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Aneeta Rattan

Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour

BA (Columbia) PhD (Stanford)

Dr Aneeta Rattan’s research interests focus on mindsets and intergroup relations (stereotyping, prejudice, and inequity). In one programme of research, she studies mindsets that promote belonging, commitment, and achievement among minorities and women in the face of stereotypes and implicit bias. In another programme of research, she investigates the mindsets that help individuals, organisations, and societies foster positive interactions among diverse group members (across gender, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation status), even after incidents of explicit bias.


Dr Rattan’s research has been published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Science, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. She has received multiple research grants from major funding agencies in the United States. Her research has also been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes magazine, and Huffington Post among others.

Research Awards


  • Overall Winner, The Case Centre Awards and Competitions for Satya Nadella at Microsoft: Instilling a Growth Mindset (together with Herminia Ibarra), 2020

  • SAGE Young Scholar Award, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, 2019

  • Thinkers50 Radar Award Finalist, Thinkers50 Radar List, 2019

  • Member, Society for Experimental Social Psychology, 2017

  • Junior Faculty Research Award, London Business School, 2017

  • Rising Star Award, Association for Psychological Science, 2017

  • Core Teaching Award, 2016 (Selected by the MBA 2017 graduating class)

  • Dissertation Award Finalist, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, 2012

  • Psychology Summer Institute Fellow, American Psychological Association Minority Fellowship Program, 2012

  • Department of Psychology Graduate Teaching Award, Stanford University, 2008


  • Mindsets
  • Diversity
  • Prejudice Confrontation
  • Sense of Belonging
  • Intergroup Relations
  • Women
  • Minorities
  • STEM

2023

Not Such a Complainer Anymore: Confrontation that Signals a Growth Mindset can Attenuate Backlash

Rattan A; Kroeper K; Arnett R; Brown X; Murphy M

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2023 Vol 124:2 p 344-361

2022

A Bias Toward Kindness Goals in Performance Feedback to Women (vs. Men)

Jampol L; Rattan A; Wolf E B

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 2022 In Press

Culturally Relevant Frames Increase Individuals’ Motivation to Contribute to Carbon Emissions Offsets

Hwee Lau E; Rattan A; Romero-Canyas R; Savani K

Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology 2022 Vol 53:10 p 1211-1234

Perceiving Progress toward Social Equality: A Model of Signals and Sense-Making

Georgeac O A M; Rattan A

Current Opinion in Psychology 2022 Vol 44 p 12-17

Support for increasing low-wage workers’ compensation: The role of fixed-growth mindsets about intelligence

Madan S; Ma A; Pandey N; Rattan A; Savani K

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 2022 In Press

The Business Case for Diversity Backfires: Detrimental Effects of Organizations’ Instrumental Diversity Rhetoric for Underrepresented Group Members’ Sense of Belonging

Georgeac O; Rattan A

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2022 Vol 124:1 p 69-108

2021

Lay beliefs about who can bridge the Black-White racial gap during interracial exchanges

Wilton L S; Rattan A; Abrams S; Genao-Perez Y

Social Psychological and Personality Science 2021 Vol 13:2 p 533-542

2020

Open science, communal culture, and women’s participation in the movement to improve science

Murphy M C; Mejia A F; Mejia J; Yan X; Cheryan S; Dasgupta N; Destin M; Fryberg S A; Garcia J A; Haines E L; Harackiewicz J M; Ledgerwood A; Moss-Racusin C A; Park L A; Perry S P; Ratliff K A; Rattan A; Sanchez D T; Savani K; Sekaquaptewa D; et al.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2020 Vol 117:39 p 24154-24164

Perceived centrality in social networks increases women’s expectations of confronting sexism

Rattan A; Brands R

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 2020 Vol 46:12 p 1682-1701

Use Your Social Network as a Tool for Social Justice

Brands R; Rattan A

Harvard Business Review Digital Articles 2020

2019

An exploratory investigation of Americans' expression of gender bias before and after the 2016 presidential election

Georgeac O; Rattan A; Effron D A

Social Psychological and Personality Science 2019 Vol 10:5 p 632-642

Embedding mindsets in context: Theoretical considerations and opportunities for studying fixed-growth lay theories in the workplace

Rattan A; Ozgumus E

Research in Organizational Behavior 2019 Vol 39 p 100127

From know-it-alls to learn-it-alls: how leaders can instil a growth mindset

Ibarra H; Rattan A

Work 2019 Summer Vol 21 p 11

How lay theories (or mindsets) shape the confrontation of prejudice

Rattan A

R K Mallett & M J Monteith (eds.), Confronting prejudice and discrimination: the science of changing minds and behaviors, Elsevier

Identical applicant but different outcomes: the impact of gender versus race salience in hiring

