Mothers' and fathers' neural responses toward gender-stereotype violations by their own children.

Gender stereotypes facilitate people's processing of social information by providing assumptions about expected behaviors and preferences. When gendered expectations are violated, people often respond negatively, both on a behavioral and neural level. Little is known about the impact of family kinship on the behavioral and neural reactions to gender-stereotype violations. Therefore, we examined whether parents show different responses when gender stereotypes are violated by their own children vs unknown children. The sample comprised 74 Dutch families with a father (Mage = 37.54), mother (Mage = 35.83), son, and daughter aged 3-6 years. Electroencephalography measurements were obtained while parents viewed pictures of their own and unknown children paired with toy or problem behavior words that violated or confirmed gender stereotypes. In half of the trials, parents evaluated the appropriateness of toy-gender and behavior-gender combinations. Parents showed stronger late positive potential amplitudes toward gender stereotype-violating behaviors by own children compared to unknown children. Moreover, parents' P1 responses toward gender stereotype-violating child behaviors were stronger for boys than for girls and for parents who evaluated gender-stereotype violations as less appropriate than gender-stereotype confirmations. These findings indicated that gender-stereotype violations by parents' own children are particularly salient and viewed as less appropriate than gender-stereotype confirmations.

Amazons among us: Reflections on creating the heroines we need now.

This article describes my recent carved wood sculptures of warrior women as a response to and reimagination of historical and mythological accounts of Amazons. I emphasize aspects of queerness and gender non-conformity in the figurative sculptures through iconographical details. This body of work is grounded in readings of classical mythology and popular culture, as well as reference to historical Amazons and women warriors in African and Indian cultures.

Exploring women's strong preference for women surgeons in breast healthcare.

BACKGROUND: This study challenges the prevalent belief that surgical roles demand masculine traits, potentially limiting women's suitability for such positions. Contrary to this stereotype, we explored the hypothesis that in sensitive surgical procedures, where communal traits are valued, women patients might favor women surgeons. Two experimental studies investigated women's preferences for a man versus a woman surgeon in a breast exam and breast surgery. METHODS: In two studies we experimentally tested women's preferences for a man versus a woman surgeon for a breast exam (a noninvasive and non-complicated procedure), and breast surgery (an invasive and more complicated procedure). Study 2 delved into factors influencing these preferences, including patients' age, stereotypical perceptions of women surgeons as communal/warm, past negative experiences with men and women doctors, and previous body-related trauma. RESULTS: Women consistently preferred a woman surgeon for both procedures and expressed increased willingness to wait for an appointment with a woman surgeon. However, this preference was less pronounced for surgery than for an exam. Study 2 identified the stereotypical perception of women surgeons as communal/warm as the strongest predictor for this preference, along with previous negative experiences with men doctors and age. CONCLUSIONS: While some gender bias persists, this study underscores a notable preference for women surgeons in intimate medical services like breast exams or surgery. This preference holds practical implications for healthcare providers encouraging women's preventive checkups and offers insights for women medical students making residency choices.

Everything changes but nothing changes: gender stereotypes in the Italian population.

PURPOSE: Gender stereotypes refer to consensual or cultural shared beliefs about the attributes of men and women, influencing society behaviors, interpersonal relationships, education, and workplace. The literature has shown the existence of gender stereotypes on career choices, internalization of roles, and school and social experiences and demonstrates the impact of demographic factors on stereotypes. However, all the studies conducted in Italy available in scientific literature analyzed small sample sizes within specific schools of university settings, with a limited age range. METHODS: To assess the current state of gender stereotypes in Italy, we conducted an online survey from October 2022 to January 2023 on the general population residing in Italy. The questionnaire comprised sociodemographic factors and questions about gender stereotypes, investigating six fields: games, jobs, personality traits, home and family activities, sports, and moral judgments. RESULTS: The study involved 1854 participants, mostly women (70.1%) with an undergraduate or postgraduate degree (57.5%). The statistical and descriptive analyses revealed that gender stereotypes influenced respondents' beliefs, with statistically significant effects observed in most questions when stratifying by age, gender, and degree. Principal component analysis was performed to assess latent variables in different fields, revealing significant main stereotypes in each category. No statistically significant differences between men and women were found for the fields home and family activities, games, and moral judgments, confirming that stereotypes affect both men and women in the same way. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show the persistence of gender stereotypes in any fields investigated, although our cohort is predominantly composed of high educational level women living in the North of Italy. This demonstrates that the long-standing gender stereotypes are prevalent, pernicious, and, unfortunately, internalized at times even by successful women pushbacking and sabotaging them unconsciously.

