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Media articles about women in STEM often emphasize gender in ways that may reinforce stereotypes. In an archival study examining 172 articles from four major US and UK newspapers on women, Nobel laureates from 1903 to 2020, we find that over time, reporters are more likely to describe the scientist as a woman and less likely to mention her husband’s job. A follow-up experiment (N = 452) revealed no significant effects of an article that emphasizes the gender of a woman scientist on gender biases. These findings suggest that articles about women in STEM may emphasize gender rather than scientific accomplishments, but the ways in which they do so have changed over time and this emphasis may not affect readers’ gender bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the effect of biases and stereotype threat on women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields is well documented, less is known about how men and women attribute an undergraduate woman’s anxieties in a STEM class. We examined how undergraduate men and women perceive a woman facing emotional struggles in a physics class (Study 1, N = 309; Study 2, N = 271) and having her contributions ignored in an environmental science class (Study 3, N = 344) in three studies and an internal meta-analysis. Across the studies and meta-analysis, we found gender differences in reactions to the stories. Men were less likely than women to attribute the student’s anxiety to bias-related factors, such as awareness of stereotypes or instructor treatment, and more likely than women to attribute the anxiety to the student’s lack of preparation. Women were more likely to view the narratives as reflecting real-life experiences of women in STEM. The results indicate a lack of awareness, on the part of undergraduate men, of the difficulties faced by women in STEM classes. Based on the current findings, educators and researchers should consider the role that gender plays in how women’s emotional responses in STEM contexts are interpreted. Additional online materials for this article are available on PWQ’s website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/0361684318754528 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In three studies (total N = 619), the authors tested an evolutionary hypothesis: Men are more bothered by sexual than emotional infidelity, whereas the reverse is true of women. More diverse samples (in age) and measures than is typical were used. In Study 1, the authors found across gender, sample, and method that sexual infidelity was associated with anger and blame, but emotional infidelity was associated with hurt feelings. The evolutionary effect was replicated with undergraduates but not with the nonstudent sample. In Study 2, narrative scenarios were used; it was found that nonstudent men and women were more hurt and upset by emotional infidelity but were made angrier by sexual infidelity. In Study 3, using Likert-type scales, scenarios, and a nonstudent sample, it was found that both genders were more upset, hurt, and anger about sexual than emotional transgressions when rating one kind without hearing the opposite type. The implications for how emotional responses evolved are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In two studies, the present research tested whether a paper-based game intervention that guides participants into understanding and questioning their assumptions about gender can decrease biases. Participants in Study 1 ( N  = 143 college students) and Study 2 ( N  = 341 high school students) played a game in which they either had to realize that a scientist character was a woman (Intervention condition) or a professor (Control condition) to solve the mystery. Across both studies, in a game with a storyline that included both male and female scientists, the vast majority of students who used gendered pronouns assumed that non-gendered scientist characters were men. In Study 1, playing the Intervention version of the game had no effect on college students' explicit or implicit attitudes toward women in science. In Study 2, there was a positive effect of the Intervention condition on implicit attitudes: participants in the Intervention condition were less likely to describe a female professor as a man than were participants in the Control condition. However, there was a negative effect of the Intervention condition on explicit attitudes toward women in science. Taken together, the present research points to the continued need for research on raising awareness of bias and developing interventions that can decrease biases while avoiding defensiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]