Nilanjana Dasgupta is a social psychologist whose work focuses on the effects of social contexts on

implicit stereotype An implicit bias or implicit stereotype is the pre-reflective attribution of particular qualities by an individual to a member of some social out group. Implicit stereotypes are thought to be shaped by experience and based on learned association ...

s - particularly on factors that insulate

women in STEM fields Many scholars and policymakers have noted that the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have remained predominantly male with historically low participation among women since the origins of these fields in the 18th ce ...

from harmful

stereotypes In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalization, generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can ...

which suggest that females perform poorly in such areas. Dasgupta is a professor of

Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

and is the Director of the Institute of Diversity Sciences and the

University of Massachusetts, Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the Flagship university, flagship campus of the Univer ...

Education and career

Prior to joining the Psychology faculty at the University of Massachusetts in 2003, Dasgupta (b. 1969) received an A.B. from

Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smit ...

in 1992 in Psychology with a minor in

Neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...

. In 1998, she received a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in Psychology from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

. Dasgupta then became a postdoctoral fellow at the

University of Washington, Seattle The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Unite ...

and, afterward, an assistant professor at the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR), previously known as The University in Exile and The New School University, is a graduate-level educational division of The New School in New York City, United States. NSSR enrolls more than 1,000 stud ...

from 1999 to 2002. At the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the ...

, Dasgupta has served in several leadership roles and earned awards for her service to the university. In 2005-2006 Dasgupta was A Lilly Teaching fellow and 2006-7 she was a Family Research Scholar at UMass Amherst. From 2014 to 2020 she served as the Director of Faculty Equity and Inclusion in the College of Natural Sciences at the

. Dasgupta is co-PI of an NSF Advance program that seeks to transforms the campus by cultivating faculty equity, inclusion and success at the

. In 2019 Dasgupta was recognized by the College of Natural Sciences at UMass Amherst for Excellence in Diversity & Inclusion. Dasgupta has held several leadership positions in national and international professional societies. She is serving on the National Science Foundation's Advisory Committee for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (2015–17). She is an elected member of the executive committee of the

Society of Experimental Social Psychology The Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP) is a scientific organization of social scientists founded in 1965 with the goal of advancing and communicating theories in social psychology. Its first chairperson was Edwin P. Hollander.Holland ...

, and was elected to be President of the society in 2017. Dr. Dasgupta serves on the Training Committee of the

Society for Personality and Social Psychology A society () is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. So ...

, and on the steering committee of the International Social Cognition Network. Dasgupta was an elected member of the council of the

Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues Founded in 1936, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) is a group of 3,000 scientists from psychology and related fields who share a common interest in research on the psychological aspects of important social and policy i ...

(2012–14).

Research

Dasgupta proposed the Stereotype Inoculation Model which explains how, for women in STEM fields, experts and peers from one's own group in a working or learning environment can help individuals become more successful despite the pervasiveness of stereotypes casting doubt upon their ability. Dasgupta has also conducted research on situational influences on unconscious stereotyping and

prejudice Prejudice can be an affect (psychology), affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived In-group and out-group, social group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classifi ...

. One project, a collaboration with David Desteno, indicates that anger, but not sadness tends to increase bias against people in different

social group In the social sciences, a social group is defined as two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics, and collectively have a sense of unity. Regardless, social groups come in a myriad of sizes and varieties. F ...

s than their own and that feeling a specific emotion can make people more biased against groups whose stereotypes are associated with that emotion. Dasgupta and her colleagues have also found that being exposed to counterstereotypic or well-liked members of groups like African-Americans or women can reduce unconscious bias against those groups on the Implicit Association Task. She theorized that four things influence stereotypes and prejudice, and should be taken into account when trying to change implicit biases: 1) self- and social-motives, 2) specific strategies, 3) the perceiver's focus of attention, and 4) configuration of stimulus cues.

Awards and honors

In 2009 Dasgupta was elected to the fellowships of both the

Association for Psychological Science The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in r ...

. and the

. In 2011, Dasgupta and her collaborators received a Smashing Bias Research Prize awarded by the Mitchell Kapor Foundation and Level Playing Field Institute She also received the Morton Deutsch Award from the International Society for Justice Research. In 2016 Dasgupta received the Application of Personality and Social Psychology Award from the

. In 2017 Dasgupta received Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Research & Creative Activity; this is the highest recognition bestowed to faculty by the

. As part of that award she delivered a Distinguished Faculty Lecture on “''STEMing the Tide: How Female Professors and Peers Can Encourage Young Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics''".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dasgupta, Nilanjana University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty Social psychologists Smith College alumni Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people)