The worn-out idea of "stereotype threat" suffers another defeat in a failed replication, playing no role in women's lower level of political knowledge

Does Stereotype Threat Contribute to the Political Knowledge Gender Gap? A Preregistered Replication Study of Ihme and Tausendpfund (2018). Flavio Azevedo, Leticia Micheli, Deliah Sarah Bolesta. Journal of Experimental Political Science, March 16 2023. https://doi.org/10.1017/XPS.2022.35

Abstract: The gender gap in political knowledge is a well-established finding in Political Science. One explanation for gender differences in political knowledge is the activation of negative stereotypes about women. As part of the Systematizing Confidence in Open Research and Evidence (SCORE) program, we conducted a two-stage preregistered and high-powered direct replication of Study 2 of Ihme and Tausendpfund (2018). While we successfully replicated the gender gap in political knowledge – such that male participants performed better than female participants – both the first (N = 671) and second stage (N = 831) of the replication of the stereotype activation effect were unsuccessful. Taken together (pooled N = 1,502), results indicate evidence of absence of the effect of stereotype activation on gender differences in political knowledge. We discuss potential explanations for these findings and put forward evidence that the gender gap in political knowledge might be an artifact of how knowledge is measured.

Discussion

Ihme and Tausendpfund (Reference Ihme and Tausendpfund2018) have proposed that the activation of negative gender stereotypes accounts for the variance of the political knowledge gender gap. In our independent and well-powered direct replication, we find no evidence that activation of gender stereotypes affects participants’ performance in a political knowledge test. Indeed, we find evidence of absence of this effect.

We note that some elements of our study design diverged from the original study and could have contributed to the observed non-replication. Our study was conducted with American students and working adults, whereas the original study included German students. As the United States has achieved relatively lower gender parity than Germany in political empowerment (World Economic Forum 2021), one could argue that negative stereotypes about women might be more salient for Americans than Germans, undermining women’s cognitive performance even in the absence of stereotype activation (e.g., in the control condition). Although we cannot rule out that some populations might be more vulnerable to gender stereotyping than others, we have reduced cultural biases as much as possible by devising a political knowledge test that was – at the same time – similar to the one used in the original study regarding the level of difficulty, as our data suggest, and relevant to the American political context. A comparison of the effect of stereotype threat on gender differences in political knowledge across countries with varying levels of gender equality would be beneficial for a better understanding of potential cultural differences in stereotype threat. Second, as a direct consequence of including working adults in our sample, it was necessary to adapt the measure of field of study to encompass the field of work. We argue, however, that this should not have contributed to the unsuccessful replication. If our measure of field of study/work would inadvertently make participants aware of their affiliation with a Politics or Non-Politics group, the effects of gender stereotype activation on performance would presumably become more salient. Instead, our results show that the field of study/work did not influence the results (Tables S16–S17). An argument can be made, however, that the extensive list of topics in our study reduced participants’ self-identity with Politics. Nevertheless, adding participants’ attributed importance of Politics to their study/work as a covariate in the analyses did not change results (Tables S18–S19). We have also conducted further tests restricting our sample to young and educated adults to achieve a sample more similar in composition to the respondents in the original study, but we could still not replicate the effect of stereotype activation on the gender gap in political knowledge (Table S20).

We note that our failure to replicate the effect of stereotype threat on gender differences in political knowledge is consistent with recent research efforts challenging the effect of stereotype threat on academic performance more broadly. Stoet and Geary (Reference Stoet and Geary2012) showed that only 30% of efforts aiming to replicate the gender gap in mathematical performance do succeed. In addition, a meta-analysis investigating the effect of gender stereotype threats on the performance of schoolgirls in stereotyped subjects (e.g., science, math) indicated several signs of publication bias within this literature (Flore and Wicherts Reference Flore and Wicherts2015). Given these results, it is plausible that the effect of gender stereotype activation might be small in magnitude and/or might be decreasing over time (Lewis and Michalak Reference Lewis and Michalak2019).

