Girls versus Boys
Nurture affects gender differences in spatial abilities
Moshe Hoffman, Uri Gneezy & John List
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Women remain significantly underrepresented in the science, engineering, and technology workforce. Some have argued that spatial ability differences, which represent the most persistent gender differences in the cognitive literature, are partly responsible for this gap. The underlying forces at work shaping the observed spatial ability differences revolve naturally around the relative roles of nature and nurture. Although these forces remain among the most hotly debated in all of the sciences, the evidence for nurture is tenuous, because it is difficult to compare gender differences among biologically similar groups with distinct nurture. In this study, we use a large-scale incentivized experiment with nearly 1,300 participants to show that the gender gap in spatial abilities, measured by time to solve a puzzle, disappears when we move from a patrilineal society to an adjoining matrilineal society. We also show that about one-third of the effect can be explained by differences in education. Given that none of our participants have experience with puzzle solving and that villagers from both societies have the same means of subsistence and shared genetic background, we argue that these results show the role of nurture in the gender gap in cognitive abilities.
----------------------
Choosing To Compete: How Different Are Girls and Boys?
Alison Booth & Patrick Nolen
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using a controlled experiment, we examine the role of nurture in explaining the stylized fact that women shy away from competition. We have two distinct research questions. First, does the gender composition of the group in which a student is randomly assigned affect competitive choices? Second, does the gender mix of the school a student attends affect competitive choices? Our subjects (students just under 15 years of age) attend publicly-funded single-sex and coeducational schools. We find robust differences between the competitive choices of girls from single-sex and coed schools. Moreover, girls from single-sex schools behave more like boys even when randomly assigned to mixed-sex experimental groups. Thus it is untrue that the average female avoids competitive behavior more than the average male. This suggests that observed gender differences might reflect social learning rather than inherent gender traits.
----------------------
The impact of the menstrual cycle and hormonal contraceptives on competitiveness
Thomas Buser
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine whether competitiveness in women is influenced by biological factors. Female participants in a laboratory experiment solve a simple arithmetics task first under a piece rate and then under a competitive tournament scheme. Participants can then choose which compensation scheme to apply in a third round. We find that the likelihood of selecting into the competitive environment varies strongly and significantly over the menstrual cycle and with the intake of hormonal contraceptives. The observed patterns are consistent with a negative impact of the sex hormone progesterone on competitiveness. We show that the effect of the menstrual cycle and hormonal contraceptives on competitiveness is due neither to an impact on performance, nor to an impact on risk aversion or overconfidence.
----------------------
Amanda Diekman et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The goal congruity perspective posits that 2 distinct social cognitions predict attraction to science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) fields. First, individuals may particularly value communal goals (e.g., working with or helping others), due to either chronic individual differences or the salience of these goals in particular contexts. Second, individuals hold beliefs about the activities that facilitate or impede these goals, or goal affordance stereotypes. Women's tendency to endorse communal goals more highly than do men, along with consensual stereotypes that STEM careers impede communal goals, intersect to produce disinterest in STEM careers. We provide evidence for the foundational predictions that gender differences emerge primarily on communal rather than agentic goals (Studies 1a and 3) and that goal affordance stereotypes reflect beliefs that STEM careers are relatively dissociated from communal goals (Studies 1b and 1c). Most critically, we provide causal evidence that activated communal goals decrease interest in STEM fields (Study 2) and that the potential for a STEM career to afford communal goals elicits greater positivity (Study 3). These studies thus provide a novel demonstration that understanding communal goals and goal affordance stereotypes can lend insight into attitudes toward STEM pursuits.
