays, about
35% on a 100% scale.

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In phase two, people
were telling Sarah

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that she was doing more than
15% better than they had told us

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they thought she was
doing, indicating

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that at least to some degree,
Sarah was getting white lies.

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And we've replicated this
in other studies since then.

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And we also asked
people, did you

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know that you lied more
to Sarah than to Andrew?

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And people at least
reported that they

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had no recollection of having
given biased feedback to one

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participant over the other.

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All right.

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So this isn't
necessarily a problem

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if women actually do prefer
hearing white lies, right?

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[LAUGHTER]

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Well, you could argue
that that is a problem.

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But in a follow-up study,
we decided to ask them,

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do you prefer
hearing white lies?

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And we asked both women and men.

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It turns out that no, everybody
actually expressed a preference

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for hearing the truth.

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So at least on a
nominal level, people

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desire to hear truthful
feedback, even if it was harsh.

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Now it seems that
women are being

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told more white lies than men.

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But there are other
broader implications

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of this besides just this
incongruency problem.

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First and foremost,
a lack of information

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means that women-- and possibly
other disadvantaged groups--

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are not getting the information
that they need in order

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to improve.

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And if they do detect that
supervisors are lying,

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this could also lead to
resentment and demotivation.

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And all this has
implications not just

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for individual performance
but also for the performance

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of the workplace and
the organizations.

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And I have to thank
Nancy for teaching me

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how to draw hair on stick
figures using PowerPoint.

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It's pretty awesome.

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All right.

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So what can we do?

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What are some practical
interventions?

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First and foremost,
and this has been

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brought up a bit
with the conversation

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on subconscious bias,
but increasing awareness

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is really important.

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Particularly important is
having everyone, both employees

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and employers, understand
that good people

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with good or
chivalrous intentions

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can have ironic consequences
for equality in the workplace.

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Secondly, some practical
interventions we could do

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would be to have employees
ask for truthful feedback.

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So in feedback situations, this
might alleviate the pressure

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there is on supervisors to be
nice instead of be truthful.

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And likewise, supervisors
could prompt employees

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to express their preferences
during those feedback

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situations.

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Another action
that could be taken

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is to have supervisors
concentrate on the broader

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goals of the organization
and the concrete improvements

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that employees could make,
given truthful feedback.

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And not just on avoiding
negative interactions

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with people when they're
face to face with them.

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Also we've found that
people who've had experience

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giving feedback tend to show
this bias a little bit less.

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So perhaps running simulations
or training programs,

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putting supervisors
in a series of being

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able to deal with different
kinds of feedback situations

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would more adequately
prepare them

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to be able to give
unbiased feedback.

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Ultimately, there's
been a lot of progress

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in terms of equality.

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However, the glass
ceiling still exists

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for women in the workplace.

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Making broad structural
changes, such as maternity care,

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are really important
and necessary steps.

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However, understanding
how biases-- subtle ones,

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like the one that I've
just shown you-- play out

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through common and
normal workplace routines

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is also really,
really essential.

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It's not just for breaking
down those barriers

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and identifying these
biases, but also

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for developing
interventions that

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will make the workplace a more
equal and hospitable place

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for everyone.

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Thanks.

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[APPLAUSE]

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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