VANCOUVER — Telling a female that girls aren't naturally good at math will probably make her bomb out on tests, researchers at the University of British Columbia have found.
Though the research adds fuel to the long-simmering debate on gender difference in math ability, the UBC team says its study also has implications for how scientists should handle discoveries of genes linked to mental and physical conditions.
The researchers set out to explore if giving women different explanations for the stereotype that they can't do math would impact their actual performance.
It's a concept known as stereotype threat, in which being reminded of long-held beliefs about a group to which you belong will make you act in accordance with that stereotype.
Over three years, researchers gave 135 women tests similar to those used for graduate school entrance exams. Each woman was expected to perform a challenging math section, but not before reading an essay that dealt with gender difference in math.
Of the four essays, one argued there was no difference, one argued the difference was genetic and a third argued the difference stemmed from the way girls were taught in elementary school.
The fourth essay covered the subject of women in art; it has long been held by researchers that simply reminding a woman of her gender will negatively impact her test performance.
Though the essays were made up, the results were startling real.
The women told prior experience determined their math ability got twice as many answers right on the exam as women told their genetics were to blame.
“I was surprised how powerful the reduction in the threat due to experiential accounts was,” said Ilan Dar-Nimrod, a doctoral student and the lead author of the study.
The women who were simply reminded of their gender also performed worse than those told their was no difference in gender abilities in math.
Even talking about the possibility there could be a gender difference in math skill can be quite controversial. This past summer, Harvard president Lawrence Summers was forced to resign after suggesting that women are under-represented in science because they lack the innate abilities to perform.
Why women don't perform at the same level as men in math doesn't matter to Barbara Keyfitz, president of the Association for Women in Mathematics.
She said the impact of stereotypes on women's performance in math is “minor and irrelevant” and what really matters is ensuring women have strong role models and leadership in math fields to break the stereotypical mould.
From the researchers' point of view, the reason women buy into the stereotype is what's most alarming about their research.
“The influence of genes on behaviour is enormously complex but unfortunately the way these messages are conveyed are in grossly simplified terms,” said Steven Heine, an associate professor of social psychology at UBC and the co-author of the study.
He cited the example of the discovery of a link between genetics and obesity.
“People seem to interpret it as meaning that if I have this gene I must become obese,” he said.
“The relations between genes and behaviour are very complex and unfortunately people do view them in more deterministic terms than they ought to.”