----------------------
Overwork and the Slow Convergence in the Gender Gap in Wages
Youngjoo Cha & Kim Weeden
Indiana University Working Paper, August 2011
Abstract:
Over the last thirty years, men and women's wages have converged, but at ever slower rates. We argue that this stagnation is due, in part, to the concomitant trend toward long work hours, especially in the professions and other "greedy occupations." Rising expectations about work hours disadvantage women, whose greater familial responsibilities limit their ability to put in long work hours; moreover, because long work hours are most common in occupations at the top of the hourly wage distribution, the trend toward long work hours exacerbates the gender gap in wages. By applying a formal wage decomposition model to CPS data from 1979 to 2009, we show that the gender gap in working 50 hours or more per week has remained largely unchanged over the past 30 years, but the hourly wage premium for "overwork" has increased substantially. This price change effect contributed to stagnation in the gender gap in pay, partially offsetting well-known demographic and social forces that equalized men and women's pay.
----------------------
The End of the Gender Revolution? Gender Role Attitudes from 1977 to 2008
David Cotter, Joan Hermsen & Reeve Vanneman
American Journal of Sociology, July 2011, Pages 259-289
Abstract:
After becoming consistently more egalitarian for more than two decades, gender role attitudes in the General Social Survey have changed little since the mid-1990s. This plateau mirrors other gender trends, suggesting a fundamental alteration in the momentum toward gender equality. While cohort replacement can explain about half of the increasing egalitarianism between 1974 and 1994, the changes since the mid-1990s are not well accounted for by cohort differences. Nor is the post-1994 stagnation explained by structural or broad ideological changes in American society. The recent lack of change in gender attitudes is more likely the consequence of the rise of a new cultural frame, an "egalitarian essentialism" that blends aspects of feminist equality and traditional motherhood roles.
----------------------
Girls' math performance under stereotype threat: The moderating role of mothers' gender stereotypes
Carlo Tomasetto, Francesca Romana Alparone & Mara Cadinu
Developmental Psychology, July 2011, Pages 943-949
Abstract:
Previous research on stereotype threat in children suggests that making gender identity salient disrupts girls' math performance at as early as 5 to 7 years of age. The present study (n = 124) tested the hypothesis that parents' endorsement of gender stereotypes about math moderates girls' susceptibility to stereotype threat. Results confirmed that stereotype threat impaired girls' performance on math tasks among students from kindergarten through 2nd grade. Moreover, mothers' but not fathers' endorsement of gender stereotypes about math moderated girls' vulnerability to stereotype threat: Performance of girls whose mothers strongly rejected the gender stereotype about math did not decrease under stereotype threat. These findings are important because they point to the role of mothers' beliefs in the development of girls' vulnerability to the negative effects of gender stereotypes about math.
----------------------
Beyond Credentials: The Effect of Physician Sex and Specialty on How Physicians Are Perceived
Kamyar Noori & Allyson Weseley
Current Psychology, September 2011, Pages 275-283
Abstract:
The experiment investigated the effect of physician sex and specialty on participants' perceptions of doctors. Participants (N = 206) viewed a physician profile (male/female orthopedic surgeon or male/female dermatologist) and then evaluated the physician on a survey. While male participants reported they would be more willing to see a female physician and believed female physicians would be more caring, female participants reported they would be more willing to see physicians in counter-stereotypical specialties and rated them as more caring. The study suggests that not only do men and women focus on different things in selecting physicians but also that negative stereotypes of female physicians have dramatically decreased.
----------------------
Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund
Annual Review of Economics, 2011, Pages 601-630
Abstract:
Laboratory studies have documented that women often respond less favorably to competition than men. Conditional on performance, men are often more eager to compete, and the performance of men tends to respond more positively to an increase in competition. This means that few women enter and win competitions. We review studies that examine the robustness of these differences as well the factors that may give rise to them. Both laboratory and field studies largely confirm these initial findings, showing that gender differences in competitiveness tend to result from differences in overconfidence and in attitudes toward competition. Gender differences in risk aversion, however, seem to play a smaller and less robust role. We conclude by asking what could and should be done to encourage qualified males and females to compete.
