Women don't run

There is a description in science daily on gender differences in running for office: In "Young Women Do Not Want to Run for Office, Experts Say". they write:
"Lawless and Fox detail the results of a survey of a national sample of more than 2,100 college students. The authors find a dramatic gap between women and men's interest in running for office; men were twice as likely as women to have thought about running for office "many times," whereas women were 20 percentage points more likely than men never to have considered it. Importantly, the 20 point gap is just as large as the one we previously uncovered among adult professionals (in their 40s and 50s) who were well-situated to pursue a candidacy."

"The report identifies five factors that contribute to the gender gap in political ambition among college students:"

The last 3 are:

"3. Young men are more likely than young women to have played organized sports and care about winning.
4. Young women are less likely than young men to receive encouragement to run for office -- from anyone.
5. Young women are less likely than young men to think they will be qualified to run for office, even in the not-so-near future."

Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox report on "Girls Just Wanna Not Run The Gender Gap in Young Americans’ Political Ambition"

Stereotype Threat

Here is a collection of recent papers on stereotype threat that caught my eye...

Shapiro, Jenessa R.; Williams, Amy M.; Hambarchyan, Mariam  "Are all interventions created equal? A multi-threat approach to tailoring stereotype threat interventions." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 104(2), Feb 2013, 277-288.
"To date, stereotype threat interventions have been considered interchangeable. Across 4 experiments, the present research demonstrates that stereotype threat interventions need to be tailored to the specific form of experienced stereotype threat to be effective. The Multi-Threat Framework (Shapiro & Neuberg, 2007) distinguishes between group-as-target stereotype threats—concerns that a stereotype-relevant performance will reflect poorly on the abilities of one's group—and self-as-target stereotype threats—concerns that a stereotype-relevant performance will reflect poorly on one's own abilities. The present experiments explored Black college students' performance on diagnostic intelligence tests (Experiments 1 and 3) and women's interest (Experiment 2) and performance (Experiment 4) in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Across the 4 experiments, participants were randomly assigned to experience either a group-as-target or self-as-target stereotype threat. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that role model interventions were successful at protecting only against group-as-target stereotype threats, and Experiments 3 and 4 revealed that self-affirmation interventions were successful at protecting only against self-as-target stereotype threats. The present research provides an experimental test of the Multi-Threat Framework across different negatively stereotyped groups (Black students, female students), different negatively stereotyped domains (general intelligence, STEM), and different outcomes (test performance, career interest). This research suggests that interventions should address the range of possible stereotype threats to effectively protect individuals against these threats. Through an appreciation of the distinct forms of stereotype threats and the ways in which interventions work to reduce them, this research aims to facilitate a more complete understanding of stereotype threat."

Woodcock, Anna; Hernandez, Paul R.; Estrada, Mica; Schultz, P. Wesley The consequences of chronic stereotype threat: Domain disidentification and abandonment. Pages 635-646 Oct 2012, JPSP

"Stereotype threat impairs performance across many domains. Despite a wealth of research, the long-term consequences of chronic stereotype threat have received little empirical attention. Beyond the immediate impact on performance, the experience of chronic stereotype threat is hypothesized to lead to domain disidentification and eventual domain abandonment. Stereotype threat is 1 explanation why African Americans and Hispanic/Latino(a)s “leak” from each juncture of the academic scientific pipeline in disproportionately greater numbers than their White and Asian counterparts. Using structural equation modeling, we tested the stereotype threat-disidentification hypothesis across 3 academic years with a national longitudinal panel of undergraduate minority science students. Experience of stereotype threat was associated with scientific disidentification, which in turn predicted a significant decline in the intention to pursue a scientific career. Race/ethnicity moderated this effect, whereby the effect was evident for Hispanic/Latino(a) students but not for all African American students. We discuss findings in terms of understanding chronic stereotype threat. "

And a critical review on stereotype threat:

Can Stereotype Threat Explain the Gender Gap in Mathematics Performance and Achievement?

Gijsbert Stoet , David C. Geary, Review of General Psychology, 2012, Vol. 16, No. 1, 93–102

"Men and women score similarly in most areas of mathematics, but a gap favoring men is consistently found at the high end of performance. One explanation for this gap, stereotype threat, was first proposed by Spencer, Steele, and Quinn (1999) and has received much attention. We discuss merits and shortcomings of this study and review replication attempts. Only 55% of the articles with experimental designs that could have replicated the original results did so. But half of these were confounded by statistical adjustment of preexisting mathematics exam scores. Of the unconfounded experiments, only 30% replicated the original. A meta-analysis of these effects confirmed that only the group of studies with adjusted mathematics scores displayed the stereotype threat effect. We conclude that although stereotype threat may affect some women, the existing state of knowledge does not support the current level of enthusiasm for this as a mechanism underlying the gender gap in mathematics. We argue there are many reasons to close this gap, and that too much weight on the stereotype explanation may hamper research and implementation of effective interventions."

