Outperformance-Related Discomfort: Another Factor in Women ’s Under-Representation in STEM?

AbstractWhy do women remain underrepresented in some science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields? Research has uncovered various situational factors such as belongingness cues, but one understudied (and related) factor may be outperformance-related discomfort. Specifically, when people outperform others who are upset about being outperformed, they may experience  sensitivity about being the target of a threatening upwardcomparison (STTUC; Exline and Lobel, in Psychological Bulletin 125:307 –337,1999). Three studies examined the potential role of STTUC among women in STEM and how STTUC relates to feelings of belongingness. Study 1 recruited a large internet sample of undergraduate women and found that the tendency to experience STTUC corresponded with relatively low levels of belongingness in both STEM and arts/humanities courses. Replicating prior research, results also showed significantly lower levels of belongingness in STEM vs. arts/humanities courses. Study 2 found higher anticipated levels of perceiving the outperformed person as upset and experiencing STTUC-related concerns among undergraduate women (vs. men) who imagined academically outperforming others. Study 3 examined women and non-binary first-year undergraduates in STEM and found that the tendency to experience STTUC corresponded to relatively low levels of belongingness in STEM at two time points. Taken together, results suggest that experiencing outperformance-related discomfort in STEM may ...
Source: Sex Roles - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research