----------------------
Sex differences in search and gathering skills
Gijsbert Stoet
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
The hunter-gatherer theory of sex differences states that female cognition has evolutionarily adapted to gathering and male cognition to hunting. Existing studies corroborate that men excel in hunting-related skills, but there is only indirect support for women excelling in gathering tasks. This study tested if women would outperform men in laboratory-based computer tests of search and gathering skills. In Experiment 1, men found target objects faster and made fewer mistakes than women in a classic visual search study. In Experiment 2, participants gathered items (fruits or letters presented on screen), and again, men performed significantly better. In Experiment 3, participants' incidental learning of object locations in a search experiment was studied, but no statistically significant sex differences were observed. These findings found the opposite of what was expected based on the hypothesis that female cognition has adapted to gathering. Alternative interpretations of the role of object location memory, female gathering roles and the division of labor between the sexes are discussed.
----------------------
Dina Eliezer et al.
Social Cognition, June 2011, Pages 303-321
Abstract:
Perceiving discrimination is a chronic stressor that may negatively impact health. We predicted that the relationship between chronic perceptions of discrimination and chronic stress, as indexed by resting blood pressure, would be moderated by individual differences in system-justifying beliefs (SJBs), specifically the extent to which people believe that success is determined by hard work. We reasoned that people who strongly endorse SJBs would find discrimination to be especially stressful because it both violates their expectations about the world and impedes their motivation to justify the system. In two studies, we measured White women's self-reported SJBs and perceptions of personal discrimination based on gender. We later measured their resting blood pressure. The relationship between perceived discrimination and blood pressure was positive and significant for women who strongly endorsed SJBs, but nonsignificant for women who did not endorse SJBs. Implications for Worldview Verification Theory and System Justification Theory are discussed.
----------------------
Identifying and explaining apparent universal sex differences in cognition and behavior
Lee Ellis
Personality and Individual Differences, October 2011, Pages 552-561
Abstract:
With growing recognition that there are universal sex differences in cognition and behavior, four theories have been proposed to account for these differences: the founder effect theory, the social structuralist theory, the evolutionary theory, and the evolutionary neuroandrogenic (ENA) theory. The latter of these theories is described in considerable detail as offering an explanation for most of 65 recently identified apparent universal sex differences (AUSDs) in cognition and behavior. Regarding "ultimate causes" (why), ENA theory asserts that (a) evolutionary-genetic factors incline females to bias their mate choices toward males who are loyal and competent provisioners of resources and (b) males are merely a genetic variant on the female sex selected for responding to female mating biases. In terms of "proximate causes" (how), the theory maintains that high exposure to androgens has evolved to alter the male brain functioning in two specific ways relative to most female brains: (a) suboptimal arousal and (b) a rightward shift in neocortical functioning. These two functional patterns are described and hypothesized to incline males and females to learn differently in many respects. The most fundamental differences involve males learning ways of either complying with or circumventing female mate preferences. Numerous universal sex differences in cognition and behavior are hypothesized to result from these evolved neurohormonal factors, including most of the 65 AUSDs herein summarized in seven categorical tables.
----------------------
A "Major Career Woman"? How Women Develop Early Expectations about Work
Sarah Damaske
Gender & Society, August 2011, Pages 409-430
Abstract:
Using data from 80 in-depth qualitative interviews with women randomly sampled from New York City, I ask: how do women develop expectations about their future workforce participation? Using an intersectional approach, I find that women's expectations about workforce participation stem from gendered, classed, and raced ideas of who works full-time. Socioeconomic status, race, gender, and sexuality influenced early expectations about work and the process through which these expectations developed. Women from white and Latino working-class families were evenly divided in their expectations about their future workforce participation, while the vast majority of white, Asian, African American, and Latina middle-class women expected to work continually as adults. Unlike their working-class white and Hispanic peers, all of the working-class Black respondents developed expectations that they would work continuously as adults. The intersections of race, class, and gender play a central role in shaping women's expectations about their participation in paid work.
----------------------
Are Women More Sensitive to the Decision-Making Context?
