On the Origins of Gender-Biased Behavior: The Role of Explicit and Implicit Stereotypes

Gender Stereotypes in the Family

“…Gender stereotypes, such as the idea that boys are better than girls in mathematics, can be self-fulfilling prophecies. Exposure to gender stereotypes can negatively affect girls' selfconfidence and aspirations, and ultimately explain the persistent gender gap in mathematics and the under-representation of women in math-intensive STEM fields 1 (Alan et al, 2018;Avitzour et al, 2020;Bertrand, 2020). Parents gender ideology can influence their children through recommendations, transmission of cultural traits, role modelling (Farré and Vella, 2013;Johnston et al, 2014) and investments (Doepke and Zilibotti, 2017).…”

“You need to be super smart to do well in math!” Young children's field‐specific ability beliefs

“…Even elementary school teachers seem to believe that success in math (at the elementary school level) is more dependent on intellectual ability than success in language arts (Heyder et al., 2020). Teachers also seem to believe that some children (particularly boys) can succeed in math simply through their intellectual abilities, without putting in any effort (e.g., Avitzour et al., 2020; J. R. Cimpian et al., 2016). Broader cultural discourse about math and science, including stereotypes about members of these fields as geniuses who work by themselves, without needing anyone's help or collaboration (for a review, see Boston & Cimpian, 2018), might also reinforce the notion that success in these fields requires high levels of intellectual ability.…”

The acquisition of the gender‐brilliance stereotype: Age trajectory, relation to parents' stereotypes, and intersections with race/ethnicity

“…Our focus here has been on parents' stereotypes, but children's stereotypes may of course be shaped by other sources as well (e.g., media, peers, teachers), and the influence of these sources (relative to parents) is likely to increase with age, potentially explaining the observed increase in the strength of children's gender‐brilliance associations. For instance, teachers also view boys as more intellectually gifted than girls (e.g., Avitzour et al, 2020; J. Cimpian et al, 2016), a notion that is reinforced by messages in children's broader cultural environments, from the text on McDonald's Happy Meal boxes (Hourigan, 2020) to the dialogue in children's movies (Gálvez et al, 2019). Research examining whether exposure to these messages predicts (increases in) children's gender‐brilliance stereotypes would be informative.…”

“…On the one hand, we might expect this stereotype to increase in strength with age. For instance, as children grow older, they accumulate exposure to cultural messages that associate brilliance with men (e.g., Avitzour et al, 2020; J. Cimpian et al, 2016). If children absorb these messages, then the extent to which they themselves associate brilliance with men should show a corresponding increase.…”