'She is failing; he is learning': Gender-differentiated attributions for girls' and boys' errors.

BACKGROUND: According to gender-differentiated attributions of failure in the STEM field, errors tend to be attributed to internal factors more to girls than to boys. AIMS: This experimental study explored factors influencing gender-differentiated teachers' internal attributions of girls' and boys' errors and the consequent likelihood of teachers' hesitancy to offer educational robotics (ER) courses to them. The predictions were as follows: (1) the likelihood of teachers' hesitancy would be related to gender-differentiated internal attributions of errors based on expectations of a low natural aptitude for girls; and (2) teachers with high levels of gender stereotypes would be more hesitant about offering ER to girls than to boys via the mediation of internal attributions of errors as being due to girls' low levels of natural aptitude for ER. SAMPLE AND METHODS: In this experimental study, 155 Italian teachers (M = 38.59 years, SD = 8.20) responded to a questionnaire at the end of a course on ER in 2022. Teachers randomly read one of two vignettes describing a girl's or a boy's error during an ER course. RESULTS: Results of multiple regression and moderated mediation analyses confirmed both predictions. CONCLUSIONS: In order to reduce the gender STEM gap, the tendency to attribute girls' errors to internal and natural causes should be better inspected.

Did Descriptive and Prescriptive Norms About Gender Equality at Home Change During the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Cross-National Investigation.

Using data from 15 countries, this article investigates whether descriptive and prescriptive gender norms concerning housework and child care (domestic work) changed after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results of a total of 8,343 participants (M = 19.95, SD = 1.68) from two comparable student samples suggest that descriptive norms about unpaid domestic work have been affected by the pandemic, with individuals seeing mothers' relative to fathers' share of housework and child care as even larger. Moderation analyses revealed that the effect of the pandemic on descriptive norms about child care decreased with countries' increasing levels of gender equality; countries with stronger gender inequality showed a larger difference between pre- and post-pandemic. This study documents a shift in descriptive norms and discusses implications for gender equality-emphasizing the importance of addressing the additional challenges that mothers face during health-related crises.

Gender-based differential management of acute low back pain in the emergency department: A survey based on a clinical vignette.

BACKGROUND: Women may receive suboptimal pain management compared with men, and this disparity might be related to gender stereotypes. OBJECTIVES: To assess the influence of patient gender on the management of acute low back pain. DESIGN: We assessed pain management by 231 physicians using an online clinical vignette describing a consultation for acute low back pain in a female or male patient. The vignette was followed by a questionnaire that assessed physicians' management decisions and their gender stereotypes. METHODS: We created an online clinical vignette presenting a patient with acute low back pain and assessed the influence of a patient's gender on pain management. We investigated gender-related stereotyping regarding pain care by emergency physicians using the Gender Role Expectation of Pain questionnaire. RESULTS: Both male and female physicians tended to consider that a typical man was more sensitive to pain, had less pain endurance, and was more willing to report pain than a typical woman. These stereotypes did not translate into significant differences in pain management between men and women. However, women tended to be referred less often for imaging examinations than men and were also prescribed lower doses of ibuprofen and opioids. The physician's gender had a modest influence on management decisions, female physicians being more likely to prescribe ancillary examinations. CONCLUSION: We observed gender stereotypes among physicians. Our findings support the hypothesis that social characteristics attributed to men and women influence pain management. Prospective clinical studies are needed to provide a deeper understanding of gender stereotypes and their impact on clinical management.

Mental health literacy for social phobia in Ghana: Investigation of gender stereotypes and previous experience for recognition rates and prejudice.

BACKGROUND: Mental health literacy (MHL) research has been of substantial interest internationally. Nevertheless, the interplay between beliefs, attitudes, previous experience with mental disorders, and knowledge of Ghanaians on specific mental disorders remains to be understood. The present study explored the interconnectedness between gender stereotypes, prejudice, previous experience with social phobia, and MHL among the general population in Ghana. METHOD: Six hundred and one Ghanaians were recruited for an online experimental study design using a survey approach for data gathering. Respondents were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions (i.e., male and female vignettes) depicting symptoms of social phobia for a hypothetical person. Participants further completed self-reported measures including gender stereotypes (based on Ambivalent Sexism Inventory) and prejudice. RESULTS: Results revealed a 15.5% recognition rate for social phobia. Recognition rates of social phobia did not differ by the experimental condition or by the gender of participants. However, personal experience of social phobia was positively related to an increased likelihood of correctly labeling social phobia among men in the female vignette condition, whereas correct recognition of social phobia was negatively related to prejudice among women in the male vignette condition. In the male vignette condition, men with more hostile sexism attitudes toward men exhibited more prejudice toward their hypothetical male counterpart. In contrast, women with hostile sexism attitudes toward men exhibited less prejudice, but greater benevolent sexism attitudes toward men was associated with more prejudice toward the hypothetical male in the vignette. CONCLUSION: Findings from the current study emphasize the role of the cultural milieu in shaping effective mental health interventions. The results also have implications for promoting MHL to reduce prejudice in Ghana and other developing countries in the region.

