Chapter 6 Notes: Achievement - women are more likely to receive ...
Chapter 6 Notes: Achievement
women are more likely to receive bachelors degrees in nursing and elementary education men are more likely to receive degrees in computer science and engineering women less likely to major in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) men and women equally likely to earn science degree but women tend toward the life sciences whereas men tend toward the physical sciences variety of explanations as to why women do not realize their achievement potential, including ideas that women fear success, lack self-confidence, have lower self-esteem, and are faced with stereotype threat
Individual Difference Factors The Achievement Motive achievement motive: a stable personality characteristic that reflects the tendency to strive for success achievement motive measured by people’s responses to scenes from Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) cards o view card and write story about it o mentions of success, striving, challenge and accomplishment would reflect themes of achievement men who scored high on achievement motivation were found to persist longer on tasks and to reach higher levels of achievement (this was not found for women) o may have been due to cards being more directed at and arousing for men women who have a high need for achievement but believe achievement conflicts with their gender role may conceal their achievement o other response is to adopt highly feminine appearance o or to master both roles – high achiever and traditional female wife and mother Fear of Achievement - fear of success: the association of negative consequences with achievement o for women – feeling unfeminine and social rejection 2 requirements for fear of success: 1) the person must perceive achievement as possible 2) the person must associate achievement with negative consequences Self-Confidence possible that women only appear less self-confident than men problem is that women might start believe the opinions they express about themselves (indicated by self-perception and cognitive dissonance theories) it may be that men overestimate their abilities rather than women underestimating major factor that influences sex differences in self-confidence is the nature of the task sex differences in self-confidence seem to be limited to masculine tasks Response to Evaluative Feedback
others opinions have a stronger influence on women than men women find feedback to be more informative about their abilities than men Self-Esteem one reason why adolescent females have lower self-esteem than males may be that these girls have less favourable attitudes than boys toward their gender role o another reason may be greater emphasis on popularity and increased contact with the opposite sex Stereotype Threat stereotype threat: the salience of stereotypes about women having less aptitude in traditionally masculine domains, may have a negative impact on women’s performance stereotyped groups preform worse than non-stereotyped groups under conditions of threat research suggests that stereotype threat can be nullified if people are informed of it stereotype threat may interfere with performance by reducing cognitive capacity and/or by increasing anxiety Conceptions of the Self independent self-construal: maintain an independent sense of self that is separate from others o seen in men relational-interdependent self-construal: maintain an interdependent sense of self in which others are integrated into the self o seen in women women more likely to describe themselves in terms of relationships to other people, men more likely to describe themselves in terms of their independence from others (e.g. emphasizing person skills or attributes) women think more about other people, pay more attention to others, and have greater recall for information about others two kinds of interdependence: o relational – aspects of the self that emphasize close relationships with other people • more emphasized by women o collective – aspects of the self that are derived from group membership and affiliations • more emphasized by men Attributions for Performance self-serving bias: the tendency to take credit for our successes and blame other people or other things for our failures attribution: the cause we assign to behaviour o internal attribution: located within the person o external attribution: located outside the person o stable attribution: one that does not change across times or situations
o unstable attribution: one that does change across time and situations we attribute behaviour to stable and internal causes if it matches our expectancy (Deaux) in general, men’s success is attributed to internal causes (eg. ability) and women’s success is attributed to internal, unstable causes (eg. effort) or external causes (eg. luck) in general, men’s failure is attributed to external causes or internal, unstable causes (e.g. lack of effort), and women’s failure is attributed to internal, stable causes (e.g. lack of ability)
Social Factors Expectancy/Value Model of Achievement expectancy/value model of achievement: men’s and women’s achievement – related choices are a function of their performance expectancies (will I succeed?) and the value they attach to the area (is this important? Do I care about it?) o performance expectancies and values influence each other it is self-perception of ability rather than the actual ability that predicts whether students pursue a given domain The Influence of Parents entity theory: a fixed view of competence o self-fulfilling prophecy more likely to occur when parents endorse the entity theory of competence parents have stereotypes that boys are better than girls in math and girls are better than boys in verbal abilities, regardless of actual performance parents communicate stereotypes to children by the activities they encourage, they toys they buy, the time they spend with children, and the attributions they make for performance parents’ communications influence children’s ability perceptions, and ultimately, children’s performance The Influence of Teachers teachers initiate more interactions with boys than girls o one reason is that girls are more well behaved and less disruptive than boys boys receive more criticism from teachers girls receive better grades because they are seen as more agreeable and less disruptive boys disruptive behaviour is reinforced by attention from teacher in study, teachers attributed girls performance to effort and boys performance to ability
