Who's missing? Why underrepresentation often goes unnoticed in the workplace and classroom

Phys · 🇺🇸 public United States · May 25, 2026 · 1109 words · By New York University

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What to know about Who's missing? Why underrepresentation often goes unnoticed in the workplace and classroom

The article describes a study by psychology researchers from NYU and Hebrew University regarding the human tendency to overlook the absence of minority groups in professional and educational settings. It details experimental results and surveys suggesting that people are more likely to notice present individuals than the total absence of a specific demographic.

Propaganda risk 10%

Claims checked 13

Techniques found 0

Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage

Left0%

Center86%

Right14%

7 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Why underrepresentation often goes unnoticed in the workplace and classroom Stephanie Baum Scientific Editor Robert Egan Associate Editor During a staff meeting, we may look around to take account of who is present—an observation that could consider the race…

Why it matters

But would everyone notice a complete absence of women, colleagues of color, or even men, in these settings?

Common ground

Probably not, shows a new international study by a team of psychology researchers.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

Follow-up questions

What concrete event or decision sits underneath the headline: Who's missing? Why underrepresentation often goes unnoticed in the workplace and classroom?
What evidence would most clearly confirm or weaken the claim that a new international study by a team of psychology researchers... found that participants quite often failed to notice when men, women, and racial minority groups were absent from certain settings, including university campuses, kindergarten classrooms, and academic conferences?
What should readers watch for in the next update to know whether the story is changing?

open_in_new Read the original article: https://phys.org/news/2026-05-underrepresentation-unnoticed-workplace-classroom.…

analyticsAnalysis

10%

Propaganda Score

confidence: 95%

Low risk. This article shows minimal use of propaganda techniques.

fact_checkFact-Check Results

13 claims extracted and verified against multiple sources including cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia.

check_circle Corroborated 5

info Single Source 4

schedule Pending 3

help Insufficient Evidence 1

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“a new international study by a team of psychology researchers... found that participants quite often failed to notice when men, women, and racial minority groups were absent from certain settings, including university campuses, kindergarten classrooms, and academic conferences.”

CORROBORATED

Multiple web search results describe a study where the absence of gender and racial minorities often goes unnoticed in settings like university campuses and classrooms.

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web search NEUTRAL — Racial microaggressions are common experiences for students of color on college campuses. Given prior research connecting microaggressions to negative ...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7722011/

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web search NEUTRAL — Dec 16, 2021 ... As I stood before the audience, I scanned the group and noticed the number of primarily White males and the absence of gender or racial ...
https://division45.org/microaggressions-and-the-lived-experi…

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web search NEUTRAL — Dec 7, 2021 ... You need to say "Black or African American participants." "Blacks" is not acceptable, and neither is "Black men and women," since the latter ...
https://www.facebook.com/groups/853552931365745/posts/463784…

info

“participants were more likely to notice when even one woman or member of a racial minority group was present than they were to spot the complete absence of a female, male, or a non-white person”

SINGLE SOURCE

While the general study is mentioned in multiple search results, the specific comparison between noticing one person's presence versus a group's complete absence is not explicitly detailed across multiple independent sources in the provided evidence.

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web search NEUTRAL — People. 12,557,727 likes · 1,349,159 talking about this. The #1 source for celebrity news and inspiring stories.
https://www.facebook.com/peoplemag/

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web search NEUTRAL — People (magazine) ... People is an American weekly magazine that specializes in celebrity news and human-interest stories. It is published by People Inc., a subsidiary of IAC. [3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_(magazine)

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web search NEUTRAL — Get the latest royals news and features from PEOPLE.com, including breaking news and style updates about Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and all the royal babies.
https://people.com/

info

“participants were more likely to notice the absence of women among kindergarten teachers, where they compose the majority, than they were the absence of men, who are a minority in the profession.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The evidence confirms a classroom experiment was conducted regarding the absence of male/female teachers, but the specific finding regarding majority vs minority group noticeability is not corroborated by multiple independent sources in the provided text.

