Monthly Archives: September 2015

“Wait, you play World of Warcraft? And you’re a girl? But you look so… normal.”

I have had this conversation, and many variations of it, countless times over the past several years. Inherent in this question are a number of preheld notions and biases. One is that that only boys play role-playing games like World of Warcraft. Another is that any girls that do play are either very masculine or very… weird. And by extension, there is the unsaid implication that the realm of gaming is a place for men. Is this because men are inherently better at action video games, or is their expertise simply a result of practice and experience? I propose that in relation to gaming, and also the issue of inherent cognitive abilities between males and females, it is impossible to completely disentangle the biology from the background.

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Video Games and Spatial Cognition

When we think of action, strategic, or role-playing video games, and the video game culture in general, many of us think of an almost entirely male-dominated world. This is because the vast majority of the population that plays these types of games is male. While women play their fair share of social and music/dance video games, more violent and action-packed games are notoriously void of women gamers. Men also play, on average, about 11 more hours of video games weekly than women and start playing at an average age of 6.6 (as opposed to 9.3 for women) (Phan, 2012).

Interestingly, action video games such as these have been shown to increase spatial cognition ability in both genders. A study at the University of Toronto found that playing action video games can cause changes in “sensory, perceptual, and attentional abilities that are important for many tasks in spatial cognition”. The article also states that action gaming can improve more complex spatial skills, such as mental rotation (Spence, 2010). Spatial cognition and mental rotation are skills that have been shown repeatedly to be significantly greater in males than females. (Newcombe, 2007). This gender gap in the ability to visualize 3D objects in space is an important skill in many science, mathematics, and engineering fields. Therefore, it has often been proposed as one of the main reasons that there are so few women in STEM fields.

One of the key pieces in this argument, however, is that men are inherently better at spatial cognition and that spatial ability is genetic. There are certainly genetic factors (which I will be exploring in the next section). Yet, as we saw earlier, there are activities like video gaming that can cause significant increases in spatial cognition in both genders. When it comes to measuring innate spatial abilities between genders, how do we separate the biological from the environmental? Do more males choose to play video games because they inherently have better spatial abilities, or do activities like video games increase the average male spatial ability down the line?

The Biological vs. The Environmental

In her essay “Taking Science Seriously: Straight Thinking about Spatial Sex Differences”, Nora S. Newcombe discusses the sex differences between men and women in regards to spatial ability. She claims that the most plausible current hypothesis from a biological standpoint is that men and women differ in their sex hormones, the levels of which correlate to spatial ability. Doreen Kimura provides support for this idea from her own research, saying, “prenatal androgen levels are almost certainly a major factor in the level of adult spatial ability” (Kimura, 2007). This would indicate that men are predetermined to have better spatial abilities as adults simply as a result of their hormones. This information could then be used to explain the gender gap between men and women in STEM fields. After all, if the answer is purely biological and women just don’t have the right hormone levels for high functioning spatial skills, it would seem that women aren’t “cut out” to be in STEM.

The issue with this line of thinking, which Newcombe explores in her essay, is that spatial ability is highly malleable. Newcombe explains that spatial abilities in both genders have increased so rapidly in the past century that it would have been impossible for a correlated gene to have changed in that time span (also known as the Flynn effect). She also explores some results from her own meta-analysis. When training undergraduate students in tasks aimed to increase spatial ability (one of these being computer games), Newcombe found that both genders increased their spatial abilities dramatically with effects that lasted for months and showed no signs of leveling off. While there was no convergence in the genders in spatial ability, even after training, she also found that the increases in spatial ability were “far larger than the typical sex difference” (Newcombe, 2007). While Newcombe mentions the latter briefly, she neglects to expand on its implications. If spatial ability can be changed so greatly through academic exercises, musical instrument training, or video games that it can easily span the gap between the genders, how can we say with any certainty that the spatial ability gender gap is biological or innate in origin? What if the difference in spatial ability between the genders is mostly a reflection of how each gender is treated in society and the types of activities each partakes in? We saw earlier how males generally start playing video games earlier in life than females and do so for far longer spans of time. If video games have been shown to increase spatial abilities enough to exceed the gender gap, then who’s to say that they are not responsible for the differences that we see? Even though certain differences in genders may seem biological, there is no way to truly test this theory. Because spatial skills are so malleable, we would in no way be able to account for the multitude of environmental differences and backgrounds that could have extreme effects on these skills.