Women are expected to smile: Preliminary evidence for the role of gender in the neurophysiological processing of adult emotional faces in 3-year-old children.

Children form stereotyped expectations about the appropriateness of certain emotions for men versus women during the preschool years, based on cues from their social environments. Although ample research has examined the development of gender stereotypes in children, little is known about the neural responses that underlie the processing of gender-stereotyped emotions in children. Therefore, the current study examined whether 3-year-olds differ in the neural processing of emotional stimuli that violate gender stereotypes (i.e., male faces with fearful or happy expressions) or confirm gender stereotypes (i.e., female faces with fearful or happy expressions), and whether boys and girls differ in their neural processing of the violation and confirmation of gender stereotypes. Data from 72 3-year-olds (±6 months, 43% boy) were obtained from the YOUth Cohort Study. Electroencephalography data were obtained when children passively viewed male and female faces displaying neutral, happy, or fearful facial expressions. This study provided first indications that happy male faces elicited larger P1 amplitudes than happy female faces in preschool children, which might reflect increased attentional processing of stimuli that violate gender stereotypes. Moreover, there was preliminary evidence that girls had larger negative central (Nc) responses, associated with salience processing, toward female happy faces than male happy faces, whereas boys had larger Nc responses toward male happy faces than female happy faces. No gender differences were found in the processing of neutral and fearful facial expressions. Our results indicate that electroencephalography measurements can provide insights into preschoolers' gender-stereotype knowledge about emotions, potentially by looking at the early occipital and late fronto-central responses.

The perceived role fit of women and men academics: evidence from the social sports sciences.

Introduction: The underrepresentation of women in academia is often explained by the presence of gender stereotypes and the perception that women fit the role of an academic to a lesser extent. Based on social role theory and role congruity theory, this study investigates and estimates the perceived role fit of women and men academics in the social sports sciences. Methods: Data were collected with a quantitative online survey. The sample (n = 792) includes individuals who study or work in sports economics, sport management, or sport sociology (referred to as social sports sciences). The questionnaire included items that reflect attributes of an ideal-typical academic as well as women and men academics in four dimensions, i.e., leadership, research methods, media visibility, and research topics. In the first step, these items were used to estimate a total role fit index for both women and men academics, as well as indices for all dimensions. In a second step, regression analyses were used to examine how respondents' individual characteristics (e.g., discipline, career stage, gender, presence of role models) are related to their perceived role fit indices and the differences in the perceived role fit. Results and discussion: The role fit index ranges from 0 to 1, and women have a higher total role fit than men (0.77 vs. 0.75). The results suggest that women in the social sports sciences are perceived as a better fit for the role of an academic. In contrast to role congruity theory, women's leadership fit is higher than men's fit in this dimension (0.79 vs. 0.72). Regarding the associations of individual characteristics, professors seem to perceive a lower role fit for both genders than students. Furthermore, the difference between the perceived role fit of men and women is smaller for women respondents. Having a woman role model leads to a higher fit of women academics in the leadership dimension.

Servant versus directive leadership and promotability: does leader gender matter?

Are leaders more promotable when they show servant or directive leadership - and does this hold for women and men alike? Servant leaders are likely seen as more effective, likable, and thus promotable but less prototypical than directive leaders. We argue that differing degrees of communion (i.e., warmth, morality) and agency (i.e., competence, dominance) underlie the relationship of servant and directive leadership with leaders' promotability. Based on expectancy-violation theory, we assume that men benefit more from servant leadership and women benefit more from directive leadership. Servant leadership aligns more with communion and stereotypes about women. In contrast, directive leadership aligns more with agency and stereotypes about men. These differences may result in gender-biased evaluations threatening fairness in leadership promotions. In a pre-study, servant leadership was more expected of women leaders than of men leaders. However, directive leadership was equally expected of women leaders and men leaders. An experimental vignette study (N = 454) revealed that servant leaders were seen as more effective, likable, and promotable than directive leaders, regardless of gender. Perceived leader warmth, morality, and competence were positively, and dominance was negatively, related to leader effectiveness and leader liking, which were positively related to leader promotability. We also investigated whether raters' gender role beliefs influenced the evaluations, which they did not (as reported in the Supplementary material). Concluding, women and men profit equally from exhibiting servant compared to directive leadership.

