It's a man/woman thing
Jessi Smith et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Feeling like one exerts more effort than others may influence women's feelings of belonging with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and impede their motivation. In Study 1, women STEM graduate students perceived they exerted more effort than peers to succeed. For women, but not men, this effort expenditure perception predicted a decreased sense of belonging, which in turn decreased motivation. Study 2 tested whether the male-dominated status of a field triggers such effort expectations. We created a fictional "eco-psychology" graduate program, which when depicted as male-dominated resulted in women expecting to exert relatively more effort and decreased their interest in pursuing the field. Study 3 found emphasizing effort as expected (and normal) to achieve success elevated women's feelings of belonging and future motivation. Results suggest effort expenditure perceptions are an indicator women use to assess their fit in STEM. Implications for enhancing women's participation in STEM are discussed.
----------------------
Hyunjoon Park, Jere Behrman & Jaesung Choi
Demography, forthcoming
Abstract:
Despite the voluminous literature on the potentials of single-sex schools, there is no consensus on the effects of single-sex schools because of student selection of school types. We exploit a unique feature of schooling in Seoul - the random assignment of students into single-sex versus coeducational high schools - to assess causal effects of single-sex schools on college entrance exam scores and college attendance. Our validation of the random assignment shows comparable socioeconomic backgrounds and prior academic achievement of students attending single-sex schools and coeducational schools, which increases the credibility of our causal estimates of single-sex school effects. The three-level hierarchical model shows that attending all-boys schools or all-girls schools, rather than coeducational schools, is significantly associated with higher average scores on Korean and English test scores. Applying the school district fixed-effects models, we find that single-sex schools produce a higher percentage of graduates who attended four-year colleges and a lower percentage of graduates who attended two-year junior colleges than do coeducational schools. The positive effects of single-sex schools remain substantial, even after we take into account various school-level variables, such as teacher quality, the student-teacher ratio, the proportion of students receiving lunch support, and whether the schools are public or private.
----------------------
Gender and corporate finance: Are male executives overconfident relative to female executives?
Jiekun Huang & Darren Kisgen
Journal of Financial Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine corporate financial and investment decisions made by female executives compared with male executives. Male executives undertake more acquisitions and issue debt more often than female executives. Further, acquisitions made by firms with male executives have announcement returns approximately 2% lower than those made by female executive firms, and debt issues also have lower announcement returns for firms with male executives. Female executives place wider bounds on earnings estimates and are more likely to exercise stock options early. This evidence suggests men exhibit relative overconfidence in significant corporate decision making compared with women.
----------------------
Gender differences in social framing effects
Tore Ellingsen et al.
Economics Letters, forthcoming
Abstract:
In a one-shot Prisoners' dilemma experiment, female participants are highly sensitive to the social frame. Male participants are not.
----------------------
Gender Differences in Repeated Competition: Evidence from School Math Contests
Christopher Cotton, Frank McIntyre & Joseph Price
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
The literature shows that males react more favorably than females to competitive incentives. This well-known result, however, is based on experiments in which participants engage in only a one-shot contest. We conduct a series of math contests in elementary schools which are similar to past experiments except for one notable exception: subjects compete in five sequential contests, rather than a one-shot contest typically used. Although males outperform females in the first period contest, we find no evidence of a male advantage in subsequent periods. Females even outperform males in later periods. The data suggests that the relative overperformance of low-ability males and the underperformance of high-ability females are primarily responsible for the first period results. Additionally, even the first period male advantage disappears when we reduce the time pressure or change the task at hand.