Of course, it is rather drastic to assume that action video games are the reason for the gender gap in STEM fields. There are certainly numerous other reasons that women don’t pursue math and science careers, most of which have nothing to do with spatial ability. The above logic also operates under the assumption that women don’t participate in other spatial ability-improving activities at equal levels as men, such as playing musical instruments or solving puzzles. But until we can determine the effects that all of these behaviors have on spatial abilities – and at what rates males and females partake in them – we cannot confirm that differences in spatial ability are genetic or inherent. When it comes to our current studies of spatial ability and the gender gap, we simply cannot disentangle the behavioral from the biological.

References

Kimura, D. (2007). “’Underrepresentation’ or Misrepresentation?” Why Aren’t More Women in Science? Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Newcombe, N. S. (2007). “Taking science seriously: straight thinking about spatial sex differences”. Why Aren’t More Women in Science? Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Phan, M. H., Jardina, J. R., Hoyle, W. S. (2012). “Examining the Role of Gender in Video Game Usage, Preference, and Behavior”. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomic Society, 56(1), 1496-1500. doi:10.1177/1071181312561297

Spence, I., Feng, J. (2010). “Video games and spatial cognition”. American Psychological Association, 14(2), 92-104. doi: 10.1037/a0019491

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When we think about who does well in school – who gets the best grades, or seems to know all the answers to the teacher’s questions – we tend to think about people that we consider to be smart. Whether it’s the quiet kid who aces every test or the vocal student with strong opinions, we’ve all had a situation where we’ve sat back and thought, “Wow, that person is really smart!”. This kind of thinking implies that the person was born with some kind of innate ability, that they are merely expressing an inborn genius. Yet, does this mean that the child struggling in his or her math class is simply not gifted in math? That he or she cannot do well and will never be able to do well because he or she doesn’t “have what it takes”? The common mindset with which many approach math and the sciences – that one is talented in the subjects or one is not – could be holding back students from pursuing STEM.

The Gift Mentality

As it turns out, the mentality with which one approaches learning is key to future success. In her essay “Is Math a Gift? Beliefs That Put Females At Risk”, Carol S. Dweck describes studies that measure the effects that mindset can have on learning ability, grades, and motivation to learn.

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There was a general split in the attitudes that students held towards intellectual ability. In each study Dweck describes, one group views intellectual ability as something that can be taught, learned, and improved upon with hard work. In the other, intellectual ability is viewed simply as a gift. During the transition to junior high, when stress levels are high and grades tend to plummet, the study found that students who viewed their intellectual ability as earned, not innate, had significantly higher grades and motivation levels over the following 2 years (Dweck 48-49).

How does this relate to gender?

There is also an interesting gender component to the experiments Dweck describes. In a previous experiment, conducted in 1984, half of fifth grade students were given a test with a confusing section at the beginning. Dweck found that girls, especially girls with the highest IQs, did not cope well with the confusion and were more likely to be unable to learn the material later on in the test. Boys, on the other hand, were not so affected by the confusing section of the exam (Dweck, 47-48). So, what does this mean?

In essence, girls are more vulnerable to a loss of confidence. When the going gets tough, girls are more likely to turn their backs on a previous interest (such as STEM) and pursue something they consider to be easier. In another study, Columbia students taking a difficult calculus class were asked periodically throughout the semester a series of questions. One question asked if they believe gender stereotyping was present in the classroom. The answer to this question was a consistent and overwhelming “yes”. The other question asked about their sense of belonging and comfort in a mathematics classroom. Interestingly, those girls who believed that ability in math was a gift felt a lesser sense of belonging, especially as the semester progressed, and were less likely to want to pursue math in the future. Possessing the mindset that intellectual ability is fixed caused the girls to be more vulnerable to gender stereotyping in a classroom setting (Dweck, 50).

Pulling It All Together

The studies that Dweck described in her essay served to illustrate a number of different points:

1. Girls have equal ability to do well as boys, but are more likely to lose confidence when they hit confusion or difficulty.
2. Those students who view intellectual ability as earned, rather than as a gift, score higher and have an increased motivation to learn.
3. Viewing intellectual ability as earned, rather than as a gift, can reduce girls’ susceptibility to stereotypes and gender biases in STEM areas and can close the performance gap between genders in experimental situations.

