Tag Archives: stereotype

Women, STEM and stereotypes

UD researcher gets to the root of why women leave STEM fields

Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Women who are the most invested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields (STEM) are also the ones who are most likely to leave them.

Part of it may have to do with a well-studied phenomenon called stereotype threat. But the University of Delaware’s Chad Forbes is trying to help change that. (more…)

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“Losing Yourself” in A Fictional Character Can Affect Your Real Life

COLUMBUS, Ohio – When you “lose yourself” inside the world of a fictional character while reading a story, you may actually end up changing your own behavior and thoughts to match that of the character, a new study suggests.

Researchers at Ohio State University examined what happened to people who, while reading a fictional story, found themselves feeling the emotions, thoughts, beliefs and internal responses of one of the characters as if they were their own – a phenomenon the researchers call “experience-taking.” (more…)

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My Fair Physicist? Feminine Math, Science Role Models Do Not Motivate Girls

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Women who excel in male-dominated science, technology, engineering and mathematic fields are often unjustly stereotyped as unfeminine.

However, if women are perceived as having feminine qualities, their success may actually decrease interest in these fields (usually referred to as “STEM”), particularly among young girls, according to a new University of Michigan study. (more…)

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Study Debunks Stereotype That Men Think About Sex All Day Long

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Men may think about sex more often than women do, but a new study suggests that men also think about other biological needs, such as eating and sleep, more frequently than women do, as well.

And the research discredits the persistent stereotype that men think about sex every seven seconds, which would amount to more than 8,000 thoughts about sex in 16 waking hours. In the study, the median number of young men’s thought about sex stood at almost 19 times per day. Young women in the study reported a median of nearly 10 thoughts about sex per day. (more…)

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People With Low Self-Esteem Show More Signs of Prejudice

When people are feeling badly about themselves, they’re more likely to show bias against people who are different. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, examines how that works.

“This is one of the oldest accounts of why people stereotype and have prejudice: It makes us feel better about ourselves,” says Jeffrey Sherman of the University of California, Davis, who wrote the study with Thomas Allen. “When we feel bad about ourselves, we can denigrate other people, and that makes us feel better about ourselves.” (more…)

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