Girls as young as six think of 'genius' as an exclusively male trait

New York: Girls as young as six years old believe that exceptional talent is a male trait, according to new "heartbreaking" research into gender stereotypes about intellectual ability.

This stereotype affects girls as young as six and influences their activity choices, researchers said.
Researchers at New York University in the US used a series of experiments to evaluate the beliefs of five-, six- and seven-year-old boys and girls about gender and brilliance.

Women account for more than half the US population, but only 30 per cent of those employed as scientists and engineers in the country.

Researchers investigated several possible factors that contribute to this disparity - including the societal stereotype that associates intellectual talent more closely with men than women.

Stereotypes are powerful. They often influence the types of careers people see themselves in and ultimately choose.

Previous research found that society associates not just ability in math and science with men and boys but also the notion of being "brilliant" - of having raw brainpower.

The researchers wanted to know if this broader stereotype affects girls' choices.

"Not only do we see that girls just starting out in school are absorbing some of society's stereotyped notions of brilliance, but these young girls are also choosing activities based on these stereotypes. This is heartbreaking," said Andrei Cimpian, psychology professor at New York University.

Researchers used the phrase "really, really smart" as a child's way of understanding the concept of brilliance.

In one experiment, children heard a story about a gender-neutral protagonist described as "really, really smart." They then selected the most-likely protagonist from among pictures of two men and two women.

Separately, researchers asked the children to pair certain words like "smart" with either a man or a woman. Using these and similar tests, researchers were able to assess children's stereotypes about gender and intellectual ability.

The scientists also asked girls and boys to evaluate their preferences for two games - one for "really, really smart" children, the other for children who try "really, really hard."

By age six, girls were already significantly less likely than boys to say that members of their own gender were "really, really smart," the researchers found.

Those same girls were more likely to avoid games described as for children who are "really, really smart." At age five, these differences had not yet appeared and both boys and girls associated brilliance with their own gender similarly.

Researcher's previous work, focused on adults, found that women are most underrepresented in fields whose members perceive "brilliance" or innate talent as crucial for success - fields that include many of the sciences.

The study was published in the journal Science.