Sian Beilock and Allen McConnell on Stereotype Threat

Related Situationist posts:

• The Gendered Situation of Math, Humanities, and Romance
• Not Just Whistling Vivaldi
• “Women’s Situational Bind,”
• “The Nerdy, Gendered Situation of Computer Science.”
• “Social Psychologists Discuss Stereotype Threat,”
• “The Gendered Situation of Chess,”
• “The Situation of Gender-Science Stereotypes,”
• “The Situation of Gender and Science,”
• “Stereotype Threat and Performance,”
• “The Gendered Situation of Science & Math,”
• “Gender-Imbalanced Situation of Math, Science, and Engineering,”
• “Sex Differences in Math and Science,”
• “You Shouldn’t Stereotype Stereotypes,”
• “Women’s Situation in Economics,”
• “Your Group is Bad at Math,” and
• “Belonging.”

Sarah Haskins on “Ladyfriend” Stereotypes

From Current:

The best part about being a girl is your girlfriends. They keep you happy when you’re sad and make you laugh when you want to cry, and most importantly, tell you what to buy.

Related Situationist posts:

• Barbie Commercials Across the Decades and the Implications on Female Identity and Objectification
• The Gendered Situation of Math, Humanities, and Romance
• Sexism: The Worst Part Is Not Knowing
• Unlevel Playing Fields: From Baseball Diamonds to Emergency Rooms
• Susan Fiske on “Inclusive Leadership, Stereotyping and the Brain”
• Sexual Harassment at Wal-Mart?
• The Situation of Sexual Harassment
• Susan Fiske’s New Book
• Susan Fiske Discusses her Work on Different Types of Prejudices
• “The Situation of Objectification,”
• “Women’s Situational Bind,” and
• “You Shouldn’t Stereotype Stereotypes.”

 

Breastfeeding Prejudice

From Bozeman Daily Chronicle:

A study conducted at Montana State University finds that even though breastfeeding is healthy, cheap and beneficial to mother and child, there is a strong bias against nursing mothers among both men and women.

Jessi L. Smith, psychology professor at MSU, found that participants in three studies thought nursing mothers were not as mentally competent as other groups of women and said they’d be less likely to hire breastfeeding mothers for a job.

The results of Smith’s study were published this summer in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Smith and her co-authors questioned MSU students in three double-blind studies about how they perceived breastfeeding moms’ competence and hire-ability compared to non-breastfeeding people.

In all three studies, the students rated breastfeeding women as significantly less competent in general and particularly less competent in math.

Smith, who became a mother in 2007 after the study was under way, chose to breastfeed her child and said it’s not surprising that new mothers considering breastfeeding are often daunted just thinking about the task.

“It’s the 21st century,” she said. “We have come a long way today in educating ourselves about the health and economic benefits of nursing to both mother and child, but we have done nothing to talk about the fact that breast milk actually comes from the breast and not bottles.”

Promoting breastfeeding to increase the number of nursing mothers would help stem the bias by letting people see that it isn’t a rare thing, Smith said.

“Right now, it’s not surprising that nursing mothers feel isolated,” she said.

Employers could also do their part to encourage breastfeeding by providing a private place for mothers to nurse their children since many mothers are required to return to work just six weeks after the birth of their babies.

“You can’t establish a good breastfeeding bond in six weeks and make a good assessment if breastfeeding will work for you and your child,” she said.

She pointed out that health organizations, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Women’s Health, stress the economic and health benefits of nursing and advise that breastfeeding protects babies, benefits mothers’ health and society.

Smith has taken her research a step further with an INBRE-funded grant to study actual social psychological barriers to breastfeeding mothers. She has collected data from new mothers in Billings, Bozeman, Kalispell, Miles City and Missoula. She is now analyzing the data and plans to publish the results early next year.

More.

Related Situationist posts:

• Barbie Commercials Across the Decades and the Implications on Female Identity and Objectification
• Sexism: The Worst Part Is Not Knowing
• Unlevel Playing Fields: From Baseball Diamonds to Emergency Rooms
• Susan Fiske on “Inclusive Leadership, Stereotyping and the Brain”
• Sexual Harassment at Wal-Mart?
• The Situation of Sexual Harassment
• Susan Fiske’s New Book
• Susan Fiske Discusses her Work on Different Types of Prejudices
• “The Situation of Objectification,”
• “Women’s Situational Bind,” and
• “You Shouldn’t Stereotype Stereotypes.”

The Gendered Situation of Chess

From ChessBase News:  “Normally knowing your enemy is an advantage. Not so in chess games between the sexes. In a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Volume 38, Issue 2 (March/April 2008) (pdf here), Anne Maass, Claudio D’Ettole, Mara Cadinu, Dr Anne Maass (et al.) pitted male and female players against each other via the Internet. Women showed a 50% performance decline when they were aware that they were playing a male opponent.”  Here’s the article’s abstract.

* * *

Women are surprisingly underrepresented in the chess world, representing less that 5% of registered tournament players worldwide and only 1% of the world’s grandmasters. In this paper it is argued that gender stereotypes are mainly responsible for the underperformance of women in chess. Forty-two male-female pairs, matched for ability, played two chess games via the Internet. When players were unaware of the sex of opponent (control condition), females played approximately as well as males. When the gender stereotype was activated (experimental condition), women showed a drastic performance drop, but only when they were aware that they were playing against a male opponent. When they (falsely) believed to be playing against a woman, they performed as well as their male opponents. In addition, our findings suggest that women show lower chess-specific self-esteem and a weaker promotion focus, which are predictive of poorer chess performance.

* * *

Here’s the article’s conclusion.

* * *

A number of novel findings emerge from the present study that complement cognitively-oriented research on chess. Most importantly, gender stereotypes can have a greatly debilitating effect on female players leading to a 50% performance decline when playing against males. Interestingly, this disadvantage is completely removed when players are led to believe that they are playing against a woman. This may, in part, occur because women choose a more defensive style when playing with men.

A second and more general message of our study is that self-confidence and a win-oriented promotion motivation contribute positively to chess performance. Since women show lower chess-specific self-esteem and a more cautious regulatory focus than males, possibly as a consequence of widely held gender stereotypes, this may at least in part explain their worldwide underrepresentation and underperformance in chess.

Thus, women seem disadvantaged not because they are lacking cognitive or spatial abilities, but because they approach chess competitions with lesser confidence and with a more cautious attitude than their male opponents. Hence, a motivational perspective may be better suited to understand (and prevent) the underperformance of women in the ‘ultimate intellectual sport.’

* * *

You can dowload the entire article here.  To read a sample of related Situationist posts, see “The Situation of Gender-Science Stereotypes,” “The Situation of Gender and Science,” “Stereotype Threat and Performance,” “The Gendered Situation of Science & Math,” “Gender-Imbalanced Situation of Math, Science, and Engineering,” “Sex Differences in Math and Science,” “You Shouldn’t Stereotype Stereotypes,” “Women’s Situation in Economics,” and “Your Group is Bad at Math.”