Study Shows Gender Stereotypes About Being 'Smart' Start As Young As First Grade
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- How young are we when gender stereotypes start to set in?
As WCBS 880's Alex Silverman reported, some new research out of NYU says when it comes to who is smarter, it starts as early as first grade.
The researchers found girls as young as 6 years old are less likely than boys to see members of their own gender as really, really smart. NYU psychology professor Andrei Cimpian is one of the authors of the study published in the journal Science.
"We demonstrate that our society's association of brilliance with males more than females is something that even 6-year-old boys and girls are aware of, which is really strikingly early and heartbreaking to think about," Cimpian said.
The internalization of such stereotypes could discourage girls from going into careers they see as requiring brilliance. So how can we counteract that?
"Instilling a growth mindset in children making them think that they can succeed by really throwing themselves into what they're interested in can really buffer them against these stereotypes," Cimpian said.
In one part of the study, girls and boys were told a story about a person who is ``really, really smart,'' and then asked to identify that person among the photos of two men and two men.
At 5, both boys and girls tended to associate brilliance with their own gender. But as they became older and began attending school, children apparently began endorsing gender stereotypes. At 6 and 7, girls were ``significantly less likely'' to pick the women.
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