Gender Stereotypes: Effect on Performance?

I read an article that talked about gender stereotyping and the effects that it can have on people, particularly women. It is scientifically proven that women tend not to score as high as men on standard tests in some areas of science or mathematics. Women are also under-represented in science related professions, such as computer science and engineering.

Gender stereotyping, for example, “women are not good in science”, may actually interfere with the ability of women to perform well in science related examinations. For example, women might fear that the gender stereotype could be valid, and that it could possibly apply to them. This kind of negative thinking and the feeling of pressure associated with it could actually cause women to perform worse on science or math related tests.

This study that was described in the article used a psychological intervention called “values affirmation” to try to reduce the achievement gap between men and women in a college physics class. The values affirmation intervention involved having the students write about the importance of personally important values, such as friends and family, for fifteen minutes on two occasions during the course. The idea behind the intervention is that it helps women to more firmly establish a perception of personal integrity and worth, which in turn provides them with greater internal strength to cope effectively, including coping more effectively with the stresses of the course examination. The authors of the study found that the values affirmation intervention significantly improved the course performance of women who expressed a strong belief in the gender stereotype that men will do better in physics than women.

The remarkable thing about the study is that a very brief and pretty simple intervention, which was not even directly related to the course material, was able to a have a significant effect on women’s exam performance and subject mastery in physics. The results of the study also suggest that gender differences in performance in some science areas may reflect students’ expectations rather than their true underlying abilities.

I found this article and study particularly interesting because I am a strong believer in gender equality and breaking down stereotypes and generalizations. I find it fascinating that knowing how people think you will perform on an examination can affect the way your mind works, and the way in which you actually perform. I have always been an advocate for the equality of women and think stereotypes are not only offensive, but usually very inaccurate. Saying and believing things like “women are not as good at science and math” have actually been shown in this study to affect women’s performances, because they do not have full confidence in themselves that they can perform just as well as the men. I strongly believe that stereotyping is not only insulting and untrue for the most part, but that it actually can damage the way a person feels about themselves, and cause them to perform in the way they are expected to perform, rather than to the best of their ability.

The article is called “Reducing the Gender Achievement Gap in College Science: A Classroom Study of Values Affirmation”, and can be found at http://www.sciencemag.org.

Thank you!