Ability

[flexibeast]

Women perform differently on math tests depending on whether they believe math-related gender differences are determined by genetic or social differences, according to University of British Columbia researchers.

In a paper to be published in the Oct. 19 issue of Science magazine, UBC investigators Ilan Dar-Nimrod and Steven Heine explore how women's math performance is affected by stereotypes that link female underachievement to either genetic or experiential causes. . . .

Heine and Dar-Nimrod found the worse math performances belonged to women who received a genetic explanation for female underachievement in math or those who were reminded of the stereotype about female math underachievement. Women who received the experiential explanation performed better – on par with those who were led to believe there are no sex differences in math.

[ Women's math performance affected by theories on sex differences: UBC researchers ]

Comments

[moominmuppet.livejournal.com]

And it shows how importent winning the culture wars are, if we let the biological determinist tell us what we can do we might believe them.

Entirely too true.