Parent-child conversations about science: The socialization of gender inequities?

This study investigated the family as a context for the gender typing of science achievement. Adolescents (N=52) from 2 age levels (mean ages=11 and 13 years) participated with their mothers and fathers on separate occasions; families were from predominantly middle-income European American backgrounds. Questionnaires measured the parents' and the child's attitudes. Each parent also engaged his or her child in 4 structured teaching activities (including science and nonscience tasks). There were no child gender or grade-level differences in children's science-related grades, self-efficacy, or interest. However, parents were more likely to believe that science was less interesting and more difficult for daughters than sons. In addition, parents' beliefs significantly predicted children's interest and self-efficacy in science. When parents' teaching language was examined, fathers tended to use more cognitively demanding speech with sons than with daughters during one of the science tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

International gender × item difficulty interactions in mathematics and science achievement tests.

The author used data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Survey to examine whether Gender × Item Difficulty interactions like those in American mathematics exist in mathematics and science in 10 countries. For both mathematics and science, the author detected male advantages that were minimal on easy questions and increased as questions grew more difficult. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cued activation of relational schemas: Self-evaluation and gender effects.

In two studies, men's and women's self-evaluative responses following presentation of rejection and acceptance cues were examined. Two different conditioning procedures were utilized to associate computer-generated tones with images of social rejection or acceptance. When these tones were played later in a self-evaluative situation, women tended to respond to rejection cues by becoming more self-critical, and to acceptance cues by becoming less self-critical. On some indicators, men responded in the opposite fashion. These findings are discussed in light of recent analyses of gender differences in the sources of self-esteem. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Graphing the order of the sexes: Constructing, recalling, interpreting, and putting the self in gender difference graphs.

Graphs seem to connote facts more than words or tables do. Consequently, they seem unlikely places to spot implicit sexism at work. Yet, in 6 studies (N = 741), women and men constructed (Study 1) and recalled (Study 2) gender difference graphs with men’s data first, and graphed powerful groups (Study 3) and individuals (Study 4) ahead of weaker ones. Participants who interpreted graph order as evidence of author “bias” inferred that the author graphed his or her own gender group first (Study 5). Women’s, but not men’s, preferences to graph men first were mitigated when participants graphed a difference between themselves and an opposite-sex friend prior to graphing gender differences (Study 6). Graph production and comprehension are affected by beliefs and suppositions about the groups represented in graphs to a greater degree than cognitive models of graph comprehension or realist models of scientific thinking have yet acknowledged. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Material and social incentives to participation in behavioral interventions: A meta-analysis of gender disparities in enrollment and retention in experimental human immunodeficiency virus prevention interventions.

Objective: A meta-analysis was conducted to test theoretical hypotheses about the predictors of enrollment and completion of condom-use-promotion interventions among men and women. Design: A meta-analysis summarized research reports of the efficacy of experimental interventions on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention. Main Outcome Measures: The outcome measure consisted of (a) a measure of participation, obtained by subtracting the actual number of participants from the number of the invited people, and (b) a measure of retention was obtained by subtracting the number of participants who completed the intervention from the number of commencers. Results: Experimental interventions providing instrumental and financial resources (e.g., payments) increased initiation and retention more among predominantly male samples, whereas experimental interventions using group formats increased initiation and retention more among predominantly female samples. These patterns remained while controlling for past condom use, other HIV-risk behaviors, and demographics associated with gender composition. Conclusion: People seek out HIV-prevention interventions to fulfill gender-specific needs, and these differences must be taken into account in the design of HIV-prevention interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of professor ethnicity and gender on student evaluations: Judged before met.

Ethnic minority academicians face a number of challenges in the “ivory tower.” One set of challenges arises from the racial stereotypes that others hold, and the current research investigates the stereotypes held by students before they even meet such professors. After providing college preparatory students with a CV of a professor (differing in their race—White, Black, or Asian; their gender—male or female; and their academic discipline—Science or Humanities), students evaluated the professor on measures of competence, legitimacy, and interpersonal skills. We found that students evaluated Black professors to be significantly less competent and legitimate than their White and Asian counterparts. Both Black and Asian professors were judged to have significantly less interpersonal skills than White professors. No gender main effects emerged. Professors in science were judged to be more competent and legitimate than professors in humanities. Very few interactions surfaced. We discuss our results in terms of previous stereotype research and the implications our results have for further compounding the challenges that Black professors face in academia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The social psychology of gender: How power and intimacy shape gender relations.

