Gender Differences in Persistence and Attributions in Stereotype Relevant Contexts

The Impact of Gender Stereotypes on the Self-Concept of Female Students in STEM Subjects with an Under-Representation of Females

It's possible to assume that women who study STEM topics with a low proportion of females have successfully overcome barriers in school and the family, making them less prone to stereotypic views, and influences. The present study focuses on these kinds of factors and analyzes to which degree family factors, school-related factors, and individual stereotypes may influence a woman's academic self-concept. The following study presents a latent regression model which is based on a survey of 296 women from different German universities, all of whom are part of STEM programs of study that have <30% females. It was investigated to which degree individual stereotypes, support in school, and family support contribute to the self-concept in STEM. Gender stereotypes were negatively related to students' STEM-specific self-concept in the selected sample. This study also reveals negative family-related influences that lower a woman's self-concept. Positive predictors on the other hand included school aspects that are found in the students' favorite subjects at school. The results of the study provide important aspects for STEM education. Even though the students participating in the study presumably had good grades in STEM, stereotypes still corrupted their self-concept. One of the reasons for this might lie in stereotypes that attribute girls' achievements to diligence instead of talent. The results also point out that direct support, particularly by parents, can have a negative impact on female students' self-concept. Activities that are meant to support pupils directly may actually backfire and transport stereotypes instead. This stresses the need for indirect support during socialization, e.g., by providing opportunities for children to have positive experiences or by giving them the chance to meet role models that are enthusiastic about their STEM professions. These kinds of measures have the potential to spur students' interest in STEM subjects—something that in the present study proved to be especially beneficial for women's positive self-concept when studying STEM topics.

Addressing Stereotype Threat is Critical to Diversity and Inclusion in Organizational Psychology

Recently researchers have debated the relevance of stereotype threat to the workplace. Critics have argued that stereotype threat is not relevant in high stakes testing such as in personnel selection. We and others argue that stereotype threat is highly relevant in personnel selection, but our review focused on underexplored areas including effects of stereotype threat beyond test performance and the application of brief, low-cost interventions in the workplace. Relevant to the workplace, stereotype threat can reduce domain identification, job engagement, career aspirations, and receptivity to feedback. Stereotype threat has consequences in other relevant domains including leadership, entrepreneurship, negotiations, and competitiveness. Several institutional and individual level intervention strategies that have been field-tested and are easy to implement show promise for practitioners including: addressing environmental cues, valuing diversity, wise feedback, organizational mindsets, reattribution training, reframing the task, values-affirmation, utility-value, belonging, communal goal affordances, interdependent worldviews, and teaching about stereotype threat. This review integrates criticisms and evidence into one accessible source for practitioners and provides recommendations for implementing effective, low-cost interventions in the workplace.

Babyfacedness, sex of face stimulus, and social context in face perception and person evaluation

This research investigated whether the well-documented babyface stereotypical effects are moderated by sex of face stimuli and social context. 'Medical doctor' and 'political candidate' were selected as two social contexts which differ at the private/public level. An experiment was conducted with 245 adults (M age = 38.5 yr., SD = 8.6, range = 23 to 64). Babyface effects were stronger for the babyfaced female in the political context, but greater for the babyfaced male in the doctor-patient context. Babyfacedness could be a disadvantage to men in political contexts if political sophistication is judged by their facial characteristics. The results of overall impressions are similar to the patterns of the likeability rating. Individual differences (political sophistication and health consciousness) account for little variance in inference-making or impression formation. Implications of the current findings are discussed, as are directions for future research.

Self Views of African American Youth are Related to the Gender Stereotypes and Academic Attributions of Their Mothers

We examined relations among African American mothers' (N = 392) stereotypes about gender differences in mathematics, science, and reading performance, parents' attributions about their children's academic successes and failures, and their seventh and eighth grade children's academic self-views (domain-specific ability attributions and self-concept). Parents' stereotypes about gender differences in abilities were related to their ability attributions for their children's successes and failures within academic domains. Mothers' attributions, in turn, were related to children's attributions, particularly among girls. Mothers' attributions of their children's successes to domain-specific ability were related to the self-concepts of daughters, and failure attributions were related to domain-specific self-concepts of sons. The influences of parents' beliefs on young adolescents' identity beliefs are discussed.

