Interventions designed to counteract the negative psychological impacts of social marginalization can help close the gender gap in STEM fields. 

One-time exposure to stereotypical depictions of women on television has a greater impact than counter-stereotypical representation on young girls’ perception of STEM careers.

Social forces, such as stereotype threat, can cause women to underperform men in math examinations. This achievement gap can be closed or even reversed when strategies are implemented during testing that eliminate this threat, such as including statements at the beginning of an exam that indicate both genders tend to perform equally well on it.

When women are confronted with negative stereotypes about women and math ability, they underperform on math examinations, and activity in brain regions associated with depression and social rejection is seen.

Encouragement via email can increase female students’ interest in STEM conferences.

An online training program helps women develop the resilience, confidence, and problem-solving skills to persist in their pursuit of PhDs in STEM.

Male and female faculty revealed a 2:1 preference for hiring women across both math-intensive and non-math-intensive fields, with the single exception of male economists, who showed no gender preference.

Female students in all-female classes experience less stereotype threat and perform better in their mathematics grades than their female peers in coeducational classes, with no difference in their language grades.

When female students are reminded of successful role models whom they deem deserving of their success, they feel less pressure to represent their group through performance on a test.

Stereotype threat affects women, but not men, resulting in their underperformance on counter-stereotypical tasks like math.