Furthermore, we find robust evidence of a gender gap in political knowledge even after controlling for political interest. Our results validate previous accounts that the gender gap on political knowledge may be an artifact of how knowledge is conceptualized and measured and of different gender attitudes toward standard tests. In line with previous research stating that the political knowledge gap might be artificially inflated by a disproportionate amount of men who are willing to guess rather than chose the “don’t know” option – even if that might lead to an incorrect answer (Mondak and Anderson Reference Mondak and Anderson2004) – we find that female participants attempted to answer less questions and used the “don’t know” response option in the political knowledge test more frequently than their male counterparts whereas men guessed their answers more frequently than women, resulting in a larger amount of incorrect answers (Tables S8–S14). This suggests factors other than knowledge might contribute to the gender gap in political knowledge (Mondak Reference Mondak1999). For example, gender differences in risk taking and competitiveness (Lizotte and Sidman Reference Lizotte and Sidman2009) as well as in self-confidence (Wolak Reference Wolak2020) and self-efficacy (Preece Reference Preece2016) may lead women to second-guess themselves and be less prone to attempt answering the questions of which they are unsure. Meanwhile, higher competitiveness and confidence in males might lead them to guess and “gain the advantage from a scoring system that does not penalize wrong answers and rewards right ones” (Kenski and Jamieson Reference Kenski, Jamieson and Jamieson2000, 84). Measurement non-invariance, too, appears to detrimentally affect the interpretation and validity of political knowledge scales across several sociodemographics. For example, Lizotte and Sidman (Reference Lizotte and Sidman2009) and Mondak and Anderson (Reference Mondak and Anderson2004) have shown political knowledge instruments violate the equivalence assumption for gender, while Abrajano (Reference Abrajano2015) and Pietryka and MacIntosh (Reference Pietryka and MacIntosh2013) found non-invariance across age, income, race, and education. In our own replication attempt, we also found evidence of measurement non-invariance using item response theory and showed that the magnitude of the gender systematic bias appears to be contingent on respondents’ knowledge levels such that lack of equivalence by gender is stronger at average scores and weaker at the extremes of the political knowledge continuum (see Table S21 and Figure S1).

As Politics has been essentially a male-dominated field since its creation, it should not come as a surprise that current measures of political knowledge tend to favor what men typically know. Previous studies have shown that the mere inclusion of gendered items on scales of political knowledge lessens the gender gap (Barabas, Jerit, Pollock, and Rainey Reference Barabas, Jerit, Pollock and Rainey2014; Dolan Reference Dolan2011). The investigation and validation of measures of political knowledge that capitalize on the fact that men and women might not only know different things but also may react in different ways to standard tests is paramount for a more accurate understanding of the gender gap in political knowledge and its bias.

Finally, we note that measurement issues are not unique to political knowledge and in fact are pervasive in Political Science with consequences for how we measure populism (Van Hauwaert, Schimpf, and Azevedo Reference Van Hauwaert, Schimpf and Azevedo2018, Reference Van Hauwaert, Schimpf and Azevedo2020; Wuttke, Schimpf, and Schoen Reference Wuttke, Schimpf and Schoen2020), operational ideology (Azevedo and Bolesta Reference Azevedo and Bolesta2022; Azevedo, Jost, Rothmund, and Sterling Reference Azevedo, Jost, Rothmund and Sterling2019; Kalmoe Reference Kalmoe2020), and political psychological constructs such as authoritarianism, racial resentment, personality traits, and moral traditionalism (Azevedo and Jost Reference Azevedo and Jost2021; Bromme, Rothmund, and Azevedo Reference Bromme, Rothmund and Azevedo2022; Pérez and Hetherington Reference Pérez and Hetherington2014; Pietryka and MacIntosh Reference Pietryka and MacIntosh2022). If the basic measurement properties of widely used constructs are flawed, it is likely that insights from research will be biased. Valid, invariant, and theoretically derived instruments are urgently needed for the reliable accumulation of knowledge in Political Science.

Both left and right agree that it's the bad, divisive stuff that goes viral on social media that least deserves it, while the good stuff is not amplified as it should be

Rathje, Steve, Claire Robertson, William J. Brady, and Jay J. Van Bavel. 2022. “People Think That Social Media Platforms Do (but Should Not) Amplify Divisive Content.” PsyArXiv. October 11. doi:10.31234/osf.io/gmun4

Abstract: There is widespread debate about how to improve or regulate social media algorithms. We review the type of content that is most likely to spread widely, or go “viral” on social media, and describe how people’s perceptions of what goes viral does not match their preference about what should go viral. We recruited a nationally representative sample of US participants and surveyed them about their perceptions of social media virality (n = 511). In line with prior research, people believe that divisive content, moral outrage, negative content, high-arousal content, and misinformation are all likely to go viral online. However, people reported that this type of content should not go viral on social media. Instead, people reported that many forms of positive content – such as accurate content, nuanced content, and educational content – are not likely to go viral, even though they think this content should go viral. Importantly, these perceptions were widely shared, and were only weakly related to political orientation, social media usage, and demographic variables. In sum, there is broad consensus around the type of content people think social media platforms should and should not amplify, which can help inform solutions for improving social media.

