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Exposure to stereotype-relevant stories shapes children's implicit gender stereotypes - PubMed

  • ️Sat Jan 01 2022

Exposure to stereotype-relevant stories shapes children's implicit gender stereotypes

Katharina Block et al. PLoS One. 2022.

Abstract

Implicit math = male stereotypes have been found in early childhood and are linked to girls' disproportionate disengagement from math-related activities and later careers. Yet, little is known about how malleable children's automatic stereotypes are, especially in response to brief interventions. In a sample of 336 six- to eleven-year-olds, we experimentally tested whether exposure to a brief story vignette intervention with either stereotypical, neutral, or counter-stereotypical content (three conditions: math = boy vs. neutral vs. math = girl) could change implicit math-gender stereotypes. Results suggested that children's implicit math = male stereotypes were indeed responsive to brief stories that either reinforced or countered the widespread math = male stereotype. Children exposed to the counter-stereotypical stories showed significantly lower (and non-significant) stereotypes compared to children exposed to the stereotypical stories. Critically, exposure to stories that perpetuated math = male stereotypes significantly increased math-gender stereotypes over and above baseline, underscoring that implicit gender biases that are readily formed during this period in childhood and even brief exposure to stereotypical content can strengthen them. As a secondary question, we also examined whether changes in stereotypes might also lead to changes in implicit math self-concept. Evidence for effects on implicit self-concept were not statistically significant.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Schematic of implicit stereotype measure.

A) and b) practice blocks: participants categorize only stimuli from the target categories (gender) or the attribute categories (math vs. reading) separately. C) and d) critical blocks: participants categorize stimuli from both target and attribute categories, one at a time, with two categories each mapped on one of two response buttons in stereotype-congruent (c) vs. stereotype-incongruent pairings (d).

Fig 2
Fig 2. Schematic of implicit math self-concept measure.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Implicit stereotypes by condition.

Error bars represent standard error of the mean. Scores above zero denote an association of math = male (& reading = female), scores below zero denote the opposite pattern.

Fig 4
Fig 4. Implicit stereotypes by age-group and condition.

Error bars represent standard error of the mean. Scores above zero denote an association of math = male (& reading = female), scores below zero denote the opposite pattern.

Fig 5
Fig 5. Implicit self-concept by condition and gender.

Error bars represent standard error.

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Grants and funding

This research was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant to A.S.B at the University of British Columbia (# 435-2013-0286 and #895-2016-2011). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. No authors received salary directly from the funding agencies. The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.