Nationwide protests against racial injustice have shone a spotlight on U.S. corporations’ lack of diversity. Despite decades of initiatives to increase the number of Black executives, only 1 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are Black. While there are many reasons for this disparity—including systemic racism and discrimination and a lack of economic opportunity—psychologists have recently uncovered a startling potential factor: the tendency to view God as white. Christianity, the dominant religion in the U.S., conceptualizes the deity as the ultimate leader. And the image that people associate with God can color the image they have of leaders in general.

Psychologist Steven O. Roberts of Stanford University and his colleagues recently published a paper describing seven studies that link our conceptualizations of God with those who we see as fit for leadership. In one study, the researchers asked a sample of 1,000 Christians of different backgrounds how they picture God: old or young, white or Black, male or female. Along with asking people directly, the researchers showed participants 12 pairs of faces that varied in age, gender, and race and asked them to select the visage that most closely matched their idea of God. In both the approaches, indirect and direct, the majority saw the Almighty as older and male. White people tended to view God as white, while Black individuals were more likely to see the figure as Black. These same participants were then asked to imagine they were assisting a company in its search for a new leader. After seeing the faces of 32 job candidates that varied in gender and race, they rated each contender’s suitability for the leadership position. Those who believed that God was white were more likely to select white candidates over Black ones. And the more participants believed that God was male, the more highly they rated male candidates, compared with female ones.