The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

Achievement 191

When we expect not to succeed in a domain,

we will give up more easily on a given task,

choose an easier task, and pursue activities in

other domains.

Nature of Task. Women are not less self-

confident than men on all tasks. The nature

of the task is an important determinant of

sex differences in self-confidence. There are

numerous studies that show women are less

self-confident than men about their perfor-

mance on masculine tasks, such as STEM

fields (Good, Aronson, & Harder, 2008;

Pajares, 2005), despite equal performance.

In the field of computer science, women are

less self-confident than men despite equal

performance (Singh et al., 2007). A study of

medical students performing a clinical exam

showed that women reported more anxiety

and appeared less self-confident to objective

observers compared to men—despite the fact

that women and men had similar levels of

performance (Blanch et al., 2008).

Given the fact that girls’ and boys’

school performance is the same in tradition-

ally masculine subjects, like math and science,

when do sex differences in self-confidence

arise? This question was addressed in a study

of Italian children (Muzzatti & Agnoli, 2007).

As shown in Figure 6.3, there were no sex dif-

ferences in math self-confidence among the

second and third graders, but boys were more

confident than girls in the fourth and fifth

grades. In addition, stereotypes about math

as a male domain emerged with age, as shown

in Figure 6.4. Whereas second-grade girls

tended to believe that girls were better than

boys in math and second-grade boys believed

that girls and boys had equal math ability, by

fifth-grade, girls shared boys’ beliefs that boys

were better than girls at math. Other research

shows that sex differences in self-confidence

appear by middle school (Pajares, 2005).

FIGURE 6.3 There were no sex differences in

math self-confidence among 2nd and 3rd grad-

ers (n.s. = not significant). Among 4th and 5th

graders, boys were more confident than girls

(* = significant)

Source: Adapted from Muzzatti and Agnoli (2007).

2nd

0

0.5

1

Self-Confidence1.5

2

2.5

3

5

3rd 4th 5th

3.5

4

4.5

Male

Female

n.s. n.s.

∗ ∗

The Appearance of Low Self-Confi-

dence. It is possible that women only

appearless self-confident than men. Girls

might be trying to appear modest because

they are concerned about how their supe-

rior performance will affect another person’s

self-esteem. One study showed that women

recalled lower grades (12.78) than they re-

ceived (13.32), whereas men recalled their

grades accurately (recall 12.46; actual 12.30;

Chatard, Guimond, & Selimbegovic, 2007).

One problem with women “appearing” less

confident is that behavior often shapes atti-

tudes, as indicated by cognitive dissonance

and self-perception theories. That is, women

may come to believe the opinions that they

express about themselves.

Women’s Underconfidence or Men’s

Overconfidence? The literature on self-

confidence has typically been interpreted

in terms of a female disadvantage: Women

havelessconfidence in themselves compared

M06_HELG0185_04_SE_C06.indd 191 6/21/11 8:10 AM