It is a common belief that males have superior visuospatial abilities and that differences in this and other cognitive domains (e.g., math) contribute to the reduced interest and low representation of girls and women in STEM education and professions. However, previous studies show that gender-related implicit associations and explicit beliefs, as well as situational variables, might affect cognitive performance in those gender-stereotyped domains and produce between-gender spurious differences. Therefore, the present study aimed to provide information on when, how and who (...) might be affected by the situational reactivation of stereotypic gender-science beliefs/associations while performing a 3D mental rotation chronometric task (3DMRT). More specifically, we assessed the explicit beliefs and implicit associations (by the Implicit Association Test) held by female and male students of humanities and STEM majors and compared their performance in a 3DMRT after receiving stereotype- congruent, incongruent and nullifying experimental instructions. Our results show that implicit stereotypic gender-science associations correlate with 3DMRT performance in both females and males, but that inter-gender differences emerge only under stereotype-reactivating conditions. We also found that changes in self-confidence mediate these instructions’ effects and that academic specialization moderates them, hence promoting 3DMRT performance differences between male and female humanities, but not STEM, students. Taken together, these observations suggest that the common statement “males have superior mental rotation abilities” simplifies a much more complex reality and might promote stereotypes which, in turn, might induce artefactual performance differences between females and males in such tasks. (shrink)

In the study of women in academia, the focus is often particularly on women’s stark underrepresentation in the math-intensive fields of natural sciences, technology, and economics. In the non-math-intensive of fields life, social and behavioral sciences, gender issues are seemingly less at stake because, on average, women are well-represented. However, in the current study, we demonstrate that equal gender representation in LSB disciplines does not guarantee women’s equal opportunity to advance to full professorship—to the contrary. With a cross-sectional survey among (...) N = 2,109 academics at mid-level careers in the Netherlands, we test the hypothesis that in LSB, female academics perceive to hit a “thicker” glass ceiling—that is, they see a sharper contrast between the high representation of women at the lower compared to the top levels. We test whether this predicts female academics’ lower estimated chances to reach full professorship relative to men in LSB. We introduce a novel perceived glass ceiling index, calculated based on academics’ perceptions of the share of women and men in their direct work environment minus their perceptions of gender ratio among full professors in their field. Results confirm that the perceived glass ceiling is thicker in the non-math-intensive LSB compared to math-intensive NTE fields. Furthermore, only in LSB, women perceived a thicker glass ceiling than men. Moreover, only among female academics, the thicker the perceived glass ceiling, the lower their estimated chances to become full professor 1 day. Combined, a moderated mediation showed that for women only, a thicker perceived glass ceiling in LSB compared to NTE disciplines predicted their lower estimated chances to advance to full professor level. No such mediation occurred for men. We conclude that women’s higher numerical representation in LSB disciplines does not negate a male-dominant normative standard about academic leadership and success. Paradoxically, the perceived odds for female academics to reach the top of their field are lower in fields where they are relatively highly represented, and this may pose unique barriers to women’s perceived opportunities for career success. (shrink)

Targeting people living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus, this research examined the prevalence of space-focused stereotypes and their underlying mechanism on behavioral inclinations. Study 1 adopted the explicit nomination and implicit Go/No-Go association tests to explore the existence of space-focused stereotypes of people living with HIV/AIDS. The results demonstrated that space-focused stereotypes were only manifested explicitly with characteristics such as messy, dirty, and gloomy. Study 2 demonstrated a more negative evaluation and community-approaching willingness for communities that include people living with HIV/AIDS (...) than those without HIV/AIDS. Additionally, space-focused stereotypes were found to have an indirect influence on community-approaching willingness; the influence was mediated by both emotional and cognitive factors. These results indicate the deviation of explicit and implicit space-focused stereotypes. More importantly, it revealed that space-focused stereotypes decreased community evaluation and influenced behavioral inclination. This research suggested the existence of space-focused stereotypes on another stigmatized social group. Characteristics of space might be the key to forming space-focused stereotypes. (shrink)