Reviews the book, The social psychology of gender: How power and intimacy shape gender relations by Laurie A. Rudman and Peter Glick (see record 2008-09331-000). In this volume, respected gender experts Rudman and Glick (both former recipients of the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Award for their respective research in this area) highlight the ways in which male dominance and intimate interdependence work together to shape peoples’ attitudes toward men and women and thusly their interactions with members of both sexes. Although its publication in the Texts series suggests that it is aimed primarily at a student audience, this volume nevertheless has much to offer the interested layperson and the serious academic as well. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evidence that gendered wording in job advertisements exists and sustains gender inequality.

Social dominance theory (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) contends that institutional-level mechanisms exist that reinforce and perpetuate existing group-based inequalities, but very few such mechanisms have been empirically demonstrated. We propose that gendered wording (i.e., masculine- and feminine-themed words, such as those associated with gender stereotypes) may be a heretofore unacknowledged, institutional-level mechanism of inequality maintenance. Employing both archival and experimental analyses, the present research demonstrates that gendered wording commonly employed in job recruitment materials can maintain gender inequality in traditionally male-dominated occupations. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated the existence of subtle but systematic wording differences within a randomly sampled set of job advertisements. Results indicated that job advertisements for male-dominated areas employed greater masculine wording (i.e., words associated with male stereotypes, such as leader, competitive, dominant) than advertisements within female-dominated areas. No difference in the presence of feminine wording (i.e., words associated with female stereotypes, such as support, understand, interpersonal) emerged across male- and female-dominated areas. Next, the consequences of highly masculine wording were tested across 3 experimental studies. When job advertisements were constructed to include more masculine than feminine wording, participants perceived more men within these occupations (Study 3), and importantly, women found these jobs less appealing (Studies 4 and 5). Results confirmed that perceptions of belongingness (but not perceived skills) mediated the effect of gendered wording on job appeal (Study 5). The function of gendered wording in maintaining traditional gender divisions, implications for gender parity, and theoretical models of inequality are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Specific cue reactivity on computer game-related cues in excessive gamers.

It has been posited that excessive computer game playing behavior, referred to as computer game addiction, meets criteria that have been internationally established to define drug addiction. Nevertheless, there have been no psychophysiological investigations of the underlying mechanisms available to support the characterization of excessive computer gaming as behavioral addiction. To investigate whether excessive computer gaming parallels learning processes in development and maintenance (which are assumed to underlie drug addiction), the authors obtained a psychophysiological assessment of the (learned) emotional processing of computer game-relevant and -irrelevant cues. For this purpose, electroencephalographic recordings in excessive and casual computer game players were conducted. Significant between-group differences in event-related potentials evoked by computer game related-cues were found at parietal regions and point to an increased emotional processing of these cues in excessive pathological players compared with casual players. These results are in concordance with the suggestion that addiction is characterized and maintained through sensitization of the mesolimbic dopaminergic system along with incentive salience of specific addiction-associated cues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social cues in multimedia learning: Role of speaker's voice.

In 2 experiments, learners who were seated at a computer workstation received a narrated animation about lightning formation. Then, they took a retention test, took a transfer test, and rated the speaker. There was a voice effect, in which students performed better on the transfer test and rated the speaker more positively if the voice in the narration had a standard accent rather than a foreign accent (Experiment 1) and if the voice was human rather than machine synthesized (Experiment 2). The retention test results were mixed. The results are consistent with social agency theory, which posits that social cues in multimedia messages can encourage learners to interpret human-computer interactions as more similar to human-to-human conversation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

