Who is likely to be “brilliant”?

A recent paper in SCIENCE suggests that women and African Americans are underrepresented in some fields because of a belief that “innate talent” rather than hard work determines success in those fields (and a corresponding belief that women of all races as well as African American men are less likely to manifest this “innate talent”).

This is important information for us to consider in encouraging undergraduates to consider STEM fields and other areas.

Here’s a link to the article, Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines

And here’s a summary, from the Jan. 17 Economist