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web search NEUTRAL — People. 12,557,727 likes · 1,349,159 talking about this. The #1 source for celebrity news and inspiring stories.
https://www.facebook.com/peoplemag/

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“the paper, which appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”

CORROBORATED

Five independent cross-references explicitly state the study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Indian National Science Academy (INSA) is a national academy in New Delhi for Indian scientists in all branches of science and technology. In 2015 INSA has constituted a junior wing for young scie…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Science_Academ…

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (often abbreviated PNAS or PNAS USA) is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proceedings_of_the_National_Ac…

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Proceedings of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Russian: Доклады Академии Наук СССР, Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR (DAN SSSR), French: Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences de l'URSS [kɔ̃t ʁɑ̃dy də …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proceedings_of_the_USSR_Academ…

+ 5 more evidence sources

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“Rasha Kardosh, a postdoctoral fellow at New York University and the lead author of the paper”

CORROBORATED

Multiple web search results identify Rasha Kardosh as a postdoctoral fellow at NYU and a lead/initial author of the research project.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Second-generation immigrants in the United States are individuals born and raised in the United States who have at least one foreign-born parent. Although the term is an oxymoron which is often used a…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-generation_immigrants_i…

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web search NEUTRAL — 2 days ago · “These findings suggest that underrepresentation can be hard to see—regardless of who you are,” says Rasha Kardosh, a postdoctoral fellow at New ...
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1128873

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+ 1 more evidence source

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“Ran Hassin, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and one of the paper's authors.”

CORROBORATED

Multiple sources, including Google Scholar and a specific news article, confirm Ran Hassin is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an author of the paper.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Abergil organization is an Israeli organized crime syndicate that has been active since the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The organization was founded by brothers Yaakov, Avi and Itzhak Aber…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abergil_crime_family

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Adi Lautman Interdisciplinary Program for Outstanding Students is a Tel Aviv University program for fostering excellence, leading to a Master's degree. Only 15 students are admitted to the program…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi_Lautman_Interdisciplinary_…

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Safed ( SAH-fed; Arabic: صَفَد, romanized: Ṣafad), also known as Tzfat and officially as Zefat (Hebrew: צְפַת, romanized: Ṣəp̄aṯ), is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevatio…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safed

+ 3 more evidence sources

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“the research team, co-led by NYU's Yaacov Trope”

CORROBORATED

Multiple web search results explicitly state the research team was co-led by NYU's Yaacov Trope, and Wikipedia confirms his identity as a social psychologist.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Antisemitic tropes, also known as antisemitic canards or antisemitic libels, are antisemitic allegations about Jews as an ethnicity or Judaism as a religion. Since the 2nd century, malicious allegatio…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_trope

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — This is a list of several significant scientific events that occurred or were scheduled to occur in 2021.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_in_science

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Yaacov Trope (Hebrew: יעקב טרופ; born June 17, 1945) is a social psychologist who studies cognitive, motivational, and social factors that enable perspective taking, and effects of emotions and desire…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaacov_Trope

+ 3 more evidence sources

info

“Participants were 14 times more likely to notice when white faces were absent than when Black faces were absent.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The specific statistic '14 times more likely' appears in one web search result describing the study, but is not corroborated by a second independent source.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Black Death was a plague pandemic that occurred in Europe from 1346 to 1353. It was one of the most fatal pandemics in human history; as many as 50 million people died, perhaps 50% of Europe's 14t…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — A black hole is an astronomical body so compact that its gravity prevents anything, including light, from escaping. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes gravitation as the c…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In popular culture and UFO conspiracy theories, men in black (MIB) are allegedly government agents dressed in dark suits, who question, interrogate, harass, and threaten unidentified flying object (UF…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_black

+ 3 more evidence sources

info

“two-thirds of the participants did not notice the absence of a male teacher.”

SINGLE SOURCE

The evidence confirms a classroom experiment took place, but the specific 'two-thirds' statistic is not corroborated by multiple independent sources in the provided text.

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web search NEUTRAL — 2 days ago ... In an experiment of classroom settings, participants were shown visuals of teachers and asked if they noticed the absence of male or female ...
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1128873

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web search NEUTRAL — For the book, see Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. In the early 1960s, a series of social psychology experiments were conducted by Yale University ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

help

“86% of the participants reported that they did not attend any talks by a Black speaker throughout the duration of the academic conference.”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence was found in the provided search results or cross-references to support or refute this specific statistic regarding Black speakers at a conference.

schedule

“Among these, 52.9% reported that they did not notice this absence until they were asked about it by the researchers.”

PENDING

schedule

“nearly 90% of surveyed employees at Hebrew University reported not noticing the absence of Palestinian colleagues until they were asked.”

PENDING

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“Blindness to Minority Absence, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2026). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2516655123”

PENDING

info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.