Communicating gender-equality progress, reduces social identity threats for women considering a research career
(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)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/19ddc1fe-be30-4eb4-b9d7-c1d9f644597f
- author
- Tellhed, Una LU and Jansson, Anna LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2018-01-26
- 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}}, }