Assignment 4 women psy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Assignment 4 women psy - Essay Example Feminists were serious in proving their arguments. Meta-analytical researches were done. Such researches yielded a variety of results and explanations. In some experiments where subjects were informed that the tests they will take were either gender-fair or not, subjects would usually perform in accordance to their pre-conceived notions about the test. One example is Spencer’s experiment on the differences in math abilities of males and females. College students of equivalent math backgrounds took math tests. Half were told that the math test showed gender differences in the past and half were told that the test has been shown to be gender fair. As expected, among those who believed that the test was gender fair, there were no gender differences in performance, however, with those who believed it showed gender differences, women under-performed compared to men. This may be explained that stereotypes about women faring less than men in mathematics may have affected their perfor mance. Such researches imply that stereotypes have the power to dictate how people may behave in certain situations. At the same time, it may be used as an excuse whenever people fail or succeed at one point or another, lessening accountability on the person himself. In the case of the experiment discussed, women may use the stereotype that they are weaker in math whenever they encounter difficult math problems. There are some theories that gender differences may spring from a biological reason, that males are differently wired from females, that they might have more hormones that may trigger aggressive tendencies and other stereotyped behaviors for males. Other theories attribute gender differences in social learning, that boys and girls behave the way they do because they have been trained as society expects them to- that girls are â€Å"sugar and spice and everything nice† and boys