Things you hear as a kid about the intellectual differences between boys and girls could’ve stopped you realising you’re actually a science whizz, according to a new study looking at the influence of gender stereotypes on children’s interests.
A study of 400 five- to seven-year-olds published today in international journal Science shows that girls start to see negative differences in gender when they’re as young as six.
The study was formed of a range of tasks that got children to measure how their own gender fared in a series of perception-based tests about intelligence. At five, both boys and girls associated ‘brilliance’ with their own gender to a similar extent, but this perception changed in girls within a year. Six-year-old girls were less likely than boys to say that their gender was ‘really really smart’ - a child-friendly term used in the study to describe brilliance.
It was also at six where researchers noticed girls began to shy away from games for ‘really, really smart’ children. Girls were less interested than boys to pick this game, instead choosing the game for children who ‘try really, really hard’.
Interestingly, the kids were tasked with guessing which of four children, two boys and two girls, got the best grades at school. All girls aged 5-7 were just as likely to select their gender as having top grades, suggesting that girls' perceptions of school achievements aren’t the same as their perceptions of brilliance, or ‘high levels of cognitive ability’.
If girls are thinking like this aged six, it’s likely to affect their decision when choosing a career path later on. The age-old stereotype that boys are better than girls at maths affects girls’ performance in this subject at school, undermining their interest in maths-based fields as they grow up.
Researchers behind the study say that these early ideas about gender and intelligence could be a reason there are less women getting degrees - and jobs - in high-intelligence fields such as neuroscience and engineering.
The study says: ‘Cultural messages about the presumed cognitive abilities of males and females are likely to be influential throughout development, meaning many capable girls are likely to have already veered away from certain fields by the time they reach college.’
I spoke to a 20-year-old research assistant in polymer science about the decision to study science at a higher level, and what challenges she’s faced so far.
She said: ‘I never really wanted to study science growing up, but I always understood it and just 'got it'. I also liked the idea of being able to prove myself, since my brother was quite an inspiration for me having done so well in physics at university.
‘I can vouch for the fact that I wasn't really encouraged at school, in any academic respect. I definitely got patronised and still get patronised now - it's a matter of trying to prove myself constantly.
‘I’m not really taken seriously in the lab here - maybe because I’m only a Bachelor’s student - but I definitely think it’s also because I’m one of so few girls working here.’
Andrei Cimpian, co-author of the research from New York University, said he hopes the study will ‘help develop interventions to prevent stereotypes from affecting women’s career choices’.
And with the number of women working in the STEM sector being traditionally low, we hope it will too.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.