Married women with children experience greater intrasexual competition than their male counterparts

Married women with children experience greater intrasexual competition than their male counterparts. Joyce F. Benenson & Henry Markovits. Scientific Reports volume 13, Article number: 4498. Mar 18 2023. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31816-0

Abstract: Human males are considered to be more competitive than females. However, females must also compete for resources necessary for their own and their offsprings’ survival. Since females use more indirect forms of competition than males, comparing observable forms of competition may be misleading. One critical driver of competition is resource asymmetry. Since competition occurs primarily within sex, reactions to resource asymmetry with same-sex peers should provide an important measure of competitiveness. We asked 596 married participants, 25–45 years of age with at least one child from three different countries to evaluate how same-sex individuals they know would react to a target individual who had a valuable resource that the same-sex individuals did not have. Half the participants evaluated reactions to same-sex targets, while the other half evaluated reactions to other-sex targets. Participants reported that women would react more negatively than men to resource asymmetry with same-sex targets, but not other-sex targets. These results suggest that women may be even more competitive than men in contexts when important resources related to reproductive success are at stake.

Discussion

Are men more competitive than women? Answering this question is complicated by the fact that men and women pursue differing goals and employ different competitive strategies. In this study, we examined reported reactions to married women and men with children who vary in specific resources. Results of the present study show that participant-observers from three nations reported that based on their experiences, the women that they knew would respond more negatively to a same-sex target with a valuable characteristic than would men in the same situation. In other words, women react more negatively to resource asymmetry among same-sex peers than men do, but not to resource asymmetry with other-sex peers. In fact, participant-observers report that women are actually less negative than men are towards other-sex peers. Thus, it is not the case that women are more distressed than men by resource asymmetry in general, rather this difference is only present with same-sex peers. These results suggest that the motivation for competition over resources is greater in 25–45-year-old married women with children than in their male counterparts. This extends findings from previous studies that have found few self-reported sex differences in tendencies to compete over mates28,29 or observational studies suggesting when payoffs are high women may compete more than men32,34 to include women and men who are married with children and know others who differ in their physical and social assets.

The implications of the results for understanding human society are important in that they indicate that while women and men employ different competitive strategies and often pursue different goals, women may have an even greater motivation to compete with same-sex peers than men. Thus, it seems reasonable that women may be more envious than men of same-sex peers who are better able to care for their children. This is particularly pertinent when resources involved in competition directly impact same-sex individuals’ and their offspring’s survival. In contrast male-male competition is more likely to impact only sporadic mating behaviors14,94. Further study of competition between mothers seems warranted, as others have recommended95,96. Importantly, these results also demonstrate that women are more positive than men with respect to resource differentials in the other sex. Thus, from a man’s perspective, women are less competitive with men than men are, which might provide a further explanation for the often-cited conclusion that women are the less competitive sex. Although the more negative reactions to resource asymmetry could be interpreted as a form of inequity aversion, this would not change their role as a motivator of competition97. Nonetheless, it would be unlikely that inequity aversion would apply more towards one sex than the other.

Both women and men reported that resource differentials in characteristics that benefitted men would produce more negative reactions compared to characteristics that benefitted women. Although we did not predict this, it is possible that male advantageous characteristics are more consistent with classic measures of group status such as dominance and prestige69 or socioeconomic status98, which have been shown to be desired by and benefit both women and men in terms of survival99. Further, these group status characteristics that may be associated more with men than women may also provoke more negative reactions because universally men hold higher status than women100. More research is needed that focuses on characteristics that may be particularly beneficial to women9.

Limitations of our study include that we had participants from only three countries, and other countries may produce different results. Likewise, all of our participant-observers had access to computers which clearly is not representative of simple societies. A more diverse and larger sample would further buttress the validity of the findings. We also did not include participants or targets who did not identify as women or men, so we cannot generalize these results to non-binary individuals.

Finally, in this study we used a very simple definition of resource differential: possession of a single positive characteristic that has been shown to be beneficial and hence should be desired by others. Although more complex definitions abound, we feel that this nonetheless captures the essential component of competitiveness. Thus, to the extent that intolerance of resource differentials is a major driver of competitiveness, one that is independent of whatever strategy might be employed to attain the resource, our results suggest that at the least between 25 and 45 years of age, married women with children may be more competitive than their male counterparts. While this conclusion requires confirmation using different measures, these results provide a further challenge to the validity of traditional sexual selection theory in which human males are considered more competitive than females.