In STEM, the stereotypes go beyond gender, asserts PhD candidate Sheba Aikawa

Ask a kindergartner to draw a scientist, and there’s a good chance a male figure will appear below the tip of a crayon. Decades of research have documented this tendency. Its persistence despite strong efforts to increase diversity in STEM fields points to something stubbornly embedded in the way society imagines who belongs in science. 

Sheba Aikawa, a sixth-year social psychology PhD candidate in the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, wanted to push the established literature further. 

“We wanted to understand whether adding race would change how people perceive who ‘fits’ the scientist stereotype,” she says. 

Sheba Aikawa is a sixth-year social psychology PhD candidate in the CU Boulder Department of Psychology and Neuroscience.

The answer, it turns out, is that stereotypes of who “should” be a scientist and how scientists look aren’t limited to gender. 

Who fits the mold? 

Aikawa’s interest is in exploring ideas of identity, perception and belonging. 

“Broadly, my research examines what factors promote welcoming spaces and how negative stereotypes may lead to hostile environments across healthcare, academia and workplace settings,” she says. 

Working under Eva Pietri, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience, Aikawa’s latest study builds on earlier work establishing that traits associated with scientists are more strongly linked to men than women. 

Published in the journal Group Processes & Intergroup Relations and co-authored by graduate student Nadia Floyd and Bernadette Park, professor emerita of psychology and neuroscience, the study asks whether that pattern holds when race is added to the conversation. 

“We focused on scientists specifically because we wanted to examine whether the gender bias identified in previous research would hold when considering race. But our findings also have broader implications for understanding STEM bias more generally,” Aikawa says. 

Across four experiments involving more than 1,100 white and Black participants, the results were consistent. 

What the data reveals

Participants were asked to estimate what percentage of Black men, Black women, white men and white women society views as possessing scientist traits. This includes both positive traits like being analytical or meticulous as well as negative ones like being robotic or unsociable. 

Across every study and across both white and Black participant groups, white men were perceived as most likely to possess scientist traits. Aikawa wasn’t surprised by this, but what the data revealed next was more interesting. 

“What we found was that Black men and Black women were viewed similarly on scientist-related traits,” Aikawa says. “This suggests that racial stereotypes may be a particularly important factor shaping perceptions of who is seen as belonging in science.”

The gender gap documented in prior research, with men outpacing women in perceived scientific fit, essentially disappeared among Black individuals. Along the same lines, scientific perception of both Black men and Black women was rated lower than white women. 

“The finding that race mattered more than gender did not necessarily surprise me,” Aikawa says. 

 

CU Boulder researcher Sheba Aikawa and her colleagues found that although there was no difference between white women and Black men and women on negative scientist traits, study participants rated white women as higher on positive scientist traits than Black men and Black women.

She points to multiple studies from her lab consistently supporting the idea that race plays a “powerful role in shaping perceptions across different contexts, including healthcare.” 

“We know there are pervasive stereotypes that portray Black people as less competent, which could affect perceptions of both Black men and Black women,” Aikawa adds. 

More than a number 

The real-world implications of Aikawa and her team’s findings are huge. Stereotypes and perceptions about who looks like a scientist shape the decisions made by people in positions of power and determine who gets an opportunity to carry out important research or further their education. 

“Even people who value diversity may unknowingly hold assumptions about who looks like a scientist or who seems naturally suited for STEM,” Aikawa says. “Awareness does not necessarily mean that people recognize how those beliefs influence their own judgments and behaviors.” 

Those biases emerge early, even in children as young as five to six years old, and have persisted across generations. However, she sees signs of societal change moving in the right direction. 

“We’re seeing more diverse representations of scientists in children’s media through characters like Doc McStuffins and Ada Twist, Scientist. Increasing visibility of diverse scientists helps broaden children’s understanding of who belongs in STEM.” 

She also has a longer outlook. 

“I’m optimistic that these perceptions of scientists can change. In fact, I would hope that if someone replicated our studies 100 years from now, they would find very different results.” 

And though the findings might appear disheartening at first, Aikawa feels they could be empowering. The feeling of not fitting in, she argues, is not a verdict on a person's potential. By shifting the focus away from individual shortcomings and onto broader societal perceptions, she hopes minorities in STEM see that they do belong. 

“The problem is not that Black women are less capable of being scientists; the problem is that society's image of a scientist has historically been narrow and exclusionary,” she says. 

Who gets to be a scientist? 

For any Black woman who has ever walked into a lab and felt like she didn't quite belong, Aikawa has a message to share.

“If you have ever felt like you don’t fit the stereotypical image of a scientist, that feeling is not simply a reflection of your abilities or potential,” she says. “If you've ever questioned whether you belong in STEM, our findings suggest that those feelings may stem from societal stereotypes rather than from a lack of talent, intelligence or potential.”

On an individual level, Aikawa also reminds prospective Black scientists that they don’t have to fit society’s mold.

Addressing these stereotypes, though, requires more than individual awareness. Changing perceptions, both internally and societally, takes a collective effort. 

Aikawa experienced this firsthand through the Boulder Black Blossoms program at CU Boulder. Led by Christina Alston, director of the Office of Graduate Access and Retention and faculty affiliate in the School of Education, the program creates a community for Black women in STEM and education graduate programs. 

“What I appreciated about this program is that it did not just focus on individual resilience—it focused on creating belonging, connection and support within an academic environment. Those types of structural and community-level supports are critical for helping historically underrepresented groups thrive in STEM,” Aikawa says. 

Ultimately, Aikawa sees the work of dismantling harmful stereotypes in STEM as an ongoing, collaborative effort. She says being aware of the stereotypes is an important first step. Increasing diversity in STEM fields and building supportive communities and mentorship networks is equally important. 

Over time, she notes, these efforts compound to reshape society’s perspective on who gets to be a scientist. 

“In many ways, expanding and redefining what a scientist looks like is exactly how these stereotypes change over time.”

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