Final Research Paper

Final Research Paper

Gender Stereotype Susceptibility

This article is about gender stereotyping. The article discusses the impact gender and gender stereotyping has on cognitive tasks. According to the article gender affects cognitive task performance on a variety level. Gender stereotyping is said to stem the impact. There was a study about gender stereotyping that was done in this article. On a social cognition task with no documentation of the initial gender gap, gender stereotype messages were systematically manipulated. There were three outcome results from this study. 1. Stereotyping affects both males and females, especially females. However it is said that stereotypes towards males actually impacts females more, in a negative way. 2. Negative messages have stronger influences than positive messages regardless of gender and message direction or the performance affected by the valence of stereotype messages. 3. The performance of males and females are impacted differently by the direction of stereotype messages. Implicit negative messages have a stronger effect on females that explicit negative messages.

Introduction: This journal article titled Gender Stereotype Susceptibility, discusses gender stereotyping on cognitive tasks. This article talks about how gender has an impact on a variety of cognitive tasks. Evidence has shown the impact that gender has on these cognitive tasks. Males were said to outperform on spatial ability tasks such as parking a car while females were said to take longer and have less accuracy in forward, backward, and parallel parking maneuvers. According to the article, these gender differences could have been experience and gender stereotyping. Men and women, from an early age, are said to be exposed to a variety of gender stereotypes. The article also said that they could be treated differently or act differently in a way in order to deal with these gender stereotypes. In a laboratory setting, gender stereotyping was being studied and during that study, the participants in one group were reminded that they were stereotypically expected to perform less well that other groups at task in hand. According to the lab, women perform worse on mathematical test tasks than on problem solving test tasks. The mathematical test task is said to trigger an activation of a negative stereotype in women, which says that women are stereotypically worse at mathematical test tasks. Reminding women of the gender stereotypes in mathematical abilities hinders their performance. A positive but false stereotype message is said to enhance the performance of women during tasks of mental rotation. Those same tasks consistently reported that females were less effective. During a driving simulation task, when a negative stereotype is activated women perform worse and cause more accidents as well as hit more pedestrians. Female soccer players’ performance decreases under the influence of the gender stereotype of poor athletic performance. Gender stereotyping impact explores more in women. Not only do gender stereotype messages enhance or diminish performance level, but they can also modulate brain activity and sex hormone levels.

Methods: This study consisted of 117 young adults who were students of the University of Tübingen. These students were assigned to three separate groups. The first group had 23 participants with 13 females and 10 males. The second group had 43 participants with 29 females and 14 males. The third group had 51 participants with 25 females and 26 males. The participants all had normal or corrected-to-normal vision and heterosexual orientation. None of the participants had a history of neurological or psychiatric disorders including autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) or regular medication. None of the participants had experiences with the tasks.

Results: The EA task test results for the females and males from the three separate participant groups were either standard, gender stereotype neutral, explicit negative for males, or explicit negative for females. The explicit negative message for males, which was males are worse, resulted in a reduction in performance of males. However, an unexpected deterioration also occurred in performance of females instead of an expected enhancement in performance of females since the explicit information that males are worse would mean that females are usually better on the task. As expected, the explicit negative message for females, which was females are worse, resulted in a deterioration in performance of females and an enhancement in performance of males resulting in a highly significant gender effect.

Discussion: The study in the article explores the impact of gender-specific stereotype messages on performance. The outcomes of the article’s study indicate that explicit and implicit gender stereotype messages affect performance of both females and males albeit in a differential way. The study’s most important outcome shows that gender stereotype information can elicit pronounced gender differences in performance on tasks with no initial gender gap. Gender related stereotype messages affect both males and females, however they have a stronger impact on females. Regardless of direction, gender stereotype messages affect performance as negative messages have a stronger effect on performance that positive messages. Gender stereotype messages have a stronger effect on females than males.

Gender Stereotypes in Science Education Resources: A Visual Content Analysis

This article talks about gender stereotypes in science education. It is said that more men are studying and working in the fields of science than women. The prevalence of gender stereotypes is said to take effect. The gender stereotype being, science is for men, not for women. This means that stereotypes can also occur in education, not just the media and people’s social lives. It was also mentioned that stereotypes are visible in education through the use of gender-biased visuals, language, teaching methods, and teachers’ attitudes. It was noted that the total number of men and women who were depicted, and the profession and activity of each person in the visuals. The analysis in the article showed that more men were depicted as science professionals than women while more women were depicted as teachers than men. The study indicates that there is a representation of gender stereotypes in online science education resources. This study is highlighting the changes needed to create a balanced representation of men and women. According to the article, while the stereotypical representation of men and women in science is a true reflection of the gender distribution in science, a more balanced representation is what should be aimed for. This balance will show children that both men and