Department of Psychology, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington, United States of America.
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
PLoS One. 2021 Oct 28;16(10):e0258886. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0258886. eCollection 2021.
Despite the global importance of science, engineering, and math-related fields, women are consistently underrepresented in these areas. One source of this disparity is likely the prevalence of gender stereotypes that constrain girls' and women's math performance and interest. The current research explores the developmental roots of these effects by examining the impact of stereotypes on young girls' intuitive number sense, a universal skill that predicts later math ability. Across four studies, 762 children ages 3-6 were presented with a task measuring their Approximate Number System accuracy. Instructions given before the task varied by condition. In the two control conditions, the task was described to children either as a game or a test of eyesight ability. In the experimental condition, the task was described as a test of math ability and that researchers were interested in whether boys or girls were better at math and counting. Separately, we measured children's explicit beliefs about math and gender. Results conducted on the combined dataset indicated that while only a small number of girls in the sample had stereotypes associating math with boys, these girls performed significantly worse on a test of Approximate Number System accuracy when it was framed as a math test rather than a game or an eyesight test. These results provide novel evidence that for young girls who do endorse stereotypes about math and gender, contextual activation of these stereotypes may impair their intuitive number sense, potentially affecting their acquisition of formal mathematics concepts and developing interest in math-related fields.
尽管科学、工程和数学相关领域具有全球重要性，但女性在这些领域的代表性一直不足。造成这种差异的一个原因可能是性别刻板印象的普遍存在，这些刻板印象限制了女孩和女性的数学表现和兴趣。目前的研究通过考察刻板印象对年轻女孩直觉数感的影响，来探讨这些影响的发展根源。直觉数感是一种普遍的技能，它可以预测之后的数学能力。在四项研究中，762 名 3-6 岁的儿童参与了一项衡量他们近似数字系统准确性的任务。任务前的指导因条件而异。在两个对照条件下，任务被描述为游戏或视力测试。在实验条件下，任务被描述为数学能力测试，研究人员想知道男孩或女孩在数学和计数方面是否更好。此外，我们还测量了儿童对数学和性别明确的信念。对综合数据集进行的结果表明，尽管样本中只有少数女孩有将数学与男孩联系起来的刻板印象，但当将近似数字系统准确性测试框定为数学测试而不是游戏或视力测试时，这些女孩的表现明显更差。这些结果提供了新的证据，表明对于那些确实认同数学和性别刻板印象的年轻女孩来说，这些刻板印象的语境激活可能会损害她们的直觉数感，从而影响她们对正式数学概念的掌握和对数学相关领域的兴趣。
