It's easy to polarize America--minority/majority, Republican/Democrat, 1 percent/99 percent, religious/atheist, Simpsons-liker/Simpsons-lover. But America is made up of 50 very different states, and the people in those states all seem to have their own stereotypes about everyone else. Renee DiResta recently mapped out our stereotypes using Google: For each of the fifty states and DC, I asked Google: “Why is [State] so ” and let it autocomplete. It seemed like an ideal question to get at popular assumptions, since “Why is [State] so X?” presupposes that X is true. You can ... Read More
Women, Math, and the Addition of Stereotypes
April 14, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Women and math have a checkered history in the popular imagination. Remember the Barbie doll that said “Math class is tough”? Mattel removed that phrase from the doll’s repertoire in 1992 after an uproar from women’s groups. Thirteen years later, Lawrence H. Summers, then president of Harvard University, suggested that women may be “innately less able to succeed in math and science careers” and later apologized for those remarks, although he eventually resigned his post. The debate gained new life in January when University of Leeds psychologist Gijsbert Stoet and ... Read More
Jeremy Lin and the Post-Racial Playing Field
February 23, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
If he were still alive, Sigmund Freud might have been a Jeremy Lin fan. At the very least, he would have recognized what was going on when an ESPN.com writer used the headline “Chink in their armor” to describe the Knicks’ first loss since Lin took over as point guard. “A suppression of a previous intention to say something,” Freud wrote, “is the indispensable condition for the occurrence of a slip of the tongue.” ESPN offered an apology and fired the headline writer. But the slip of the tongue, one among a list of many other awkward and revealing moments that have accompanied ... Read More
Republicans Like Candidates Who Look Republican
January 10, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Will the Republican who wins the New Hampshire primary be the candidate with the most money, the best message, or … the most Republican mug? While no scientifically proven criteria exists for what makes a politician look like a Republican, plenty of people seem to think they can spot a party affiliation on a candidate’s face. Maybe it’s something in the eyebrows, or the cheekbones, or the cast of a jaw line (or insert your humorous observation here). Whatever it is people are responding to, new research suggests that looking like a Republican may help politicians win over Republican ... Read More
Making Science Girl-Friendly Pays Gender Dividends
July 14, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
If you want to interest girls in science, show how it will help them investigate stereotypically feminine concerns like caring for their skin and hair, says a just-published study in the British Journal of Educational Psychology. After examining a wide array of science textbooks, University of Luxembourg educational researcher Sylvie Kerger concluded that most present real-world examples are "embedded in masculine contexts." But wrapping scientific subjects — at least initially — around female-friendly topics could kindle interest in scientific fields under-populated by women, Kerger ... Read More
No Room for Error With Sex Stereotypes
October 1, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
If you’re drawn to a high-profile line of work generally associated with the other gender, rest easy. Newly published research finds people will respect your choice and accept you in that role. That is, so long as you don't make a mistake. That’s the cautionary conclusion of a team of scholars led by Victoria Brescoll of the Yale School of Management. Writing in the journal Psychological Science, they report that while gender stereotyping may be less overt than in previous generations, those who buck the accepted norms are given only a limited opportunity to succeed. “A ... Read More
Study Confirms Unconscious Linking of Blacks with Apes
July 12, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
Two years ago, just after presidential candidate Barack Obama made his famous speech on race, we reported on disturbing evidence that white Americans unconsciously associate African Americans with apes. Newly published research suggests that connection remains stubbornly lodged in our psyches. “This broadly held association has the power to spontaneously change the content of one’s visual world,” Stanford University psychologists Aneeta Rattan and Jennifer Eberhardt report in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Specifically, they write, white Americans who are primed to ... Read More
Chief Wahoo’s Revenge: One Stereotype Begets Another
April 22, 2010 • By • 9 Comments
When activists petition to remove Native American mascots from the logos of sports teams, the answer of traditionalists often boils down to: What’s the harm? Newly published research provides an unexpected answer. It suggests exposure to one stereotype — however whimsical or benign in its intent — apparently activates others. A research team led by psychologist Chu Kim-Prieto of The College of New Jersey examined the way our brains react to seeing or reading about a Native American sports team mascot. It conducted two experiments using Chief Illiniwek, a mythical figure who served ... Read More
Female Teachers Add to Students’ Math Anxiety
February 5, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
In spite of the multitude of research indicating otherwise, the assumption that boys are biologically better at math than girls is alive and well at schools across the nation. And a new study indicates that when female teachers believe the stereotype, they pass their own mathematical anxiety on to the girls in their classes. While the perpetuation of the idea is troubling, the implications are more so: The girls who believe their gender possesses inferior math skills do significantly worse in the subject than the girls who don't. Researchers at the University of Chicago conducted a ... Read More
Why Have Women Magicians Vanished?
February 5, 2010 • By • 14 Comments
In the early 1900s, Adelaide Herrmann was one of the most famous magicians of her day. She inherited her husband Alexander's magic show upon his death in 1896 and performed internationally for 30 years. A hundred years later, few people could name her as quickly as they would Houdini, and few can name any contemporary female magicians as famous as David Blaine or David Copperfield. Research studies show that female membership in magic clubs and performances hovers around 5 percent. Why there aren't more women magicians is an intriguing question, especially in an age when women are ... Read More
