Women are underrepresented in fields where success is believed to require brilliance

Abstract

Women’s underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is a prominent concern in our society and many others. Closer inspection of this phenomenon reveals a more nuanced picture, however, with women achieving parity with men at the Ph.D. level in certain STEM fields, while also being underrepresented in some non-STEM fields. It is important to consider and provide an account of this field-by-field variability. The field-specific ability beliefs (FAB) hypothesis aims to provide such an account, proposing that women are likely to be underrepresented in fields thought to require raw intellectual talent—a sort of talent that women are stereotyped to possess less of than men. In two studies, we provide evidence for the FAB hypothesis, demonstrating that the academic fields believed by laypeople to require brilliance are also the fields with lower female representation. We also found that the FABs of participants with college-level exposure to a field were more predictive of its female representation than those of participants without college exposure, presumably because the former beliefs mirror more closely those of the field’s practitioners (the direct “gatekeepers”). Moreover, the FABs of participants with college exposure to a field predicted the magnitude of the field’s gender gap above and beyond their beliefs about the level of mathematical and verbal skills required. Finally, we found that beliefs about the importance of brilliance to success in a field may predict its female representation in part by fostering the impression that the field demands solitary work and competition with others. These results suggest new solutions for enhancing diversity within STEM and across the academic spectrum.

Response to Comment on “Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines”

“…In addition, the models include various permutations of the following GRE-based variables: the quantitative score, the verbal score, the analytical writing score, the quantitative:verbal ratio score, and the quantitative−verbal difference score. Adjusting for quantitative GRE scores provides a conservative test of our hypothesis, as academics and nonacademics alike believe that success in mathematics depends largely on raw ability (1,8). Thus, young men and women's quantitative GRE scores may already reflect the influence of mathematics-specific ability beliefs, so adjusting for these scores in our analyses may underestimate the true impact of ability beliefs on gender gaps in representation.…”

Women’s Perceptions of Training and Employment

“…Research results indicate that the gender stereotype whereby men are better at mathematics than women is formed in the early years of the education system (Cvencek, Meltzoff and Greenwald, 2011). The belief on which this stereotype is based is that women are innately worse endowed to perform tasks associated with social success (Meyer et al, 2015;Paustian-Underdahl, Walker & Woehr, 2014). It has been demonstrated experimentally that an act as simple as requesting innate talent rather than commitment and dedication when advertising an employment or educational opening prompts a significant decrease in women's motivation to present themselves as candidates (Cimpian, Bian and Leslie, 2014).…”

“…All of these comprise dimensions of the fundamental construct, which is none other than the patriarchal organisation of society and the corresponding gender socialisation, as highlighted when the interviewed women themselves reported that some university degrees and career opportunities were "entirely populated by women". This illustrates the continuing validity of the argument put forward by Meyer et al (2015), according to which gender socialisation has created stereotypes whereby women are perceived as having less training and capacity to perform certain jobs regarded as male and geared to success and excellence. This way of thinking was exemplified in one of the statements obtained, according to which women are unable to separate family from work, which could give the impression that they cannot put aside family problems or responsibilities, with the consequent negative impact on their professional performance.…”

“…Although indicators confirm women's higher level of education and training, both in higher education (in 2012, 128.1 women graduated in higher education for every 100 men) (Spanish National Statistics Institute, 2015b), and in continuing education and professional development (in 2014, 10.5% of women participated in continuing education vs 9.2% of men) (Spanish National Statistics Institute, 2015c), the reality is that gender socialisation seems to play a very important role in the learning paths women choose, with the majority opting for courses traditionally associated with the female role of caregiver or oriented towards the humanities. Recently, Meyer, Cimpian and Leslie (2015) have suggested that the under-representation of women in academic and occupational fields related to science, engineering and mathematics is related to "field-specific ability beliefs", which are internalised beliefs that women are poorly equipped to carry out certain tasks in these fields. Thus, in 2012 in Spain, 21.3/1,000 men aged between 20 and 29 years old graduated in science, mathematics and technology, as against 9.8/1,000 women (Eurostat, 2015).…”

Análisis de las motivaciones, apoyos y dificultades en formación inicial y permanente que tienen las mujeres en cursos de formación ocupacional

“…Las creencias interiorizadas según las cuales la mujer está poco capacitada para ejercer determinadas tareas, que Meyer, Cimpian y Leslie (2015) han denominado "Creencias de las capacidades específicas de campo", se asume como la causa de la baja representación de las mujeres en los ámbitos académicos y laborales relacionados con la ciencia, la ingeniería y las matemáticas. La creencia que sustenta el estereotipo es que las mujeres tienen, de forma innata, menos capacidad para comprometerse con tareas orientadas al éxito social (Meyer et al, 2015). De hecho, un experimento llevado a cabo por Cimpian, Bian y Leslie (2014) ha constatado que el simple hecho de solicitar en una oferta de empleo o educativa el requisito de tener talento (frente a dedicación) es suficiente para que la motivación de las mujeres y chicas jóvenes disminuya significativamente.…”