----------------------
Gender behaviors as predictors of peer acceptance and victimization
Tyson Kreiger & Becky Kochenderfer-Ladd
Personal Relationships, forthcoming
Abstract:
Children's peer relationships are important to their socioemotional and cognitive development; thus, understanding the determinants of such relationships is of ongoing interest. It was hypothesized that gender behaviors and affiliations would predict peer acceptance and victimization. Path analyses using data from 192 fourth graders showed that for both genders, engaging in feminine activities predicted less peer-reported acceptance and greater victimization, and engaging in masculine activities predicted greater peer acceptance. Affiliating with male peers was associated with greater peer-reported acceptance for both genders, and greater self-reported peer acceptance for boys. Indirect effects showed that the link between gender behaviors and victimization is mediated by peer acceptance. These findings support the contention that gender behaviors relate to the quality of children's relationships.
----------------------
Do Men Vary More than Women in Personality? A Study in 51 Cultures
Peter Borkenau, Robert McCrae & Antonio Terracciano
Journal of Research in Personality, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do men vary more than women in personality? Evolutionary, genetic, and cultural arguments suggest that hypothesis. In this study we tested it using 12,156 college student raters from 51 cultures who described a person they knew well on the 3rd-person version of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. In most cultures, male targets varied more than female targets, and ratings by female informants varied more than ratings by male informants, which may explain why higher variances for men are not found in self-reports. Variances were higher in more developed, and effects of target sex were stronger in more individualistic societies. It seems that individualistic cultures enable a less restricted expression of personality, resulting in larger variances and particularly so among men.
----------------------
Lídia Farré & Francis Vella
Economica, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using a sample of mother-child pairs from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we study the economics of cultural transmission regarding women's roles. We find that a mother's attitudes have a statistically significant effect on those of her children. Furthermore, we find a strong association between the attitudes of sons in their youth and their wives' labour supply as adults. For daughters, the association between their own attitudes and adult work outcomes is weaker and seems to operate through the educational channel. Our findings indicate that cultural transmission contributes to heterogeneity in the labour supply of women.
----------------------
Diane Macunovich
Population and Development Review, December 2012, Pages 631-648
Abstract:
Relative cohort size - the ratio of young adults to prime-age adults - and relative income - the income of young adults relative to their material aspirations - have experienced substantial changes over the past 40 years. Results here show that changes in relative cohort size explain about 60 percent of the declines in women's starting wage - both relative and absolute - in 1968-82, and 97 percent of its increase in 1982-2001. Relative income is hypothesized to affect a number of behavioral choices by young adults, including marriage, childbearing, and female labor force participation, as young people strive to achieve their desired standard of living. Older family income - the denominator in a relative income variable-increased by 59 percent between 1968 and 2000, and then declined by 9 percent. Its changes explain 47 percent of the increase in the labor force participation of white married women in their first 15 years out of school between 1970 and 1990, and 38 percent of the increase in hours worked in the same period. The study makes use of individual-level measures of labor force participation and employs the lagged income of older families in a woman's year-state-race-education group to instrument parental income and hence material aspirations.
----------------------
Catherine Riegle-Crumb et al.
American Educational Research Journal, December 2012, Pages 1048-1073
Abstract:
This article investigates the empirical basis for often-repeated arguments that gender differences in entrance into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors are largely explained by disparities in prior achievement. Analyses use data from three national cohorts of college matriculates across three decades to consider differences across several indicators of high school math and science achievement at the mean and also at the top of the test distribution. Analyses also examine the different comparative advantages men and women enjoy in math/science versus English/reading. Regardless of how prior achievement is measured, very little of the strong and persistent gender gap in physical science and engineering majors over time is explained. Findings highlight the limitations of theories focusing on gender differences in skills and suggest directions for future research.
----------------------
Gender, Competitiveness and Career Choices
Thomas Buser, Muriel Niederle & Hessel Oosterbeek
NBER Working Paper, November 2012
Abstract:
Gender differences in competitiveness are often discussed as a potential explanation for gender differences in education and labor market outcomes. We correlate an incentivized measure of competitiveness with an important career choice of secondary school students in the Netherlands. At the age of 15, these students have to pick one out of four study profiles, which vary in how prestigious they are. While boys and girls have very similar levels of academic ability, boys are substantially more likely than girls to choose more prestigious profiles. We find that competitiveness is as important a predictor of profile choice as gender. More importantly, up to 23 percent of the gender difference in profile choice can be attributed to gender differences in competitiveness. This lends support to the extrapolation of laboratory findings on competitiveness to labor market settings.