Luis Miller & Paloma Ubeda
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
We conduct an experiment to assess gender differences across different economic contexts. Specifically, we test whether women are more sensitive to the decision-making context in situations that demand the use of different fairness principles. We find that women adopt more often than men conditional fairness principles that require information about the context. Furthermore, while most men adopt only one decision principle, most women switch between multiple decision principles. These results complement and reinforce Croson and Gneezy's organizing explanation of greater context sensitivity of women.
----------------------
Lisa Rosenthal et al.
Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examined whether the Protestant work ethic (PWE), a fundamental, individually held belief associated with both sexist attitudes and personal striving, relates to undergraduate female science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors' perceived identity compatibility (PIC) between being a woman and being in a STEM field and expectations of dropping out of their majors across the beginning of college. Using within-person analyses across six time points, PWE-Equalizer (suggesting hard work is a social equalizer) was positively associated with PIC and inversely associated with expectations of dropping out of one's major; PWE-Justifier (justifying disadvantage by blaming group members for not working hard enough) showed the opposite pattern. PIC mediated the relationship between PWE and expectations of dropping out. Implications for future directions in research, as well as for educational policy aimed at increasing the numbers of women in STEM fields, are discussed.
----------------------
Why are Benevolent Sexists Happier?
Matthew Hammond & Chris Sibley
Sex Roles, September 2011, Pages 332-343
Abstract:
Research indicates that the endorsement of sexist ideology is linked to higher subjective wellbeing for both men and women. We examine gender differences in the rationalisations which drive this effect in an egalitarian nation (New Zealand). Results from a nationally representative sample (N = 6,100) indicated that the endorsement of Benevolent Sexism (BS) predicted life satisfaction through different mechanisms for men and women. For men, BS was directly associated with life satisfaction. For women, the palliative effect of BS was indirect and occurred because BS-ideology positioning women as deserving of men's adoration and protection was linked to general perceptions of gender relations as fair and equitable, which in turn predicted greater levels of life satisfaction.
----------------------
Domain Specificity of Sex Differences in Competition
Alice Wieland & Rakesh Sarin
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
There has been much recent literature about sex differences in competition, mostly noting that women are innately less competitive than men (Croson and Gneezy, 2009). This article examines the hypothesis that sex differences in propensity to compete are domain specific. We conducted a 2 (sex) x 4 (domains) experiment with 434 participants examining competition decisions, familiarity with the domain, and performance. We find no overall sex differences in rates of competition when collapsing across all four domains, but do find sex differences in rates of competition for individual domains. Additionally we examined the importance of winning at competition to feelings of self-worth using the Contingencies of Self-Worth, Competition subscale (Crocker et al., 2003). We find that the importance of winning at competition to feelings of self-esteem fully mediates the effect of sex on the strength of competitive pay preferences.
----------------------
Linda George, Ravenna Helson & Oliver John
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Few long-term longitudinal studies have examined how dimensions of personality are related to work lives, especially in women. We propose a life-course framework for studying work over time, from preparatory activities (in the 20s) to descending work involvement (after age 60), using 50 years of life data from the women in the Mills Longitudinal Study. We hypothesized differential work effects for Extraversion (work as pursuit of rewards), Openness (work as self-actualization), and Conscientiousness (work as duty) and measured these 3 traits as predictor variables when the women were still in college. In a prospective longitudinal design, we then studied how these traits predicted the women's subsequent work lives from young adulthood to age 70 and how these effects depended on the changing sociocultural context. Specifically, the young adulthood of the Mills women in the mid-1960s was rigidly gender typed and family oriented; neither work nor education variables at that time were predicted from earlier personality traits. However, as women's roles changed, later work variables became related to all 3 traits, as expected from current Big Five theory and research. For example, early personality traits predicted the timing of involvement in work, the kinds of jobs chosen, and the status and satisfaction achieved, as well as continued work participation and financial security in late adulthood. Early traits were also linked to specific cultural influences, such as the traditional feminine role, the women's movement, and graduate education for careers.
