
Vivian L. Xiao, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University

About
BACKGROUND
Vivian L. Xiao is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University in the Organization Studies Area.
Prior to her appointment at Vanderbilt, she received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2022. She received her B.A. in Psychology (with Honors) and English, magna cum laude, from Rice University in 2016.
RESEARCH OVERVIEW
Vivian’s work explores how race and gender interact to impact a wide range of social and organizational outcomes. Current work includes how race impacts evaluations of woman leaders, when and how opportunities for voicing are linked to greater feelings of inclusion among women and racial minority workers, and how the content of gender role expectations varies within different racial groups. Vivian’s dissertation focuses on how the racial group memberships of evaluators and targets jointly affect evaluations of women’s gendered behavior. She finds that women receive more backlash in response to gender-norm violation and more opportunities for advancement in response to gender-norm conformity from racial in-group members than racial out-group members. Her dissertation investigates these questions using both archival and experimental methods and explores the implications of this work in a range of contexts—including accusations of sexual assault, political behavior, and leader evaluation.
Research
PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
Xiao, V.L. & Lowery, B.S. Who is She to Me?: A Relational Approach to Examining Race-Gender Associations. Under review, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Xiao, V.L., Lowery, B.S., & Stillwell, A. (in press). Gender Backlash and the Moderating Role of Shared Racial Group Membership. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672221074543
MANUSCRIPTS IN PREP
Xiao, V.L., Corrington, A.R., Hebl, M.R., & Phillips, C. Knowing Your Worth: Race and Gender Differences in Personal Entitlement. Preparing for submission.
BOOK CHAPTERS
Xiao, V.L. (in press). Deliberate Inclusion: Considering Underrepresented Perspectives in Psychology. In King, E., Roberson, Q.M., & Hebl, M.R. (Eds.), Research on Social Issues in Management (Vol. The Future of Diversity & Inclusion). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
Xiao, V.L. (in press). Gender, Race, and Intersectionality in the Workplace. In Gurung, R.A.R. (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Psychology in the Real World. Cambridge, UK: Routledge.
SELECTED WORKS IN PROGRESS
(* denotes shared first authorship, authors listed in alphabetical order)
Xiao, V.L. & Lowery, B.S. Is She Worthy?: The Impact of Shared Racial Group Membership on Helping Behaviors towards Women.
Xiao, V.L. & Lowery, B.S. Setting Him Up for Success (or Failure): Motivated Evaluations of White and Black Male Leaders’ Effectiveness.
Stillwell, A.*, Xiao, V.L.*, & Martin, A.E. A Comparative Study of Masculinity and Femininity Beliefs Across Racial Groups.
Fa-Kaji, N.M.*, Xiao, V.L.*, Lide, C., & Flynn, F.J. The Impact of Employee Voice on Perceived Inclusion and Performance.