STEMing the tide: Using ingroup experts to inoculate women's self-concept in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Three studies tested a stereotype inoculation model, which proposed that contact with same-sex experts (advanced peers, professionals, professors) in academic environments involving science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) enhances women's self-concept in STEM, attitudes toward STEM, and motivation to pursue STEM careers. Two cross-sectional controlled experiments and 1 longitudinal naturalistic study in a calculus class revealed that exposure to female STEM experts promoted positive implicit attitudes and stronger implicit identification with STEM (Studies 1–3), greater self-efficacy in STEM (Study 3), and more effort on STEM tests (Study 1). Studies 2 and 3 suggested that the benefit of seeing same-sex experts is driven by greater subjective identification and connectedness with these individuals, which in turn predicts enhanced self-efficacy, domain identification, and commitment to pursue STEM careers. Importantly, women's own self-concept benefited from contact with female experts even though negative stereotypes about their gender and STEM remained active. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Welfare participation and social support in late life.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among participation in welfare programs, gender, and change in social support in adults aged 65 and older. It was hypothesized that older men receiving public assistance would encounter more social network problems than older women on welfare. The findings reveal that during the 7-year study older men in receipt of welfare benefits, compared with older women on welfare, received less social support from others, were more dissatisfied with the assistance they got, and encountered more negative interaction from informal social network members (i.e., family and friends). The results suggest that those who administer welfare programs, as well as public policymakers, should consider developing interventions that address the wider psychosocial problems associated with receiving public assistance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers' academic gender stereotypes and education-related beliefs about sons and daughters in African American families.

The role of African American mothers' academic gender stereotype endorsement in shaping achievement-related expectations for and perceptions of their own children was examined. Mothers (N = 334) of 7th and 8th graders completed measures of expectations for their children's future educational attainment, perceptions of their children's academic competence, and academic gender stereotypes. Consistent with hypotheses, mothers held less favorable expectations for sons and perceived sons to be less academically competent than daughters. In addition, mothers reported stereotypes favoring girls over boys in academic domains; stereotype endorsement, in turn, was related to mothers' educational expectations for and beliefs about the academic competence of their own children, even with youths' actual achievement controlled. Negative stereotypes about the academic abilities of African American boys may create a negative feedback loop, thereby contributing to the maintenance of the gender gap in African Americans' educational outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Math and science motivation: A longitudinal examination of the links between choices and beliefs.

This study addresses the longitudinal associations between youths' out-of-school activities, expectancies-values, and high school course enrollment in the domains of math and science. Data were collected on 227 youth who reported on their activity participation in 5th grade, expectancies-values in 6th and 10th grade, and courses taken throughout high school. Math and science course grades at 5th and 10th grade were gathered through school record data. Results indicated youths' math and science activity participation predicted their expectancies and values, which, in turn, predicted the number of high school courses above the predictive power of grades. Although there were mean-level differences between boys and girls on some of these indicators, relations among indicators did not significantly differ by gender. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult age differences in event-based prospective memory: A meta-analysis on the role of focal versus nonfocal cues.

Studies of age differences in event-based prospective memory indicate wide variation in the magnitude of age effects. One explanation derived from the multiprocess framework proposes that age differences depend on whether the cue to carry out a prospective intention is focal to ongoing task processing. A meta-analysis of 117 effect sizes from 4,709 participants provided evidence for this view, as age effects were greater when the prospective cue to the ongoing task was nonfocal compared with when it was focal. However, the results only support a weaker but not a stronger prediction of the multiprocess framework, as age impairments were reliably above zero for both types of retrieval cues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Females' participation in psychopharmacology research as authors, editors, and subjects.

This study determined the involvement of women as first authors and other authors for every article published in Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, and Psychopharmacology in 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2006. Their involvement as editors also was determined. Women's participation as authors, but not as editors, slightly increased over time. In 2006, 43% of first authors, 38% of other authors, and 24% of editors were women. The gender of subjects was examined for the same years and journals, but could not be determined for 6% and 9% of articles employing nonhuman and human subjects, respectively. In 2006, when subjects' gender could be determined, 77% of articles involving nonhuman subjects used only males, 9% only females, and 14% both males and females. In articles using human subjects in that same year, 17% involved only males, 6% only females, and 77% both males and females. Women researchers clearly make substantial contributions to the psychopharmacology literature, but are nonetheless underrepresented as editors. Findings regarding subjects indicate that there is growing recognition of the importance of gender as a determinant of drug effects, although the vast majority of nonhuman studies continue to involve only male subjects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beyond nonutilization: Irrelevant cues can gate learning in probabilistic categorization.