----------------------
Gender differences in creative thinking revisited: Findings from analysis of variability
Wu-jing He & Wan-chi Wong
Personality and Individual Differences, November 2011, Pages 807-811
Abstract:
This study investigated gender differences in creativity among 985 schoolchildren (499 boys, 486 girls) by analyzing both means and variability. A relatively new creativity test, the Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (TCT-DP), was employed to gain a more refined understanding of gender differences in creativity using a gestalt approach. Whereas the results of analyses of means generally supported the Gender Similarities Hypothesis, the variability analyses tended to support the Greater Male Variability Hypothesis and the Gender Difference Hypothesis. Analyses of the TCT-DP subscales revealed that both genders have their relative strengths and weaknesses in creative thinking. Whereas girls outperformed boys in thoroughness of thinking, boys outperformed girls in boundary-breaking thinking. Variability analyses further showed that more boys clustered in the two extremes of the composite score. Significantly greater variability was found for males on five criteria of the TCT-DP. The educational implications of such a complex pattern of gender differences are discussed. With a view to searching for an explanation for gender differences, several lines of further research are proposed.
----------------------
Effects of hormonal contraceptives on mental rotation and verbal fluency
Ramune Griksiene & Osvaldas Ruksenas
Psychoneuroendocrinology, September 2011, Pages 1239-1248
Abstract:
Cognitive abilities, such as verbal fluency and mental rotation, are most sensitive to changes in sex steroids but poorly studied in the context of hormonal contraceptive usage. Therefore, we investigated the performance of mental rotation and verbal fluency in young (21.5 ± 1.8 years) healthy oral contraceptive (OC) users (23 women) and non-users (20 women) during the follicular, ovulatory and luteal phases of the menstrual cycle. Salivary 17β-estradiol, progesterone and testosterone levels were assayed to evaluate hormonal differences between groups and the phases of the menstrual cycle. To assess the effects of progestins having androgenic/anti-androgenic properties, OC users were subdivided into the third and new generation OC users. In addition, positive and negative affects as factors possibly affecting cognitive performance were evaluated. Salivary 17β-estradiol and progesterone levels were significantly lower in hormonal contraception users. Level of salivary testosterone was slightly lower in the OC users group with significant difference only during ovulatory phase. Naturally cycling women performed better on verbal fluency task as compared to OC users. Subjects who used the third generation (androgenic) OCs generated significantly fewer words as compared to new generation (anti-androgenic) OC users and non-users. The third generation OC users demonstrated significantly longer RT in MRT task as compared to non-users. The MRT, verbal fluency and mood parameters did not depend on the phase of menstrual cycle. The parameters of the PANAS (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule) scales did not differ between OC users and non-users. Our findings show that hormonal contraception has an impact on verbal and spatial abilities. Different performances between users of oral contraceptives with androgenic and anti-androgenic properties suggest an essential role for the progestins contained in OCs on cognitive performance.
----------------------
Binglin Gong & Chun-Lei Yang
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
We conduct experiments on two different risk tasks with subjects from two neighboring ethnic groups, the matrilineal Mosuo and the patriarchal Yi in China. Women are more risk averse than men at both tasks within both ethnic groups. However, the gender gap is smaller in the Mosuo. Regressions show that socio-economic factors such as family size, family head, education, age, and income also have significant effects on subject's risk choices.
----------------------
Shui-fong Lam et al.
Journal of School Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examined gender differences in student engagement and academic performance in school. Participants included 3420 students (7th, 8th, and 9th graders) from Austria, Canada, China, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Romania, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The results indicated that, compared to boys, girls reported higher levels of engagement in school and were rated higher by their teachers in academic performance. Student engagement accounted for gender differences in academic performance, but gender did not moderate the associations among student engagement, academic performance, or contextual supports. Analysis of multiple-group structural equation modeling revealed that perceptions of teacher support and parent support, but not peer support, were related indirectly to academic performance through student engagement. This partial mediation model was invariant across gender. The findings from this study enhance the understanding about the contextual and personal factors associated with girls' and boys' academic performance around the world.