Even at Fictitious “Male” Tasks, Women Assess Themselves Lower
Dear Friends of Women in Science,
During this month's AAUW week, I am going to write a little more about Stanford University sociologist Shelley Correll's research on self-assessment. Last month, I described how Correll found that among girls and boys with similar past mathematical achievement, girls assess their math abilities lower than boys do. In a follow-up study, Correll took her theory that boys assess their abilities higher and express higher aspirations to pursue careers in areas considered to be male domains into the lab and tested it in an experimental setting.
Correll designed an experiment around a fictitious skill called "contrast sensitivity ability." In this experiment, participants were given evidence that contrast sensitivity ability (the ability to detect proportions of how much black and white appeared on a screen) was either an ability that men were more likely to have (male advantage or "MA" condition) or an ability that showed no gender difference (gender dissociated or "GD" condition).
Participants completed two 20-item rounds of a computer-administered contrast sensitivity test in which subjects had five seconds to judge which color (black or white) predominated in each of a series of rectangles. Unbeknownst to the subjects, the amount of white and black was either exactly equal or very close to equal in each rectangle, so the test had no right or wrong answers. Nonetheless, all subjects were told that they had correctly answered 13 of the 20 items during round one and 12 of 20 in round two. Participants were then asked to assess their performance and indicate their interest in pursuing a career requiring contrast sensitivity ability.
In the MA group, men assessed their contrast sensitivity ability and their interest in pursuing careers requiring this ability higher than women did, even though all participants received identical scores on the tests. In the GD group, where the fictitious skill was described as equally likely to be held by women and men, no gender differences appeared in assessments of ability or interest in using the skill in the future.
What are your thoughts on this study? What do you see as the implications for science and engineering?
Interesting comments! As the mother of a son and a daughter, I saw each question her/his own abilities. The big difference was my son would never show it in public, whereas my daughter was no poker face and let it all hang out. She was assessed as immature and emotional; he was assessed as mature and strong. Is this fair? Not really. But that's a lot like how people behave in the work place too. In spite of all that, I didn't learn to give more positive reinforcement to women although I should have. I had to be told by my employees.
cheers,
Laura
I agree that women most likely are more realistic about their abilities and are communicating that fact. Unfortunately we can't get away from the fact that the male behavior is the default for society in most cases. And deviating from that behavior can have consequences in one's career.
Case in point: I was recently discussing with a male mentor how he looked at "opportunities" within our company to "audition" for a promotion before receiving one. Basically you don't get the title but you get the work. If they like what you're doing, they'll give you the promotion in a year or so.
I asked him what happens when they don't like the job you did and give the job to someone else? Then you would have to leave and find another job. His reply? "Only losers think like that. You play to win."
Wow...anyway I have a hard time thinking like that, but I do realize that to be successful sometimes I have to take a deep breathe and cowgirl up as it were to get ahead. It's scary, but I'll do what it takes to achieve success in this environment. Like most women, it's easier for me to focus on why I'm doing all this--my son and his future. Thinking about him helps a lot, but it doesn't prevent me from questioning my ability most every day!
Thanks for the comments, everybody. Just to clarify, in response to Amy's comment, I didn't mean to suggest that the "women are doing things wrong". It's not clear if the men or the women are correctly assessing their abilities, just that the women are assessing their abilities lower than the men in this study. It may be true that women are actually much more accurately assessing their abilities than the men given the information they have. I find this gender difference in self assessment interesting, and your points well-taken.
It looks to me like the _humans_ in this study internalized the message the "men are better" at this skill. Overall here, both men and women's estimations of their abilities vary directly with the message they were given in advance. I'd like to see a control condition where subjects are told that women are better at the skill.
I'd like to add my appreciation for Amy Charles's wry comment above, on spinning the title of the article in the opposite direction. Always good to get one's perspective twisted a different way! Nonetheless, we are generalizing these results across a large group and I like to be careful about this sort of thing, acknowledging that not all members of a group exhibit the behaviors reflected in an average.
Slightly less flippantly, but just as seriously: Perhaps we should be teaching the teachers and the girls that valuable piece of advice given by grandmothers the world over: "Ignore the boys, they're just making a lot of noise, hoping to attract attention." And instead look at what both the boys and the girls actually do.
A prime example of rooster crowing, btw: http://bit.ly/r4nRe4
You know, I'm so sick of the idea that *women are doing things wrong* here. I think you guys have totally been co-opted by the guys' mindset -- the poor mousy women haven't enough self esteem, they haven't formed their own social networks, poor dears.
How about this instead: The women are realistic. They lowball rather than risk their own and other people's reputations and resources, and look for ways to improve, rather than ways to crow. The men, on the other hand, are set to "fine mist of bullshit" regardless of context, and will talk themselves up given any chance. Realistic or not doesn't matter. Iceland's been all over this subject recently, as I recall.
I propose a different headline: Men Still Cocky Bastards; Should Revise Self-Appraisals Downward by 30-70%.
Clearly it's important that teachers and parents make sure to correct any misconceptions that young women have about sex specific differences in science ability. If we don't do it, we're sure to push young women to assess themselves lower and be more likely to leave science earlier in their careers.
