Spotlight Avoidance and Role Models

Information about the success of women and minorities can be considered a public good if it changes perceptions about what talented students from underrepresented backgrounds think they can achieve. Concerns around social image and modesty norms, however, might differentially affect how members of different groups choose to communicate their success. This project will investigate the existence of inefficiencies in the creation and diffusion of information about the success of women: Does women’s choices around self-promotion affect their reach as role models? We leverage a unique collaboration with the Brazilian Math Olympiad (BMO) to study this question. This evidence will contribute to a larger research project focusing on two margins: (i) the effects of information about role models on engagement with STEM for students of underrepresented groups, and (ii) whether differences in the decision to self-promote can limit the diversity of role models.