----------------------
Christopher Near
Sex Roles, forthcoming
Abstract:
Content analysis of video games has consistently shown that women are portrayed much less frequently than men and in subordinate roles, often in "hypersexualized" ways. However, the relationship between portrayal of female characters and videogame sales has not previously been studied. In order to assess the cultural influence of video games on players, it is important to weight differently those games seen by the majority of players (in the millions), rather than a random sample of all games, many of which are seen by only a few thousand people. Box art adorning the front of video game boxes is a form of advertising seen by most game customers prior to purchase and should therefore predict sales if indeed particular depictions of female and male characters influence sales. Using a sample of 399 box art cases from games with ESRB ratings of Teen or Mature released in the US during the period of 2005 through 2010, this study shows that sales were positively related to sexualization of non-central female characters among cases with women present. In contrast, sales were negatively related to the presence of any central female characters (sexualized or non-sexualized) or the presence of female characters without male characters present. These findings suggest there is an economic motive for the marginalization and sexualization of women in video game box art, and that there is greater audience exposure to these stereotypical depictions than to alternative depictions because of their positive relationship to sales.
----------------------
Fecundity of Paternal and Maternal Non-Parental Female Relatives of Homosexual and Heterosexual Men
Andrea Camperio Ciani & Elena Pellizzari
PLoS ONE, December 2012
Abstract:
A variety of social, developmental, biological and genetic factors influence sexual orientation in males. Thus, several hypotheses have attempted to explain the sustenance of genetic factors that influence male homosexuality, despite decreased fecundity within the homosexuals. Kin selection, the existence of maternal effects and two forms of balancing selection, sexually antagonistic selection and overdominance, have been proposed as compensatory mechanisms for reduced homosexual fecundity. Here, we suggest that the empirical support for kin selection and maternal effects cannot account for the low universal frequency and stability of the distribution of homosexuals. To identify the responsible compensatory mechanism, we analyzed fecundity in 2,100 European female relatives, i.e., aunts and grandmothers, of either homosexual or heterosexual probands who were matched in terms of age, culture and sampling strategy. Female relatives were chosen to avoid the sampling bias of the fraternal birth order effect, which occurs when indirectly sampling mothers though their homosexual sons. We observed that the maternal aunts and grandmothers of homosexual probands were significantly more fecund compared with the maternal aunts and maternal grandmothers of the heterosexual probands. No difference in fecundity was observed in the paternal female lines (grandmothers or aunts) from either of the two proband groups. Moreover, due to the selective increase in maternal female fecundity, the total female fecundity was significantly higher in homosexual than heterosexual probands, thus compensating for the reduced fecundity of homosexuals. Altogether, these data support an X-linked multi-locus sexually antagonistic hypothesis rather than an autosomal multi-locus overdominance hypothesis.
----------------------
Gina Lemos et al.
Intelligence, January-February 2013, Pages 11-18
Abstract:
The analysis of sex differences in cognitive abilities is largely confusing because these differences are masked by the pervasive influence of the general factor of intelligence (g). In this study a battery of five reasoning tests (abstract [AR], numerical [NR], verbal [VR], mechanical [MR], and spatial [SR]) was completed by a sample of 3233 young and old adolescents representative of the population. Using a latent variable approach, mean differences on the general factor were estimated after examining measurement invariance. Results show that the difference, favoring boys in latent g increases with age from two to four IQ points. Further, boys outperform girls in all the subtests and the observed differences were generally explained by g. However, mechanical reasoning is a systematic and strong exception to this finding. For the young adolescents, the observed difference in MR is equivalent to 10 IQ points, and this difference increases to 13 IQ points for the old adolescents. Only 1 (young) or 2 (old) IQ points of the sex difference in MR can be accounted for by g. The findings suggest that the persistent - and usually neglected average large advantage of boys in mechanical reasoning (MR) - orthogonal to g - might be behind their higher presence in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) disciplines. A new look at this relevant social issue is proposed in this study.
