Signaling Threat: How Situational Cues Affect Women In Math, Science, And Engineering Settings
When female math, science, and engineering students view situations in which they are the minority, they experience more physiological and cognitive vigilance and a lower sense of belonging.
Cite this Article
Murphy, Mary C., Claude M. Steele, and James J. Gross. "Signaling threat how situational cues affect women in math, science, and engineering settings." Psychological Science 18.10 (2007): 879-885.
Murphy, M. C., Steele, C. M., & Gross, J. J. (2007). Signaling threat how situational cues affect women in math, science, and engineering settings.Psychological Science, 18(10), 879-885.
Murphy, Mary C., Claude M. Steele, and James J. Gross. "Signaling threat how situational cues affect women in math, science, and engineering settings."Psychological Science 18, no. 10 (2007): 879-885.
Authors
This article was written by , and , and was originally published by Psychological Science in October of 2007Every person is a member of multiple social groups, and thus everyone has multiple social identities, such as race, gender, socio-economic status, and political and religious affiliations. Research has shown that people often view themselves in terms of their social identity that is most stigmatized in their current setting. One group that contends with the possibility of stereotypes and stigma is women who participate in math, science, and engineering (MSE). Women are woefully underrepresented in MSE, potentially due to gendered socialization of boys and girls, and/or gender-role stereotypes. Another explanation could be that in MSE environments, where women are outnumbered, they feel a lack of confidence, low self-esteem, negative expectations and negative thinking because their social identity is stigmatized. If women are outnumbered in an environment, it may cause even highly capable women to avoid or leave the MSE fields.
Women who watched the gender-unbalanced video reported feeling a sense of belonging that was significantly lower than that of women who watched a gender-balanced video, but both men and women wanted to participate in the conference more when the video was gender-balanced.
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Women who watched the gender-unbalanced video reported significantly less belonging than women who watched the gender-balanced video. Respondents where asked to rank on a scale of 1 to 5 how much they agreed with the statement: “I would belong at this conference”. Women who watched the gender unbalanced video, on average, reported a 3.33, compared to a 4.79 for women who watched the gender-balanced video.
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There was no significant effect of the gender balanced or unbalanced videos on men’s sense of belonging.
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Men and women expressed significantly more desire to participate in the conference after watching the gender-balanced video, than after watched the gender-unbalanced video.
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Women who watched the gender-unbalanced video could better recall the details of the conference video and MSE-related cues in their physical context, compared to women who watched the gender-balanced video. The authors interpret this result as an increase of cognitive vigilance as a result of an experience of social identity threat. These are threats that people experience when they believe that they may be treated negatively because of their social identity.
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Women showed faster heart rates, greater skin conductance, and greater activation of the cardiovascular system while watching the gender-unbalanced video than while watching the gender-balanced video. There was no effect of the videos on these physiological signs for men.
When female math, science, and engineering students view situations in which they are the minority, they experience physiological distress, increased vigilance and a lower sense of belonging.
Forty-seven Stanford University undergraduate students, 25 males and 22 females, were recruited and paid $10 for their participation in this study. Upon arriving at the lab, students were asked their opinions of an advertising video for a math, science, and engineering (MSE) summer leadership conference that Stanford University was considering hosting the following summer. Physiological sensors were attached to the participants to measure cardiac interbeat interval, finger pulse amplitude, finger and ear pulse transit time, finger temperature, and skin conductance level. Participants first watched a 7-minute nature video, pretested for its emotional neutrality, while baseline physiological measurements were collected. Afterward, they viewed the assigned 7-minute conference video. The experimental videos depicted 150 people in either a ratio of 3 men to 1 woman (gender-unbalanced video) or a ratio of 1 man to 1 woman (gender-balanced video). The script, narration, and details of the two videos were identical. Participants were then asked to recall details from the video and their anticipated sense of belonging. They also rated how much they would like to participate in the conference. At the end of the study, participants were led to another room and asked to recall as many details about the experimental room as possible, because MSE-related items had been planted in the room.
Cite this Article
Murphy, Mary C., Claude M. Steele, and James J. Gross. "Signaling threat how situational cues affect women in math, science, and engineering settings." Psychological Science 18.10 (2007): 879-885.
Murphy, M. C., Steele, C. M., & Gross, J. J. (2007). Signaling threat how situational cues affect women in math, science, and engineering settings.Psychological Science, 18(10), 879-885.
Murphy, Mary C., Claude M. Steele, and James J. Gross. "Signaling threat how situational cues affect women in math, science, and engineering settings."Psychological Science 18, no. 10 (2007): 879-885.
