Women: Don’t sit next to men when doing math

William Atkins
Monday, 04 May 2009 20:31

Science - Biology

And, the researchers also found: “… it was also demonstrated that concomitantly presenting a positive self-relevant stereotype (e.g., college students are good at math) increased the relative accessibility of females’ college student identity and inhibited their gender identity, eliminating attendant working memory deficits and contingent math performance decrements.”

Thus, they performed better on the math problems when presented a positive stereotype (such as, college students are better at math than non-college students) and when currently presented a negative stereotype (such as, women do worse at math than men) because they emphasizes the positive one over the negative stereotype.

Thus, their brains did not dwell on the negative stereotype and they used more of their brain to do the math problems.

This study is considered the first research study to have examined both negative and positive stereotypes at the same time—thus, what are considered “competing” stereotypes.

They concluded in their abstract, “This work identifies the motivated processes through which people’s social identities became active in situations in which self-relevant stereotypes about a stigmatized group membership and a nonstigmatized group membership were available. In addition, it demonstrates the downstream consequences of this pattern of activation on working memory and performance.”

Dr. Rydell states, "This research shows that because people are members of multiple social groups that often have contradictory performance stereotypes (for example, Asian females in the domain of math), making them aware of both a positive group stereotype and a negative stereotype eliminates the threat and underperformance that is usually seen when they dwell only on their membership in a negatively stereotyped group.” [EurekAlet.org/Indiana University: “Psyched out by stereotypes: IU research suggests thinking about the positive”]

In other words, one stereotype can be both positive and negative. Asian-Americans, for example, are perceived by Americans as being generally better in math. But, females are perceived by Americans as performing worse at math than men. Asian women, thus, would include both a positive and negative stereotype for Americans.

And, Rydell adds, “People seem motivated to align themselves with positively stereotyped groups and, as a byproduct, can eliminate the worry, stress and cognitive depletion brought about by negative performance stereotypes, increasing actual performance."

That is, think positive thoughts!

Rydell also states, "The activation of the stereotype is relatively automatic and hard to control. Whether you choose to endorse or believe the stereotype, however, is under your control. One option is to think about the positive groups you're associated with that are related to the task at hand." [EurekAlert.org/IU]

That is, you have the power to control your thoughts!

One study from the University of Wisconsin states that ther is no differences in the abilities of men and women to perform math. Read more about the July 24, 2008 UW News article at: "Study: No gender differences in math performance."

The author of the study (Dr. Janet Hyde) states, "Boys did a teeny bit better in some states, and girls did a teeny bit better in others. But when you average them all, you essentially get no difference."

Maybe the only difference is our perception of the difference. Stereotypes in most cases aren't true and accurate representations of any group of people.