When Trying Hard Isn’t Natural

Feeling like one exerts more effort than others may influence women’s feelings of belonging with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and impede their motivation. In Study 1, women STEM graduate students perceived they exerted more effort than peers to succeed. For women, but not men, this effort expenditure perception predicted a decreased sense of belonging, which in turn decreased motivation. Study 2 tested whether the male-dominated status of a field triggers such effort expectations. We created a fictional “eco-psychology” graduate program, which when depicted as male-dominated resulted in women expecting to exert relatively more effort and decreased their interest in pursuing the field. Study 3 found emphasizing effort as expected (and normal) to achieve success elevated women’s feelings of belonging and future motivation. Results suggest effort expenditure perceptions are an indicator women use to assess their fit in STEM. Implications for enhancing women’s participation in STEM are discussed.

Gender Stereotyping Enhances Verbal Fluency Performance in Men (and Women)

Numerous studies have demonstrated that fear of confirming negative stereotypes (stereotype threat) can hamper women’s performance in certain mathematical and spatial tasks in which men usually excel. By contrast, very little is known about how men are affected by stereotype threat in tasks in which women excel. We therefore asked 36 men and 39 women, recruited at the Ruhr-University of Bochum, Germany, to complete two tests of verbal fluency (word fluency, four-word sentences). Prior to testing, participants were either told that gender differences in verbal abilities were going to be investigated or they received gender-neutral task instructions. We hypothesized that this would trigger the gender stereotype of women’s verbal superiority and, as a consequence, lead to a stereotype threat effect with decreased verbal fluency performance in men. However, men’s verbal fluency scores were higher under gender difference instructions than in the control condition. Since women showed a similar pattern and had generally higher scores, the gender difference remained stable across conditions. The findings may reflect (a) that gender stereotyping induced a competitive situation and, as a result, enhanced performance in all participants or (b) stereotype reactance in men, which would suggest that men and women react differently to gender stereotype activations in gender-sensitive cognitive abilities. Either way, the findings imply that cognitive performance changes significantly if participants are aware that cognitive gender differences are investigated, which is probably the case in many studies investigating gender differences.

A longitudinal examination of African American adolescents' attributions about achievement outcomes

Developmental, gender, and academic domain differences in causal attributions and the influence of attributions on classroom engagement were explored longitudinally in 115 African American adolescents. In Grades 8 and 11, adolescents reported attributions for success and failure in math, English and writing, and science. In Grade 11, English and mathematics teachers rated students' classroom engagement. Boys were more likely than girls to attribute math successes to high ability and to attribute English failures to low ability. Both genders' ability attributions for math became more negative from eighth to eleventh grades. Grade 8 attributions of math failure to lack of ability were negatively related to Grade 11 math classroom engagement. Results illustrate the gendered nature of motivational beliefs among Black youth.

Academic Self-Concept in Black Adolescents: Do Race and Gender Stereotypes Matter?

We examined the relation between race- and gender-group competence ratings and academic self-concept in 252 Black seventh- and eighth-graders. On average, youth reported traditional race stereotypes, whereas gender stereotypes were traditional about verbal abilities and were nontraditional regarding math/science abilities. Among boys, in-group gender and in-group race-based competence ratings (i.e. ratings of boys and Blacks) were related to math/science and verbal self-concepts. However, only gender-based ratings (i.e. ratings of girls' abilities for reading/writing) were related to girls' self-concepts. These findings suggest that the influence of race stereotypes on Black adolescents' academic self-concepts is different for girls than boys. Whereas self-relevant gender groups were associated with both Black girls' and boys' academic self-concept, race-based competence ratings were only relevant for the academic self-views of Black boys.