Rani Nathwani
Pronouns: she/they
Research Mentor(s): Desiree Aleibar
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Psychology / LSA
Program: UROP
Session: Session 4 (1:40pm – 2:30pm)
Authors: Rani Nathwani, Izzy Johnson, Desiree Aleibar, Denise Sekaquaptewa
Abstract
We aim to demonstrate how competitive environments encourage women to distance themselves from stereotypically feminine traits and perpetuate bias towards women ultimate, undermine efforts to foster collaboration within STEM undergraduate majors. Participants were told that the research team was interested in the experiences and perspectives of students in STEM education. They were told that they would answer questions related to their experiences and perspective as a student in STEM and provide advice to another student pursuing their STEM education. Participants completed items related to their gender identification in STEM. Next, women rated the extent to which they endorsed feminine traits. Lastly, women read a vignette about a woman who believed she was the target of bias at school Women rated the extent to which they felt her claim of being the target of gender bias was legitimate. The less important women found their gender to be as a student in STEM (e.g., lower gender identification), the less they described themselves using stereotypically feminine traits (e.g., collaborative, supportive, compassionate; and the more they deny the occurrence of gender bias towards women targets.
