Bin, Leslie, Cimpian. (2017). Gender stereotypes about intellectual ability emerge early and influence children’s interest. Science, 1-3.
Purpose
High intellectual ability is associated with men more than women because of stereotypes. This association influences many women into thinking they should not pursue certain professional fields and therefore discourages them from going forward into such fields. Children as young as 6 acquire this dissociation and endorse it. The purpose of this study was to analyze how acquisition of gendered notions on brilliance effect a child. A series of studies were conducted to analyze findings in order to make a feasible hypothesis. It was not until study four was conducted that the hypothesis was clear in that five year old boys and girls interest in novel games from Study 3 would not differ because their is no contrast in perception of brilliance whereas six years old girls interests in the novel games would be lower than the boys.
Literature
The literatures discussed in the article covered a variety of aspects that pertained to how girls versus boys acquired ideas based on their gender. The literatures were relevant because they educated on how certain gender notions, when acquired, influenced the development of males versus females. For example, the article stated that from an early age the gender notion that men are more brilliant than women resulted in women less likely pursuing careers that required a high level of thinking i.e. math, physics, and philosophy and later linked it to the possible reason for gender gaps in certain fields. Furthermore, it was also stated that cultural views that are pushed onto children influence them throughout development. Both of these literatures invoke the need to investigate the effects of endorsing the idea that brilliance equates to males from childhood.
Design
A case study cohort type design was carried out in order to conduct the study. All the children that were participating were exposed to the same situation, based on whatever study they were a part of. Each child in each study was observed for the same thing which made it appropriate it because the children were examined for whatever the study was questioning i.e. Study 1 was looking to examine the developmental trajectory of children in order to further understand the purpose of the study as whole. No ethical issues were present in the study; each child was not forced to do any of the activities. The demographics of the children in each study leads to believe that there was a selection/sampling bias. The children being observed were all from middle class families and the majority of the children were Caucasian. The statistical precision of the study is affected because the samples in the study are not a accurate representation of all children across the United States. If more than half of the study is dominated by a certain group then the study leans more towards representing data for the majority group rat...