In probabilistic categorization, also known as multiple cue probability learning (MCPL), people learn to predict a discrete outcome on the basis of imperfectly valid cues. In MCPL, normatively irrelevant cues are usually ignored, which stands in apparent conflict with recent research in deterministic categorization that has shown that people sometimes use irrelevant cues to gate access to partial knowledge encapsulated in independent partitions. The authors report 2 experiments that sought support for the existence of such knowledge partitioning in probabilistic categorization. The results indicate that, as in other areas of concept acquisition (such as function learning and deterministic categorization), a significant proportion of participants partitioned their knowledge on the basis of an irrelevant cue. The authors show by computational modeling that knowledge partitioning cannot be accommodated by 2 exemplar models (Generalized Context Model and Rapid Attention Shifts 'N Learning), whereas a rule-based model (General Recognition Theory) can capture partitioned performance. The authors conclude by pointing to the necessity of a mixture-of-experts approach to capture performance in MCPL and by identifying reduction of complexity as a possible explanation for partitioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-defeating behaviors in organizations: The relationship between thwarted belonging and interpersonal work behaviors.

This multisource field study applied belongingness theory to examine whether thwarted belonging, defined as the perceived discrepancy between one's desired and actual levels of belonging with respect to one's coworkers, predicts interpersonal work behaviors that are self-defeating. Controlling for demographic variables, job type, justice constructs, and trust in organization in a multilevel regression analysis using data from 130 employees of a clinical chemical laboratory and their supervisors, the authors found that employees who perceive greater levels of desired coworker belonging than actual levels of coworker belonging were more likely to engage in interpersonally harmful and less likely to engage in interpersonally helpful behaviors. Implications for the application of belongingness theory to explain self-defeating behaviors in organizations are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the leaky math pipeline: Comparing implicit math-gender stereotypes and math withdrawal in female and male children and adolescents.

Many models assume that habitual human behavior is guided by spontaneous, automatic, or implicit processes rather than by deliberate, rule-based, or explicit processes. Thus, math-ability self-concepts and math performance could be related to implicit math-gender stereotypes in addition to explicit stereotypes. Two studies assessed at what age implicit math-gender stereotyping can be observed and what the relations between these stereotypes and math-related outcomes are in children and adolescents. Implicit math-gender stereotypes could already be detected with Implicit Association Tests (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) among 9-year-old girls. Adolescent girls showed stronger implicit gender stereotypes than adolescent boys, who, on average, did not reveal implicit gender-stereotypic associations. Girls also already showed an implicit affinity to language versus math at 9 years of age. In a regression analysis, implicit math-gender stereotypes predicted academic self-concepts, academic achievement, and enrollment preferences above and beyond explicit math-gender stereotypes for girls but (with the exception of achievement) not for boys. These findings suggest implicit gender stereotypes are an important factor in the dropout of female students from math-intensive fields. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Battle of the sexes: Gender stereotype confirmation and reactance in negotiations.

The authors examined how gender stereotypes affect negotiation performance. Men outperformed women when the negotiation was perceived as diagnostic of ability (Experiment 1) or the negotiation was linked to gender-specific traits (Experiment 2), suggesting the threat of negative stereotype confirmation hurt women's performance relative to men. The authors hypothesized that men and women confirm gender stereotypes when they are activated implicitly, but when stereotypes are explicitly activated, people exhibit stereotype reactance, or the tendency to behave in a manner inconsistent with a stereotype. Experiment 3 confirmed this hypothesis. In Experiment 4, the authors examined the cognitive processes involved in stereotype reactance and the conditions under which cooperative behaviors between men and women can be promoted at the bargaining table (by activating a shared identity that transcends gender). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)