This paper, I guess because of its controversy, has received some attention at science daily blog 
"A University of Missouri researcher and his colleague have conducted a review that casts doubt on the accuracy of a popular theory that attempted to explain why there are more men than women in top levels of mathematic fields. The researchers found that numerous studies claiming that the stereotype, "men are better at math" -- believed to undermine women's math performance -- had major methodological flaws, utilized improper statistical techniques, and many studies had no scientific evidence of this stereotype."

I would be happy for comments, as it seems a big literature which I am somewhat familiar with but not really an expert on, I myself have never tried to manipulate stereotype threat...

Daily Horizons...

Here's an interesting piece by Uri Simonsohn and Francesca Gino: "Daily Horizons: Evidence of Narrow Bracketing in Judgment From 10 Years of M.B.A. Admissions Interviews"  Psychological Science, 24(2) 219– 224
The abstract reads:
"Many professionals, from auditors, venture capitalists, and lawyers, to clinical psychologists and journal editors, divide continuous flows of judgments into subsets. College admissions interviewers, for instance, evaluate but a handful of applicants a day. We conjectured that in such situations, individuals engage in narrow bracketing, assessing each subset in isolation and then—for any given subset—avoiding much deviation from the expected overall distribution of judgments. For instance, an interviewer who has already highly recommended three applicants on a given day may be reluctant to do the same for a fourth applicant. Data from more than 9,000 M.B.A. interviews supported this prediction. Auxiliary analyses suggest that contrast effects and nonrandom scheduling of interviews are unlikely alternative explanations of the observed pattern of results."

Spring Break

Here is how I discovered PhD comics (maybe it was a little hint from my advisor)
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=51

Here's the latest installment on Spring  Break..
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1568

In that spirit, hope you all enjoy your spring break!

Children and Fairness

There is a new article in PLOS on "I Should but I Won’t: Why Young Children Endorse Norms of Fair Sharing but Do Not Follow Them"

The abstract reads:
"Young children endorse fairness norms related to sharing, but often act in contradiction to those norms when given a chance to share. This phenomenon has rarely been explored in the context of a single study. Using a novel approach, the research presented here offers clear evidence of this discrepancy and goes on to examine possible explanations for its diminution with age. In Study 1, 3–8-year-old children readily stated that they themselves should share equally, asserted that others should as well, and predicted that others had shared equally with them. Nevertheless, children failed to engage in equal sharing until ages 7–8. In Study 2, 7–8-year-olds correctly predicted that they would share equally, and 3–6-year-olds correctly predicted that they would favor themselves, ruling out a failure-of-willpower explanation for younger children's behavior. Similarly, a test of inhibitory control in Study 1 also failed to explain the shift with age toward adherence to the endorsed norm. The data suggest that, although 3-year-olds know the norm of equal sharing, the weight that children attach to this norm increases with age when sharing involves a cost to the self."

Girls outnumbered

The NYTimes posts that Girls Excel in the Classroom but Lag in Entry to 8 Elite Schools in the City.

"Boys make up nearly 60 percent of the largest and most renowned schools, Stuyvesant, the Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Tech, and as much as 67 percent at the High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at City College, according to city statistics."

"The fact that girls are underrepresented in New York’s top high schools, which tend to be focused on math and science, and which have more than a dozen Nobel laureates among their alumni, worries some academics who see the schools as prime breeding grounds for future scientists and engineers."


"The racial makeup of the schools has been a combustible issue for years — 5 percent of the students accepted this month into the elite schools were black, and 7 percent were Hispanic. Civil rights groups have argued that using a test as the sole basis of admission favors students with means to prepare for the test, and have pushed unsuccessfully to have the schools adopt additional criteria, like middle school grades, for admission.

The gender imbalance has not generated the same kind of protest. But several academics and analysts said the reliance on the test might also play a role in keeping girls out. While girls outperform boys on an array of academic benchmarks in high school and college, they still trail on standardized tests, like the SAT, according to federal Department of Education statistics."

Lean In and Gender Differences

The Nytimes wrote in A Titan’s How-To on Breaking the Glass Ceiling about Sheryl Sandberg's book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

"Ms. Sandberg wants to take women through a collective self-awareness exercise. In her book, she urges them to absorb the social science showing they are judged more harshly and paid less than men; resist slowing down in mere anticipation of having children; insist that their husbands split housework equally; draft short- and long-term career plans; and join a “Lean In Circle,” which is half business school and half book club."

"Ms. Sandberg’s chief critic has been Anne-Marie Slaughter, a Princeton professor and former top State Department official, who published an Atlantic Magazine article titled “Why Women Can’t Have It All,” last year arguing that feminism — and Ms. Sandberg — were holding women to unattainable standards for personal and professional success."

I at least often use the work on the gender differences I found in competitiveness (see here, here and for an overview here), self-confidence, choosing challenges as telling my female students that it looks like there is this gender difference, we should just be aware of it, to make sure we make  choices we are happy with. Furthermore, given that competitiveness seems to be important even for career choices (see here), thinking about whether alternative ways to structure those choices could reduce the importance of competitiveness is a worthwhile task.