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6-Year-Old Girls Already Have Gendered Beliefs About Intelligence

Amber Thomas
This is a really interesting article and includes some studies which might show why girls are put off from certain (STEM- based) games or toys at a very young age. Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/01/six-year-old-girls-already-have-gendered-beliefs-about-intelligence/514340/


A short description was read out to children aged 5 to 7 and the children asked to guess who was being described from a selection of 4 photos (2 male, 2 female). The story was this: “There are lots of people at the place where I work, but there is one person who is really special. This person is really, really smart. This person figures out how to do things quickly and comes up with answers much faster and better than anyone else. This person is really, really smart.”


Among the 5-year-olds, both boys and girls associated brilliance with their own gender. But among those aged 6 or 7, only the boys still held to that view. At an age when girls tend to outperform boys at school, and when children in general show large positive biases towards their own in-groups, the girls became less likely than boys to attribute brilliance to their own gender. 


Why do these beliefs occur? It’s not to do with actual ability. At that age, girls tend to outclass their male peers—and the girls in this study knew it. When she showed them pictures of four children and asked them to guess who got the best grades, the older girls were actually more likely to pick girls than the older boys were to pick boys. “Everyone agreed that girls do better in school but that didn’t seem to matter."


Those girls who had most strongly assimilated the stereotype of male brilliance showed the lowest interest in a game for children “who are really, really smart” rather than in games for children who “try really, really hard”.  They had already mentally assigned themselves to Hufflepuff instead of Ravenclaw.

Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/01/six-year-old-girls-already-have-gendered-beliefs-about-intelligence/514340/
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    It was picked up by the BBC 4 Today program this morning too.


    A very interesting report and do read down to the bottom because there are 2 interesting questions posed at the end.  Do the answers to these infleunce the work that we and others are trying to do?


    Kind regards


    Virginia

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    Yes Amber, I agree with you, an interesting and heartbreaking article.


    Heartbreaking from the viewpoint that a 5 or 6 year old child should have self-doubt when invited/confronted with playing a game which require her or him to be "really, really smart" or where they need to "try really, really hard".


    However, since the research was carried out in the U.S.A., I'm not sure if the same results can be inferred for children in the UK (though, I suspect, sadly that the results would be similar) or other parts of the world.


    Scandinavian children for example are more self-assured (by which I mean confident, but not egoistical. This might be biased opinion since I only came across and interracted with children of professional Engineers), as are Polish children born or living in the UK (based on my observation of their interraction with their parents and other adults). I suspect the results published in the article for the U.S.A. children would be different for Dutch and German children as well, who tend, like the Scandinavian and Polish children to be outgoing and self-confident.


    As for the comment from Sarah Eddy from Florida International University:
    “Not only do we need to break down the ‘science is male’ stereotype, but now we need to break down a ‘brilliance is male’ stereotype, too.”  

    While I agree that in some culture/community, the "science is male" stereotype exists, many Indian and African parents are happy if their daughter choose to do medicine and become a doctor (which as we all know, requires a high level of science - biology, chemistry, human anatomy, etc.). At college, of the four Indian girls/young women I went around with, three read Biochemistry, one read Biology, I read Applied Physics - all five of us were either born in the UK or came to the UK when we were relatively young. 


    I think the "science is male" stereotype is almost exclusively reserved for Physics and perhaps, Mathematics, I do not understand the rationale. Further, Mathematics as a "male science" stereotype is not universal. 


    As for the "brilliance is male" steroetype - I think this is a typical mentality in the U.S.A and all patriarchal cultures/societies. It is hence, the cultures/societies which need to change. Since evolution has already swept past these cultures/societies without leaving too much of an imprint, one must hope economics realities might force the change needed.


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    @ Virginia Hodge:

    Re.University of Washington Sapna Cheryan's comments and possible impact on what we (the IET, I assumed) are trying to do - that is, inspire more girls to try out STEM subjects

    "Sapna Cheryan from the University of Washington notes that in Bian’s study, the 5-year-olds had a kind of gender arrogance, which persisted in the boys but disappeared in the girls. “Do we want a society where each gender thinks they are smarter, or do we want one where boys and girls think the genders are equally smart?” Cheryan asks. “If the latter, then it may be boys’ beliefs that we should try to change." 

    Since the gender arrogance disappered in the girls and persisted in the boys, one must assumed that the arrogance or lack of arrogance was being reinforced/re-adjusted by the children's parents, teachers, siblings, peers and society. 


    Just as the colour of one's skin, straight hair or curly hair do not define a person, gender cannot determine "smartness"  or how "smart" a person is.

    “Similarly, do we want a society where people would rather play the game that requires being ‘being smart’ over the one that require ‘hard work?’” she says. “We as a society should figure out what we value before concluding that it is the girls we need to change.” 

    This is a deep question, presumably "being smart" is meant as being smart within a legal framework - in which case being smart should not preclude "hard work". In STEM subjects, being smart does not imply that every aspects of a subject will be easily understood, there will be areas of uncertainty (if the knowlege is deep and wide enough) where persistence and hard graft will be needed for better understanding and clarity.



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