STUDY: "Interacting with sexist men triggers social identity threat among female engineers"

[ms_geekette]

How do you feel about the statements/data presented in the following abstract? (my thoughts are behind the cut at the end of this entry)

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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
2009 Volume 96, Issue 6

Comments

[fauxklore]

I would not find it particularly surprising that being in an environment that undermines one's confidence would affect one's performance.

Some of us are perfectly capable of saying "ha! I'll show them" but plenty of people are not.

The two questions I have are:

1) what exactly was the behavior of the sexist men? It says they acted in "a dominant and sexually interested way towards an ostensible female classmate." That's pretty non-specific. (And what do they mean by "an ostensible female classmate"? Either the classmate was or wasn't female or the woman was or wasn't a classmate.)

2) What actions, if any, are being recommended as a result of this study? If it led to greater vigilance about harassment, that could be a good thing.

[ms_geekette]

"I would not find it particularly surprising that being in an environment that undermines one's confidence would affect one's performance."

If the test subjects were exposed to sexist behavior over a prolonged period of time, THEN I could believe aspects this study, but the abstract sorta gives the impression that it was a "one-time event" sorta thing. Losing your confidence to the point of your work being affected negatively does not necessarily occur overnight. And a person can be led to feel inferior and it not be tied to gender...but does "feelings of inferiority" equal "decreased testing ability"?

I guess I don't totally buy the whole "FEELING 'stupid'" leading to "BEING 'stupid' in engineering subjects *ONLY*." ;-)

Hopefully I'll get my hands on this paper today or tomorrow and perhaps some of our questions will be answered...or at least clarified a bit!

[mrs_dragon]

I guess I don't totally buy the whole "FEELING 'stupid'" leading to "BEING 'stupid' in engineering subjects *ONLY*." ;-)

I suppose it depends on what they were made to feel stupid about. I could see being rattled on a test if I've very recently been given cause to feel like an idiot. (It's like those times you make a mistake and then feel so stupid that you botch trying to fix it.)

Eh, I'd have to see more to know how I feel about it.

As a general rule though you have to remember that the people who conduct these studies are not female engineers, so often they are using stereotypes to formulate their hypotheses and to interpret their results.

[mrs_dragon]

Er, I'm having trouble seeing what we disagree on. I never said this work was a bad thing or that the study was a bad thing. However, in my experience many people who are not females in engineering, who mean well often completely miss the boat on things. Often studies can reflect that, which is why I would need to see more to know how I felt about that.

A friend of mine (another female engineer) took a social sciences course that discussed women in the sciences and engineering and how they felt and what would make it better based on "research" and she found the whole thing to be utter baloney. Your mileage may vary.