women are more likely to receive bachelors degrees in nursing and elementary education men are more likely to receive degrees in computer science and engineering women less likely to major in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) men and women equally likely to earn science degree but women tend toward the life sciences whereas men tend toward the physical sciences variety of explanations as to why women do not realize their achievement potential, including ideas that women fear success, lack self-confidence, have lower self-esteem, and are faced with stereotype threat
Individual Difference Factors The Achievement Motive achievement motive: a stable personality characteristic that reflects the tendency to strive for success achievement motive measured by people’s responses to scenes from Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) cards o view card and write story about it o mentions of success, striving, challenge and accomplishment would reflect themes of achievement men who scored high on achievement motivation were found to persist longer on tasks and to reach higher levels of achievement (this was not found for women) o may have been due to cards being more directed at and arousing for men women who have a high need for achievement but believe achievement conflicts with their gender role may conceal their achievement o other response is to adopt highly feminine appearance o or to master both roles – high achiever and traditional female wife and mother Fear of Achievement - fear of success: the association of negative consequences with achievement o for women – feeling unfeminine and social rejection 2 requirements for fear of success: 1) the person must perceive achievement as possible 2) the person must associate achievement with negative consequences Self-Confidence possible that women only appear less self-confident than men problem is that women might start believe the opinions they express about themselves (indicated by self-perception and cognitive dissonance theories) it may be that men overestimate their abilities rather than women underestimating major factor that influences sex differences in self-confidence is the nature of the task sex differences in self-confidence seem to be limited to masculine tasks Response to Evaluative Feedback
others opinions have a stronger influence on women than men women find feedback to be more informative about their abilities than men Self-Esteem one reason why adolescent females have lower self-esteem than males may be that these girls have less favourable attitudes than boys toward their gender role o another reason may be greater emphasis on popularity and increased contact with the opposite sex Stereotype Threat stereotype threat: the salience of stereotypes about women having less aptitude in traditionally masculine domains, may have a negative impact on women’s performance stereotyped groups preform worse than non-stereotyped groups under conditions of threat research suggests that stereotype threat can be nullified if people are informed of it stereotype threat may interfere with performance by reducing cognitive capacity and/or by increasing anxiety Conceptions of the Self independent self-construal: maintain an independent sense of self that is separate from others o seen in men relational-interdependent self-construal: maintain an interdependent sense of self in which others are integrated into the self o seen in women women more likely to describe themselves in terms of relationships to other people, men more likely to describe themselves in terms of their independence from others (e.g. emphasizing person skills or attributes) women think more about other people, pay more attention to others, and have greater recall for information about others two kinds of interdependence: o relational – aspects of the self that emphasize close relationships with other people • more emphasized by women o collective – aspects of the self that are derived from group membership and affiliations • more emphasized by men Attributions for Performance self-serving bias: the tendency to take credit for our successes and blame other people or other things for our failures attribution: the cause we assign to behaviour o internal attribution: located within the person o external attribution: located outside the person o stable attribution: one that does not change across times or situations
o unstable attribution: one that does change across time and situations we attribute behaviour to stable and internal causes if it matches our expectancy (Deaux) in general, men’s success is attributed to internal causes (eg. ability) and women’s success is attributed to internal, unstable causes (eg. effort) or external causes (eg. luck) in general, men’s failure is attributed to external causes or internal, unstable causes (e.g. lack of effort), and women’s failure is attributed to internal, stable causes (e.g. lack of ability)
Social Factors Expectancy/Value Model of Achievement expectancy/value model of achievement: men’s and women’s achievement – related choices are a function of their performance expectancies (will I succeed?) and the value they attach to the area (is this important? Do I care about it?) o performance expectancies and values influence each other it is self-perception of ability rather than the actual ability that predicts whether students pursue a given domain The Influence of Parents entity theory: a fixed view of competence o self-fulfilling prophecy more likely to occur when parents endorse the entity theory of competence parents have stereotypes that boys are better than girls in math and girls are better than boys in verbal abilities, regardless of actual performance parents communicate stereotypes to children by the activities they encourage, they toys they buy, the time they spend with children, and the attributions they make for performance parents’ communications influence children’s ability perceptions, and ultimately, children’s performance The Influence of Teachers teachers initiate more interactions with boys than girls o one reason is that girls are more well behaved and less disruptive than boys boys receive more criticism from teachers girls receive better grades because they are seen as more agreeable and less disruptive boys disruptive behaviour is reinforced by attention from teacher in study, teachers attributed girls performance to effort and boys performance to ability
