Gender bias in the classroom: A network study on self and peer ability attribution

Stereotypes can contribute to the gender gap in STEM by shaping people’s expectations on their own and others’ performance. When gender is salient, expectations on task performance might reflect gender constructs even when information on individual abilities is available. We tested this hypothesis in a network study on students from ten high school classes in Milan, Italy. We asked the students to choose the four best candidates from their classmates for three hypothetical inter-class competitions in reading, math, and science. Results showed that females were more likely to be nominated for the reading competition but less likely for science. We did not find any statistically significant results for the math competition. We also found that female students were less likely to nominate themselves for any competition, regardless of the subject, even controlling for their own performance and self-concept.     

A Fall from Grace: Women,Scandals, and Perceptions of Politicians

ABSTRACT

While political scientists have researched explanations for the dearth of women in elected office for decades, no consistent account has emerged. We enter the discussion using an original experimental survey on an adult sample at the national level to examine whether gender stereotypes affect the evaluation of candidates running for office. We specifically look at situations where there is alleged wrongdoing to explore whether evaluations are asymmetrically applied to men and women. We find that voters treat candidates differently, exhibiting a general preference for women. When malfeasance is alleged, however, women suffer greater consequences for wrongdoing under certain conditions, potentially as a result of a “backlash” effect for violating gender norms.     

The “Cougar” Phenomenon: An Examination of the Factors That Influence Age‐Hypogamous Sexual Relationships Among Middle‐Aged Women

Using data from the National Survey of Family Growth, the authors considered the prevalence of the “cougar” phenomenon and the characteristics of middle‐aged women who reported having sexual relationships with younger men in the past 12 months. They found that roughly 13% of sexually active women between ages 35 and 44 had slept with a man who was at least 5 years younger. Contrary to conventional assumptions, the results show that women with low incomes and those who self‐identify as “other race” (not White or Black) are more likely to be in an age‐hypogamous sexual relationship. Relative to all other relationship statuses, previously married women are the most likely to choose younger partners. Finally, the results suggest that age‐hypogamous relationships are not simply “flings”; a majority of them last at least 2 years, and a sizable share of “cougars” are married to their younger partners. These results highlight the need to reconsider our conventional understanding of women's sexual relationships at midlife.     

Floating Call Boys and Agile Homosexuals: Homophobia/Venice/History

Because works of nonfiction are always composed of literary tropes and metaphors, they have to be read critically for the ways in which their truth claims are potentially structured by ideologies and stereotypes. This essay reads passages from Richard Sennett’s sociological analysis Flesh and Stone, The Body and the City in Western Civilization and Joseph Brodsky’s memoir Watermark in order to demonstrate how these alleged works of nonfiction shore up some dishearteningly familiar literary stereotypes of male homosexuality and participate in a tradition, dating from the 19th century, of linking the city of Venice with homosexuality and death.     

‘Expressive-Instrumental Traits and Sexist Attitudes among Spanish University Professors’

In this study we analyze the link between Instrumental/Expressive traits and sexist attitudes. The sample is made up of 496 male and female Spanish university professors (230 women and 266 men). In addition to collecting sociodemographic information from the participants, the following scales were administered: the Personal Attributes Questionnaire by Spence and Helmreich (PAQ, 1978); the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory [ASI, Glick and Fiske: 1996, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70, pp. 491–512]; and the Neosexism Scale [Tougas et al.: 1995, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21(8), pp. 842–849]. The data reveal that while the participants in our study subscribe less to sexist attitudes than the general population, the men continue to hold more hostile and benevolent sexist attitudes than do the women in our study. Surprisingly, however, we find that both female and male professors are less favorable toward affirmative action aimed at increasing women’s presence in the public sphere than the general population. As expected, women and men are equally instrumental, although women continue to show a greater number of expressive traits than men. Conversely, men score higher on instrumentality/expressiveness, which correlates positively with instrumentality and negatively with expressiveness. We also find some significant differences in levels of instrumentality and expressiveness when comparing the male and female professors and taking field of study into account. Lastly, we find negative correlations between expressiveness and Hostile Sexism (HS) and between masculinity and HS among women, and between expressiveness and Benevolent Sexism (BS) among men. To conclude, we offer some insight into the potential implications of these results.     

Collective memory and intergroup relations

Abstract

The paper stresses the utility of a closer link between recent reassessments of social and collective dimensions of memory and the lines of research on intergroup relations. We maintain that by this link, suprisingly not fully explored to date, both fields could profit significantly. On one side, it is possible to highlight the crucial role of collective memories in the definition of identities and of boundaries of groups. On the other side, it could be argued that the study of the ways in which collective and social memories are actually performed in intergroup context may improve the understanding of the processes involved. In our opinion, a full development of this link have been hindered by a widely diffused individualistic reading of some classical contributions in the field of collective memory, and by the growing radicalism of recent socio-constructionist approaches to the same topic. As to the first point, we propose a new reading of Bartlett's work; as to the second, we support the reduction of the clash between cognitive and socio-constructionist approaches on memory research.     

Perceptions of Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivors: Development and Initial Validation of a New Scale to Measure Stereotypes of Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

The Childhood Sexual Abuse Stereotypes Scale was developed to assess stereotypes of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Scale items were derived from two studies that elicited cultural and personal beliefs about, and emotions experienced towards adult childhood sexual abuse survivors among university undergraduates. Two scales, Emotions and Characteristics, were developed and administered online to 182 participants. Exploratory factor analysis produced 7 factors, 4 for the Emotions Scale and 3 for the Characteristics Scale. Study 2 replicated this factor structure using confirmatory factor analysis (N?=?457). Reliability and validity analyses suggest that the Childhood Sexual Abuse Stereotypes Scale has satisfactory psychometric properties. The Childhood Sexual Abuse Stereotypes Scale can be used to examine stereotypes of legal and health care professionals likely to work with survivors as well as in stereotyping research.     

Korean Children's Evaluation of Parental Restrictions Regarding Gender‐stereotypic Peer Activities

Korean children's evaluations of parental restrictions of children's activities based on gender stereotypic expectations were investigated. Third and sixth grade Korean (N = 128) children evaluated scenarios in which a boy or girl desired to play ballet or soccer. Participants used stereotypes to support children's desires to play gender‐consistent activities and adhered to parental authority for choice of gender‐consistent social activities. Yet, they also rejected parental decisions to treat sons and daughters differently based on the view that it would be unfair. Stereotypic expectations decreased with age and were used more by boys than by girls when evaluating exclusion. The results are discussed in terms of exclusion, development, and culture.     

The Witch and the Warrior

This study used frame analysis to explore gendered frames and archetypes in the news coverage of two mass shootings, in which both suspects were White, middle-class university professors: Amy Bishop at the University of Alabama and George Zinkhan at the University of Georgia. Three people were killed in each of the shootings, but the amount of coverage on Bishop exceeded by about four times the amount of news about Zinkhan—a difference whose magnitude can hardly be explained only by the circumstances of the shootings. Although the female professor committed murder in a professional setting, due to dissatisfaction with a career outcome, the coverage focused on her personal life and alleged psychological instability, in line with the archetype of the “Female Monster.” By contrast, the coverage of Zinkhan's crime, committed in highly personal circumstances—the murder of his wife and two men at a picnic—fit a patriarchal, Othello-like archetype of a man embroiled in a crime of passion, and focused mostly on his successful career, lacking an investigation of past abusive behavior that may have preceded the murder. The news coverage serves to exemplify the societal discourse on women and men who kill.