Differences between prescriptive and proscriptive gender stereotypes and gendered self-evaluations in Sweden.

This study investigates prescriptive (how women and men should be) and proscriptive (how women and men should not be) gender stereotypes in Sweden and how these stereotypes relate to self-ascribed gendered traits. In an online survey with students at three major universities (N = 679) it was found that participants believed that the societal view was that women should be more communal than men, but less dominant and men should be more agentic than women, but less weak. In comparison, self-ratings only differed for communion, such that women rated themselves as more communal than men (there were no differences in self-ratings of agency, dominance, or weakness). Thus, prescriptive and proscriptive stereotypes and self-views differed. Women mainly perceived differences between self-ratings and prescriptions of communion, whereas men mainly perceived differences between self-ratings and prescriptions of agency. Moreover, women mainly perceived differences between self-ratings and proscriptions of dominance, and men mainly perceived differences between self-ratings and proscriptions of weakness. Hence, both women and men perceive larger gaps between self-evaluations and societally desired and undesired gender stereotypical traits. Future studies should investigate the consequences of such mismatches.

Dressing up social psychology: Empirically investigating the psychological functions of clothing using the example of symbolic protection.

Clothing behaviour remains an understudied research area within social psychology. Through the present research, we aim to anchor attire as an empirical research subject by investigating the psychological properties of one of its functionalities, namely, to provide protection. We argue that attire's undisputed role in shielding humans from environmental hazards may extend to the psychological level and protect them from the incorporeal consequences of existential threats symbolically. In this Registered Report, a mixed-methods approach links an ecologically valid field study of self-presentation in social media posts during Russia's war on Ukraine (Study 1; N = 248) with supraliminal priming of mortality salience in an online experiment (Study 2; N = 248). Across both studies, we expect that mortality concerns let people accentuate the physically protective attributes of clothing (e.g. more layers of clothing) and resort to more in-group prototypical dress styles (i.e. more gender-stereotypical). Findings show that people adjust their clothing preferences in response to existential threats, favouring in-group prototypical clothing (more gender-typical for both women and men in Study 1) and physically protective attire (higher in women and lower in men in Study 2) during high (vs. low) levels of existential threat. By positioning clothing as a research area within social psychology, our goal is to stimulate a wave of research on its profound role for humankind. Furthermore, we provide a dynamic and robust methodological approach to researching terror management theory.

Gender stereotypes embedded in natural language are stronger in more economically developed and individualistic countries.

Gender stereotypes contribute to gender imbalances, and analyzing their variations across countries is important for understanding and mitigating gender inequalities. However, measuring stereotypes is difficult, particularly in a cross-cultural context. Word embeddings are a recent useful tool in natural language processing permitting to measure the collective gender stereotypes embedded in a society. In this work, we used word embedding models pre-trained on large text corpora from more than 70 different countries to examine how gender stereotypes vary across countries. We considered stereotypes associating men with career and women with family as well as those associating men with math or science and women with arts or liberal arts. Relying on two different sources (Wikipedia and Common Crawl), we found that these gender stereotypes are all significantly more pronounced in the text corpora of more economically developed and more individualistic countries. Our analysis suggests that more economically developed countries, while being more gender equal along several dimensions, also have stronger gender stereotypes. Public policy aiming at mitigating gender imbalances in these countries should take this feature into account. Besides, our analysis sheds light on the "gender equality paradox," i.e. on the fact that gender imbalances in a large number of domains are paradoxically stronger in more developed/gender equal/individualistic countries.

Corrigendum: The impact of pedagogical agents' gender on academic learning: a systematic review.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/frai.2022.862997.].

Gender representations and portrayal of adults in children's television advertising: content analysis of prime cartoon channels in India.

