Intended Audience
The psychology department welcomes Professor Crystal Hoyt as the third speaker in its 2024-2025 lecture series: The Psychology of Leadership. She will present "Mindsets Matter for Diversifying Leadership."
Diversifying leadership is essential for fostering more inclusive and equitable institutions, while also strengthening their capacity to navigate and address complex societal issues effectively. Members of underrepresented groups are at a distinct disadvantage in leadership in part because of pervasive stereotype-based expectations that serve to challenge their legitimacy. Whereas explicit biases against women and minorities have decreased over recent years, pernicious subtle biases work to undermine the tenets of meritocracy and limit access to power. Not only do subtle gender and racial stereotypes bias who people see as “fitting” the role of leader, these expectations of inferiority can be psychologically burdensome for those targeted. Importantly, these barriers can be bolstered or undermined by the belief systems, or mindsets, that people use to shape the meaning of these stereotypes. A greater understanding of how mindsets can undercut identity-based biases can offer a path forward in promoting greater diversity in leadership.
Hoyt is professor of leadership studies and psychology and the Thorsness Endowed Chair in Ethical Leadership at the University of Richmond. Hoyt’s scholarship resides at the intersection of human belief systems (e.g., mindsets, stereotypes, and ideologies) and social justice and wellbeing. She is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation. She has published over 80 journal articles and book chapters and has co-edited three books. Her research appears in journals such as Psychological Science, Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and The Leadership Quarterly. Her research and writing has been featured in news outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Today Show, and NPR’s Tell Me More, among others.
This event may be used to satisfy the Lecture Reflection Requirement in PSYC206 and PSYC493/494.