----------------------
Why Do Standardized Tests Underpredict Women's Academic Performance? The Role of Conscientiousness
Kristen Kling, Erik Noftle & Richard Robins
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Women typically earn higher grades than men, even though they tend to score lower than men on the SAT, a pattern known as the female underprediction effect (FUE). In three samples, we tested our hypothesis that gender differences in Conscientiousness can explain this effect. Within each sample, we created a regression-based measure of under (vs. over) prediction, which reflects the extent to which an individual student's actual grade point average (GPA) exceeded (or fell below) the GPA predicted by his or her SAT score. Significant gender differences in this measure documented the presence of the FUE. Next, we demonstrated that Conscientiousness significantly mediated the link between gender and underprediction. Specifically, women were higher in Conscientiousness, and students who were more conscientious earned grades that were higher than their SAT scores would predict. Thus, our expectation that Conscientiousness is a partial explanation for the FUE was confirmed.
----------------------
Gender differences in overconfidence and risk taking: Do self-selection and socialization matter?
Kris Hardies, Diane Breesch & Joël Branson
Economics Letters, forthcoming
Abstract:
In a large-scale laboratory experiment, we investigate gender differences in overconfidence and risk taking. Our results show that (self-)selection and socialization can eliminate the gender difference in overconfidence, but they appear insufficient to create environments in which women are as risk loving as men.
----------------------
The STEM Pathway for Women: What Has Changed?
Nancy Heilbronner
Gifted Child Quarterly, January 2013, Pages 39-55
Abstract:
In previous decades, researchers have identified a gender gap in the careers and academic achievement of men and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Recently, it has been suggested that some of these gender gaps no longer exist; however, the picture is more nuanced, for women are represented well in some STEM fields (such as biology) and not in others (such as computer science). The current research employed survey methodology to explore the perceptions of 360 finalists and semifinalists of the prestigious Science Talent Search. Two cohorts of participants who were either in their late 30s (Cohort 2) or late 20s (Cohort 1) were contacted to investigate factors that influenced them to select or not select STEM college majors and occupations. Comparisons between men and women revealed that women recalled having lower self-efficacy in STEM in college than men, and fewer women selected STEM majors as undergraduates. Interest was cited as a major influence for occupational selection for both men and women. Proportionally, more women than men entered fields such as biology and fewer women entered fields such as engineering and physics/astronomy. A greater proportion of older women mentioned leaving STEM because of a lack of flexible hours and needing to attend to family responsibilities. Implications for education and future research are discussed.
----------------------
Reduced emotion processing efficiency in healthy males relative to females
Sara Weisenbach et al.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examined sex differences in categorization of facial emotions and activation of brain regions supportive of those classifications. In Experiment 1, performance on the Facial Emotion Perception Test (FEPT) was examined among 75 healthy females and 63 healthy males. Females were more accurate in the categorization of fearful expressions relative to males. In Experiment 2, 3T functional magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired for a separate sample of 21 healthy females and 17 healthy males while performing the FEPT. Activation to neutral facial expressions was subtracted from activation to sad, angry, fearful and happy facial expressions. Although females and males demonstrated activation in some overlapping regions for all emotions, many regions were exclusive to females or males. For anger, sad and happy, males displayed a larger extent of activation than did females, and greater height of activation was detected in diffuse cortical and subcortical regions. For fear, males displayed greater activation than females only in right postcentral gyri. With one exception in females, performance was not associated with activation. Results suggest that females and males process emotions using different neural pathways, and these differences cannot be explained by performance variations.