Rattan A; Steele J; Ambady N

Group Processes and Intergroup Relations 2019 Vol 22:1 p 80-97

Progress in women’s representation in top leadership weakens people’s disturbance with gender inequality in other domains

Georgeac O; Rattan A

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 2019 Vol 148:8 p 1435-1453

Support for resettling refugees: role of fixed-growth mindsets

Madan S; Basu S; Rattan A; Savani K

Psychological Science 2019 Vol 30:2 p 238-249

Tackling the underrepresentation of women in media

Rattan A; Chilazi S; Georgeac O; Bohnet I

Harvard Business Review Digital Articles 2019 6 June 2019

When people see more women at the top, they're less concerned about gender inequality elsewhere

Georgeac O; Rattan A

Harvard Business Review Digital Articles 2019 7 March 2019

2018

Meta-lay theories of scientific potential drive underrepresented students’ sense of belonging to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)

Rattan A; Savani S; Komarraju M; Morrison M; Boggs C L; Ambady N

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2018 Vol 115:1 p 54-75

Microsoft: instilling a growth mindset

Ibarra H; Rattan A

London Business School Review 2018 Vol 29:3 p 50-53

What happens after prejudice is confronted in the workplace? How mindsets affect minorities' and women's outlook on future social relations

Rattan A; Dweck C S

Journal of Applied Psychology 2018 Vol 103:6 p 676-687

When confronting a biased comment can increase your sense of belonging at work

Rattan A

Harvard Business Review Digital Articles 2018 May 04, 2018

Whites' perceptions of biracial individuals' race shift when biracials speak out against bias

Wilton L; Rattan A; Sanchez D

Social Psychological and Personality Science 2018 Vol 9:8 p 953-961

2017

Is education a fundamental right? People's lay theories about intellectual potential drive their positions on education

Savani K; Rattan A; Dweck C

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 2017 Vol 43:9 p 1284-1295

Mindsets about malleability and intergroup relations

Rattan A; Georgeac O

In Zedelius, C, Muller, B & Schooler J (eds).,The science of lay theories : how beliefs shape our cognition, behavior, and health. Springer 2017. Ch 6, pp. 127-156

Underrepresentation, social networks and sense of belonging to organizational leadership domains

Brands R A; Rattan A; Ibarra H

Academy of Management Proceedings 2017 Vol 2017:1 p 12798

Understanding intergroup relations through the lens of implicit theories (mindsets) of malleability

Rattan A; Georgeac O

Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2017 Vol 11:4 p e12305

2015

Leveraging mindsets to promote academic achievement: Policy recommendations

Rattan A; Savani K; Chugh D; Dweck C S

Perspectives in Psychological Science 2015 Vol 10:6 p 721-726

2014

How “It gets better” : effectively communicating support to targets of prejudice

Rattan A; Ambady N

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 2014 Vol 40:5 p 555-566

2013

Diversity ideologies and intergroup relations: An examination of colorblindness and multiculturalism

Rattan A; Ambady N

European Journal of Social Psychology 2013 Vol 43:1 p 12-21

2012

"It's ok - not everyone can be good at math:" Instructors with an entity theory comfort (and demotivate) students

Rattan A; Good C; Dweck C S

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 2012 Vol 48:3 p 731-737

A choice mind-set increases the acceptance and maintenance of wealth inequality

Savani K S; Rattan A

Psychological Science 2012 Vol 23:7 p 796-804

Can everyone become highly intelligent? Cultural differences in and societal consequences of beliefs about the universal potential for intelligence

Rattan A; Savani K; Naidu N V R; Dweck C S

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2012 Vol 103:5 p 787-803

Chapter three - Implicit theories shape intergroup relations

Carr P B; Rattan A; Dweck C S

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 2012 Vol 45 p 127-165

Gender-based rejection sensitivity and academic self-silencing in women

London B; Downey G; Romero-Canyas R; Rattan A; Tyson D

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2012 Vol 102:5 p 961-979

Race and the fragility of the legal distinction between juveniles and adults

Rattan A; Levine C S; Dweck C S; Eberhardt J L

PLoS ONE 2012 Vol 7:e36680

Why do women opt out? Sense of belonging and women's representation in mathematics

Good C; Rattan A; Dweck C S

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2012 Vol 102:4 p 700-717

2010

The role of social meaning in inattentional blindess: When the gorillas in our midst do not go unseen

Rattan A; Eberhardt J L

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 2010 Vol 46:6 p 1085-1088

Who confronts prejudice? The role of implicit theories in the motivation to confront prejudice

Rattan A; Dweck C S

Psychological Science 2010 Vol 21:7 p 952-959

2020

Ros Atkins and the 50:50 Project at the BBC (A)

Rattan A; Georgeac O; Chilazi S


Teaching portfolio

Our teaching offering is updated annually. Faculty and programme material are subject to change.