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Diversity Informatics: Reducing Racial and Gender Bias with Virtual Agents

Published: 14 September 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Job advertisements in white male-dominated organizations are often biased in ways that discourage female and minority candidates from applying. We explored the use of a female African American virtual agent who provides a first-person reaction to a biased job advertisement, providing an impassioned, vivid description of her feelings about the advertisement, the position, and the organization offering the job, and how the position---as described---would impact her life were she to take the job. We evaluate the impact interactions with this agent have on the effort study participants invest in editing the job advertisement following their interaction with the agent, compared to reading a page of standard educational text on diversity in hiring. Participants who interacted with the agent spent significantly more effort correcting the job ad, as measured both by the number of edit operations and the number of biased phrases removed, compared to participants in the control condition. Implications and a future research agenda for increasing diversity using virtual agents are presented.

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  • (2024)Effects of Racial Stereotypes and Sociodemographic Profile on Anxiety, Flow, and Performance during the Use of Digital Educational TechnologiesInternational Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education10.1007/s40593-024-00432-y35:1(181-224)Online publication date: 7-Oct-2024

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    IVA '21: Proceedings of the 21st ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents
    September 2021
    238 pages
    ISBN:9781450386197
    DOI:10.1145/3472306
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    Published: 14 September 2021

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    Author Tags

    1. Affective Agent
    2. Discrimination
    3. Empathic Agent
    4. Gender Bias
    5. Job Advertisement
    6. Racial Bias
    7. Virtual Agent

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    • (2024)Effects of Racial Stereotypes and Sociodemographic Profile on Anxiety, Flow, and Performance during the Use of Digital Educational TechnologiesInternational Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education10.1007/s40593-024-00432-y35:1(181-224)Online publication date: 7-Oct-2024

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