Bragging About One's School Grades: Gender Stereotyping and Students' Perception of Their Abilities in Science,Mathematics, and Language

Three studies examined stereotypes about the abilities of women and men and their implications for self-evaluation. All the three studies suggest that women are generally perceived as better than men in language and that men are generally perceived as better than women in science and math. Furthermore, Study 1 reveals that female university students in psychology who believe that men are better than women in science feel significantly less able in science, have lower self-esteem, and report lower school average than students who do not believe that men are better than women in science. Study 2 shows that female high school students in a language career track rate their own ability in science less highly and report lower school grades in math when gender stereotypes are salient than when they are not. Study 3 shows that male university students in science tend to rate their own ability in language less highly and report significantly lower school grades in language when gender stereotypes are activated prior to their self-evaluation than when they are not. Overall, the findings suggest that gender stereotypes can have detrimental consequences for self-concept of ability of both male and female students. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.