Introduction: Gender stereotyping in television advertising is a universal phenomenon and has the potential to influence children's perceptions of gender roles. Despite India's enormous child population, gender representation in television advertising is hardly researched. Methods: This study was conducted using a content analysis methodology to examine gender stereotypes in children's television advertising in India. A total of 189 unique advertisements were selected from six prime cartoon channels, namely Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, Hungama, Cartoon Network, Discovery Kids, and Pogo TV. A stratified constructed sample of 319 central figures from 102 hours of TV viewing was collected over two consecutive weeks in November 2018 during children's prime-time viewings. Results: This study examines gender role cues in children's television advertising using McArthur and Resko's coding method. The sample was subsequently analyzed using chi-square statistics, and the findings were contextualized and compared with those from other Asian nations. The results indicated that men significantly dominate (voice-over, product authority, autonomous roles, fact-based arguments, other products, end comments, pleasure, and practical rewards), whereas females are stereotyped (dependent roles, product users, portrayal of domestic products in domestic settings, opinion-based arguments, and self-enhancement rewards). Discussion: However, the results reveal a reduction in certain stereotypical aspects, such as a significant increase in women performing voice-overs and portraying characters with product authority and autonomy, while men exhibit increased involvement with domestic products and rewards such as self-enhancement, practical, and pleasure rewards. The theoretical (social learning and role congruity theory) and practical implications for advertisers and marketers are discussed based on these findings.

Using word embeddings to analyse audience effects and individual differences in parenting Subreddits.

This paper explores how individuals' language use in gender-specific groups ("mothers" and "fathers") compares to their interactions when referred to as "parents." Language adaptation based on the audience is well-documented, yet large-scale studies of naturally-occurring audience effects are rare. To address this, we investigate audience and gender effects in the context of parenting, where gender plays a significant role. We focus on interactions within Reddit, particularly in the parenting Subreddits r/Daddit, r/Mommit, and r/Parenting, which cater to distinct audiences. By analyzing user posts using word embeddings, we measure similarities between user-tokens and word-tokens, also considering differences among high and low self-monitors. Results reveal that in mixed-gender contexts, mothers and fathers exhibit similar behavior in discussing a wide range of topics, while fathers emphasize more on educational and family advice. Single-gender Subreddits see more focused discussions. Mothers in r/Mommit discuss medical care, sleep, potty training, and food, distinguishing themselves. In terms of individual differences, we found that, especially on r/Parenting, high self-monitors tend to conform more to the norms of the Subreddit by discussing more of the topics associated with the Subreddit.

Are gender-science stereotypes barriers for women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics? Exploring when, how, and to whom in an experimentally-controlled setting.

Based on Social Cognitive Career Theory principles, the present study sought to investigate whether stereotype threat experiences could act as a barrier and reduce the persistence of women in math-intensive activities. More specifically, we assessed whether the experimental activation of stereotypes about women's lower math capabilities affected the performance, persistence, and self-selected difficulty of engineering students in a math task which required sustained effort. We also evaluated the relationships between these effects and the participants' pre-testing gender-science stereotypes and math self-concept. A sample of 340 engineering students (175 and 165 self-identified as males and females, respectively) were recruited and randomly assigned to a control (Con) or stereotype threat (StA) condition to form four similarly sized groups. All participants rated their self-concept in four academic domains (math, chemistry, physics, and coding), completed the gender-science Implicit Association Test, and a "reading comprehension task" that served to promote the stereotype threat manipulation immediately before facing a modified version of the Math Effort Task (M-MET). We observed that, in the control condition, M-MET performance, self-selected difficulty, and persistence were similar in female and male participants, independent of their gender-science implicit stereotypes but correlated to their math self-concept scores. In contrast, the StA condition triggered opposite effects in female and male students, so they showed decreased/enhanced M-MET performance and self-selected difficulty, respectively. This experimental condition also resulted in enhanced persistence of the male students without affecting the number of trials completed by female students. These effects were correlated with the strength of the participants' gender-science implicit stereotypes but not with their math self-concept scores. In fact, as revealed by finer-grain analyses, stereotype threat only had a significant impact on individuals harboring stereotypical gender-science implicit associations. Therefore, it is concluded that: (1) stereotypes can promote differences between male and female engineering students in their performance, self-confidence, and persistence in math-related activities; (2) These effects seem to be more prominent in individuals implicitly perceiving science as a masculine domain. The relevance of these findings to explain women's enhanced abandonment rates of math-intensive studies is discussed.

Looking beyond workforce parity: addressing gender inequity in pathology.

While women pathologists have made up over one-third of pathologists in the Australian workforce for over 15 years and at least 50% since 2019, they are under-represented in senior leadership roles, scientific publications, grant recipients, editorial boards, key presentations, and professional awards. This is not unique to pathology and is seen in the broader medical and academic community. Barriers to gender equity and equality in pathology, medicine and academia include gender stereotypes, gender-based discrimination, structural and organisational barriers as well as broader social and cultural barriers. A diverse leadership reflective of the whole professional body and the broader community is important for optimal health outcomes. It is the responsibility and moral duty of individuals and organisations to address any gender disparities, inequities, and inequalities by monitoring, identifying, and acting on gender biases and systemic barriers that hinder appropriate levels of representation by women.