Feedback receptivity from people in power reduces gender, sexual orientation, and disability bias concerns

Seven preregistered studies (total N = 2,443) demonstrate that feedback receptivity of people in power, or their openness to feedback, reduces bias concerns among members of marginalized groups (marginalized group meta-analytic d_z = 0.53; nonmarginalized group meta-analytic d_z = 0.10). Study 1 finds that the extent to which engineering students and staff perceive their faculty advisors as receptive to feedback predicts women's lower concerns about facing gender bias and that this effect is weaker for men. Studies 2-4 show that reading about a person in power who is high in feedback receptivity (vs. no information about feedback receptivity) reduces women's gender bias concerns in male-dominated environments; lesbian, gay, and bisexual people's sexual orientation bias concerns at work; and disabled students' ability bias concerns in the classroom. Studies 3-6 find that perceptions of relational leadership, or perceptions that the person in power is caring, trustworthy, and uses power for good, explain why feedback receptivity reduces bias concerns. Study 7 introduces an important caveat: When people in power ask for but then explicitly ignore feedback, bias concerns are higher than when they do not solicit feedback. Feedback receptivity may not appear tied to social identity but may be a helpful tool for making academic and professional cultures more equitable. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).