– Masculinity is more consistent with the culture of science than femininity, persons with masculine personality characteristics will find it easier to merge their performances of gender with performances of science than persons with feminine personality characteristics, and the differing effects of masculine and feminine personality characteristics in scientific settings explain- at least partially- why women are underrepresented in scientific careers.
– The authors find little support for the hypothesis that masculine personality characteristics are especially rewarded in STEM majors.
– For males, higher scores on the BSRI masculinity scale were actually associated with lower odds of majoring in a STEM field, after controlling for STEM self-evaluations.
– The authors assert that because males are already expected to have assertive personalities, males with an especial abundance of masculine personality traits may be viewed by parents, teachers, and peers as excessively aggressive and competitive, and may, therefore, be encouraged to pursue career paths that permit the expression of those attributes more than STEM careers do, such as careers in sports, law, business, or politics.
– However, the authors find that women pay a femininity penalty in STEM majors, while more abundant feminine personality traits in men render them more likely to major in a STEM field, after accounting for occupational values.
– Higher females scored on the BSRI femininity scale was associated with a decrease in the odds of majoring in a STEM field.
– After occupational values were accounted for, males who scored higher on the feminine personality scale were significantly more likely to major in a STEM field.
– Males with particularly nurturing/communal personalities may be viewed by teachers, parents, and peers as having well-rounded personalities that suit them for STEM fields, which not only utilize
analytic thinking, logic, and mathematics, and reflect the disposition that nature can and should be mastered by people, but which also emphasize the social and human benefits of scientific research.
– The authors found a positive association between femininity and majoring in a STEM field for males, they also observed that this effect was suppressed by the positive association between femininity and communitarian/ altruistic occupational values. The contrary effects of nurturing/ communal personality traits and altruistic/ communitarian occupational values for males is somewhat puzzling: males with especially nurturing/ communal personalities were more likely to major in a STEM field, though males with especially altruistic/ communitarian occupational values were less likely to major in a STEM field.
– Females who scored higher on the femininity scale were found to have significantly fewer friends in their major than females who scored lower on the femininity scale, and this relationship was observed among STEM majors only, suggesting a femininity penalty for female STEM majors.
2016 - Gender and Choosing a STEM Major in College: Femininity, Masculinity, Chilly Climate, and Occupational Values
Data are derived from a survey of 752 students aged 19 and older enrolled at a large, public, STEM-oriented research university. Data for this study were derived from a survey sent to the entire student body aged 19 and older at a major Public University, a total of 6,767 students. Data were collected in October and November of 2014. Of those who were sent a survey, 752 completed it.
The main dependent variable utilized in this study is a binary measure of whether or not a respondent majored in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematical field. The authors also predicted
students’ perceptions of the academic climate in their majors. Academic climate was measured by
asking respondents a series of questions about their experiences with professors and peers in their
major.
Regarding peers, respondents were asked to indicate the number of friends they have who
share their major. Participants were also asked how often they feel treated unfairly by professors in their major on a 5-point Likert scale. To further capture academic climate, they asked respondents how often they interact with professors in their major outside of class, and how much attention they get from professors in their major during class.
They measured respondents’ gender identification by asking them to indicate whether they
identified as male, female, or other. To capture gendered personalities, they utilized the BSRI, which asks respondents to rate themselves on a scale of 1-7 on sixty different personality characteristics, 16 of which are designed to capture feminine personalities (nurturing/communitarian), and 18 of which are designed to capture masculine personalities (assertive/instrumental). Rather than treating masculinity and femininity as opposite ends of a single continuum, the BSRI treats masculinity and femininity as
orthogonal personality dimensions. Occupational values were measured using a series of 23 questions on a 7-point scale.
The authors controlled for several other factors thought to explain the gender gap in STEM careers: family roles, academic achievement, STEM self-evaluations, support from parents, and STEM major
preparation. also asked respondents questions capturing their socio-demographic background,
including questions concerning their race (measured as White or non-White), age, and social class background.