I tend to agree with Dweck’s points on the importance of mindset. Yet, it can be hard for me to accept (and I am sure this goes for others as well) that there are no innate biological differences between people that contribute to their successes or failures. In her essay, Dweck includes a quotation from one of the Polgar sisters, one of the best chess players of all time: “My father believes that innate talent is nothing, that [success] is 99% hard work. I agree with him,” (Flora, 2005, p. 82). This implies that we all start out as blank slates, that our environment and how hard we work are the sole factors that do (or do not) result in success. If this is the case, why do some students have to work harder than others to obtain the same grade or level of understanding? By saying that our success relies solely on how hard we work, are we saying that the child struggling in his math class simply isn’t putting in enough effort? This viewpoint is interesting in that it brings a new level of responsibility to the learner; a student would not be able to say that he or she is not doing well at math simply because he or she “isn’t smart” or isn’t “biologically designed” to do math well. Instead, our conscious decisions hold the sole responsibility for if we succeed or not.

Regardless of whether or not there are innate biological factors that contribute to success or ease of learning, Dweck’s data is very conclusive. Intervention programs that she mentions in her essay – in which students are educated about the brain and the nature of ability – increased motivation to learn and eliminated the gender gap in math scores (Dweck, 52). I believe that intervention programs of this kind, at an early age, would be an effective method in reducing the overall STEM gender gap. The effectiveness of these programs relies on some assumptions, however, that are not mentioned in Dweck’s essay. One is that boys and girls have equivalent interests in math and science. While intervention programs can help girls maintain motivation to pursue a STEM subject they are already interested in, it cannot coerce them into finding interest in STEM where none exists. If there is a gap between boys and girls relating to interest in STEM, an intervention program will not have much of an effect on it. So while the long-term effects of intervention programs on the STEM gender gap remain in question, it is still very likely that they can have positive effects on student grades, ability to cope with confusion and difficulty, and motivation to learn.

References:

Dweck, C. S. (2007). “Is math a gift? Beliefs that put females at risk”. Why Aren’t More Women In Science? Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Gender discrimination.

When we hear these words, most of us are immediately filled with negative emotions. Perhaps we imagine a man being selected over an equally qualified woman for a critical job position, or even a woman being harassed as she walks down the street. These are certainly examples of what gender discrimination can be. But what about a woman receiving a prestigious physics fellowship, a fellowship offered only to females? Does this also qualify as discrimination?

Equality vs. Fairness

I am a white female currently living in the United States and choosing to pursue a career in a STEM field. I have been told that, as a woman entering an area of the workplace well known for being male-dominated, I have an advantage. I can’t complain, of course, but I have to wonder: why should I have an advantage? What is it about me being a female that gives me preference over equally qualified males? The only difference between my equally qualified male peers and me is that I am a member of an underrepresented group. Girls of color are told they are at even more of an advantage – to get into top schools, to get hired for jobs in STEM – than their Caucasian and/or male peers.

It seems that in the modern university setting and workplace, there is a constant effort made to reach equality. Equal numbers of men and women, all races represented and accounted for. But is this really what we should be striving for? It is true that having a diverse environment in which to learn or work can promote creative thinking and enhance self-awareness. However, this mindset leads to the development of quotas – for gender, race, socioeconomic status, etc. – that must be considered when choosing which student to accept at a university or which candidate to hire at a company. In the pursuit of fulfilling these quotas, certain minority groups are at an advantage, and consequently, majority groups at a disadvantage.

This is especially true of the math and science fields. There is a distinct lack of women in these fields, and many scholarships and fellowships for women have been created to increase the numbers. Universities, in an effort to maintain equality and diversity, compete to attract the fewer number of competitive and interested women to their campus.

Problems with Using Quotas

Gender and race quotas allow for a diverse and enriching academic or work environment. Yet, how many qualified students or job candidates are overlooked in the search for minorities? If the opposite were to occur – say, a software company preferentially hired males or Caucasians – there would be outrage and cries of discrimination. Hiring or accepting persons preferentially on the basis of gender or race, even if those persons are members of a minority group, fits under the umbrella definition of discrimination. These practices can also be detrimental in the long run to the university or company. If that university or company in question accepts or hires a less qualified candidate for the sake of his or her gender or race, the quality of work received will likely reflect that.

There are advantages and disadvantages to using to quota system. Whether gender or race should play into the decision to hire or accept someone at all is controversial and highly debated. If we want to find the most productive, yet still diverse, environment possible, we are likely going to have to strive for a balance.

Works Cited:

Kimura, D., Ceci, S.J. (2007). “‘Underrepresentation’ or misrepresentation?”. Why Aren’t More Women in Science? Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.