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Symposium

Collective and individual consequences of gender stereotype

Amanda Haraldsson (1) and Iris Meinderts (2)

(1) European University Institute; (2) KU Leuven

Despite recent research suggesting gender stereotypes are changing, stereotypes about both men and women persist in society. Such stereotypes can have a wide variety of consequences at the individual as well as at the collective level. In this symposium, we will address some of these consequences in four presentations (15 minute presentation and 5 minute discussion time each). The first presentation examines the impact of media discrimination on the political ambition gender gap, using results from two studies. The second presentation will concern itself with belonging comparisons between STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) domains and how these can explain high school girls’ variability in STEM interest. The third presentation will focus on how being faced with stereotyping can make people uncertain about how they are evaluated in specific situations, which can lead to fluctuations in their self-knowledge and self-esteem. The last presentation will explore how certain health and wellbeing disadvantages for men could be explained by the strength of men’s gender identification and their perception of masculinity as something that is easily lost and needs to be repeatedly proven socially.

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Speaker 1: Effect of media discrimination on men and women’s political ambition

Amanda Haraldsson (1)

(1) European University Institute

Very little research has considered how media discrimination could impact men and women’s political ambition, rather than voter demand for women in politics. This talk will present a theoretical framework that highlights how media discrimination (which under-reports on women in politics and uses traditional and stereotypical depictions of men and women) can lead to both implicit and explicit processes, which can both positively or negatively impact men and women’s political ambition. Specifically, benevolent media discrimination is argued to contribute to gendered socialisation, which, through implicit processes that strengthen gender role adherence, lower women’s political ambition while sustaining men’s high political ambition. Hostile media discrimination instead is argued to lead to explicit processes, which can reduce men’s political ambition through a dampening effect of seeing politics as a negative domain. Hostile media discrimination is argued to have the potential to both increase and decrease women’s political ambition. It can be seen as a signal of women’s low status, leading to dis-identification with politics as a self-protection strategy. On the other hand, it can be seen as a signal of injustice against women, leading to feeling challenged to enter politics as a collective-action strategy. To illustrate some aspects of this theory, selected findings of a lab experiment are pointed to. Both the theory and the lab experiment suggest that further exploration of how media discrimination relates to the supply-side of women’s political underrepresentation is needed, as well as how factors such as gender identification and rejection sensitivity can interact with media discrimination.

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Speaker 2: Belonging comparisons between STEM domains explain high school girls’ variability in STEM interest

Jenny Veldman (1,2), Colette Van Laar (1), Dustin Thoman (3) and Carolien Van Soom (1,4)

(1) KU Leuven; (2) Research Foundation – Flanders; (3) San Diego State University, USA;
​(4) Leuven Engineering & Science Education Center (LESEC)

In trying to understand women’s underrepresentation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), most research to date focuses on one STEM field, or collapses across all STEM fields. However, these fields differ vastly in terms of women’s representation: women tend to be most strongly underrepresented in technological and computer science university majors and to a lesser extent in mathematics and chemistry, while they tend to be less underrepresented in biological science majors. We argue that to understand this variability it is key to examine how girls in the process of making higher education choices compare different STEM fields to each other. We draw upon dimensional comparison theory, which argues that educational motivation involves intra-individual comparisons of achievement across school subjects. However, previous research has shown that a focus on achievement in STEM is not enough, anticipated belonging in a STEM field plays a pivotal role in interest in pursuing that field. Therefore, we examined participants’ comparisons of anticipated belonging in different STEM fields. A sample of 343 high school girls in STEM-focused preparatory university tracks completed a survey on their anticipated belonging and interest in pursuing different STEM majors. Latent Profile Analysis resulted in 3 profiles, which showed different patterns of belonging comparisons across STEM fields. Examination of these belonging comparisons – both within a profile and across profiles – provided insight into variability in girls’ interest in pursuing the different STEM fields, and helped understand how they feel pushed away from certain STEM fields and pulled toward others.

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Speaker 3: Evaluation uncertainty in response to stereotyping and fluctuations in self-knowledge and self-esteem

Iris Meinderts (1), Jenny Veldman (1) and Colette Van Laar (1)

(1) KU Leuven

Members from stigmatized groups continue to be underrepresented in various fields (e.g., women in STEM fields). This project focuses on the barriers that stigmatized individuals face in their ability to adequately pursue upward mobility. While engaging in upward mobility behaviors (e.g., applying for a job or promotion), having a well-defined and accurate understanding of one’s capabilities is crucial. However, there is some evidence that members from stigmatized groups who more readily perceive and/or expect to be stereotyped have less accurate and less stable insights into their capabilities in stereotype-related domains. More evidence as to this finding and its underlying processes is needed. In this experiment, we focus on one underlying process that could explain how experiencing stereotyping can lead to a more unstable self-concept: uncertainty about how one is evaluated in feedback situations. Previous research has established that members of stigmatized groups can in some situations experience a state of uncertainty as to whether the evaluation they received was caused by personal deservingness or the stereotypes that the evaluator had against their group. In the larger project too then, we examine if uncertainty about how one is evaluated can interfere with individual’s ability to develop clear and stable insight into their capabilities, and if this can spillover to other work/mobility-related areas.

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Speaker 4: Men’s health behavior and wellbeing obstructed:
​The role of gender identification and precarious manhood in three domains

Aster Van Rossum (1), Colette Van Laar (1) and Daan Scheepers (2,3)

(1) KU Leuven; (2) University of Leiden, NL; (3) ​University of Utrecht, NL

It has been well documented that men have a shorter life expectancy and a higher suicide rate than women, and there is preliminary evidence that traditional masculinity norms may be linked to such health and wellbeing risks. However, most health researchers have examined these issues from a clinical perspective and not much is known about the underlying social psychological mechanisms that may explain such outcomes. This project aims to build a bridge between social psychology and health research by examining social identity processes leading to lower health and wellbeing outcomes for men. More specifically, we look at the strength of men’s gender identification and of the belief that their masculinity is easily lost and needs repeated social proof (i.e., precarious manhood beliefs). We propose that a strong identification as a man and such beliefs interact, leading to unfavorable outcomes in three domains: First, more unhealthy behavior, second, generally lower health benefits of friendships, and third, generally less communal self-views compared to women. We use cardiovascular measures of challenge and threat to assess the underlying role of threat more directly and continuously. Moreover, we use a priming method to examine whether the link between precarious manhood and undermined health and wellbeing can be broken, opening the way to interventions.