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Communicating gender-equality progress, reduces social identity threats for women considering a research career

Tellhed, Una LU orcid and Jansson, Anna LU (2018) In Social Sciences 7(2).
Abstract
Since the majority of top-level researchers are men, how does this vertical gender-segregation affect students’ perceptions of a research career? In the current study, an experimental manipulation either reminded students of academia’s current dominance of men or of its improving gender-balance. The results showed that women primed with the dominance of men anticipated much higher social identity threats (e.g., fear of discrimination) in a future research career as compared to a control group. In contrast, women primed with the improving gender-balance anticipated much lower threat. Further, the dominance of men prime increased men’s interest in the PhD program, as compared to controls. Women’s interest was unaffected by the prime, but... (More)
Since the majority of top-level researchers are men, how does this vertical gender-segregation affect students’ perceptions of a research career? In the current study, an experimental manipulation either reminded students of academia’s current dominance of men or of its improving gender-balance. The results showed that women primed with the dominance of men anticipated much higher social identity threats (e.g., fear of discrimination) in a future research career as compared to a control group. In contrast, women primed with the improving gender-balance anticipated much lower threat. Further, the dominance of men prime increased men’s interest in the PhD program, as compared to controls. Women’s interest was unaffected by the prime, but their lower interest as compared to men’s across conditions was mediated by their lower research self-efficacy (i.e., competence beliefs). The results imply that communicating gender-equality progress may allow women to consider a career in research without the barrier of social identity threat. (Less)
Abstract (Swedish)
Abstract: Since the majority of top-level researchers are men, how does this vertical gender-segregation affect students’ perceptions of a research career? In the current study, an experimental manipulation either reminded students of academia’s current dominance of men, or of its improving gender-balance. The results showed that women primed with the dominance of men, anticipated much higher social identity threats (e.g. fear of discrimination) in a future research career, as compared to a control group. In contrast, women primed with the improving gender-balance anticipated much lower threat. Further, the dominance of men prime increased men’s interest in the PhD program, as compared to controls. Women’s interest was unaffected by the... (More)
Abstract: Since the majority of top-level researchers are men, how does this vertical gender-segregation affect students’ perceptions of a research career? In the current study, an experimental manipulation either reminded students of academia’s current dominance of men, or of its improving gender-balance. The results showed that women primed with the dominance of men, anticipated much higher social identity threats (e.g. fear of discrimination) in a future research career, as compared to a control group. In contrast, women primed with the improving gender-balance anticipated much lower threat. Further, the dominance of men prime increased men’s interest in the PhD program, as compared to controls. Women’s interest was unaffected by the prime, but their lower interest as compared to men’s across conditions, was mediated by their lower research self-efficacy (i.e. competence beliefs). The results imply that communicating gender-equality progress may allow women to consider a career in research without the barrier of social identity threat. (Less)
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author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
gender segregation, social identity threat, career interest, self-efficacy, academia
in
Social Sciences
volume
7
issue
2
article number
18
pages
11 pages
publisher
MDPI AG
external identifiers
  • scopus:85041345237
ISSN
2076-0760
DOI
10.3390/socsci7020018
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
19ddc1fe-be30-4eb4-b9d7-c1d9f644597f
date added to LUP
2018-01-19 13:14:03
date last changed
2022-03-24 23:40:47
@article{19ddc1fe-be30-4eb4-b9d7-c1d9f644597f,
  abstract     = {{Since the majority of top-level researchers are men, how does this vertical gender-segregation affect students’ perceptions of a research career? In the current study, an experimental manipulation either reminded students of academia’s current dominance of men or of its improving gender-balance. The results showed that women primed with the dominance of men anticipated much higher social identity threats (e.g., fear of discrimination) in a future research career as compared to a control group. In contrast, women primed with the improving gender-balance anticipated much lower threat. Further, the dominance of men prime increased men’s interest in the PhD program, as compared to controls. Women’s interest was unaffected by the prime, but their lower interest as compared to men’s across conditions was mediated by their lower research self-efficacy (i.e., competence beliefs). The results imply that communicating gender-equality progress may allow women to consider a career in research without the barrier of social identity threat.}},
  author       = {{Tellhed, Una and Jansson, Anna}},
  issn         = {{2076-0760}},
  keywords     = {{gender segregation; social identity threat; career interest; self-efficacy; academia}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{01}},
  number       = {{2}},
  publisher    = {{MDPI AG}},
  series       = {{Social Sciences}},
  title        = {{Communicating gender-equality progress, reduces social identity threats for women considering a research career}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/socsci7020018}},
  doi          = {{10.3390/socsci7020018}},
  volume       = {{7}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}