Parnell 1 Testing Gender Differences in Feminist Perspectives and the Cognitive Consequences of Differing Feminist Views in Males Amber Parnell Wofford College Introduction Possessing prejudices, the attitudes and feelings about a group of people, may have effects on cognition. These feelings and attitudes can be positive or negative but help to maintain the social inequality of a group. This may be due to the self-fulfilling prophecy effect. The selffulfilling prophecy acts in a cyclic nature where stereotypes are consciously or unconsciously cast upon individuals through actions or expectations, and the individual responds accordingly to the expectations (Bluhm, 2012). Their actions confirm the outside person s expectations and stereotypes and the cycle continues. A similar, but positive effect can be seen in the Pygmalion effect. In a famous study conducted by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) teachers were told that five of their students were academically more advanced than other students. Even though this was not true and the students were chosen at random, by the end of the year they were outperforming their peers. The teachers were guilty of treating these overachievers differently. They gave them special attention and praise based on the misconceptions they had about the students. And in turn, the students met the high expectations of their teachers. There is evidence that boys and girls develop intellectual expectations about the genders as young as the age of 6. Hobson (2017) summarized a group of studies that showed how beliefs about the intellectual ability of men and women changes between the ages of 5 and 7. In one study the children were given a story about a smart person and then were given a picture of a
Parnell 2 man and woman and asked who the protagonist was. Five-year-old boys identified their own sex as the protagonist 71% of the time and girls identified their sex as the smart protagonist 69% of the time. Their opinions on the intellect of their sex are about equal until age 6. Six-year-old girls only identified their own sex as the smart protagonist 48% of the time where boys identified their sex 65% of the time. Interestingly this study also found that older girls were less likely to identify their own gender as brilliant but correctly identified that their sex, on average, made better grades at their age level. Though they were shown to make better grades, they still believed that their sex was not the smarter sex. These beliefs are held by both sexes and because of the self-fulfilling prophecy, the beliefs are maintained throughout time. Even the neuroscience research on differences between the genders have maintained their position that men and women are biologically different. Bluhm (2012) discusses why neuroscience studies often show gender differences and she attributes their significant findings to experimental design flaws. Some studies use small sample sizes. Without a large sample size the data does not accurately reflect the true population statistic. Other studies have analyzed men and women s data separately instead of with one between groups study. This makes the results less comparable. The voxel count methods used in fmri studies lead to questionable results because an area is significant or not depends on the statistical significance used. A voxel may not appear to be significant at p =.01 but becomes significant at p =.05. The results vary based on significance used. All of these flaws may be perpetuated by publication bias or the belief that studies that do not find significant results will not get published. This pushes researchers to find something significant in their experiments even if it was not what they originally expected to be significant.
Parnell 3 Feminism can serve to unite women under a common cause, but women and men alike are hesitant to label themselves as feminists (Duncan, 2010). This may be because of the negative stereotypes that come with the term feminist such as the idea that feminist do not want equality, but that they want themselves to be held above men in all aspects of society. The stereotypes do not accurately reflect the ideology of people who self-label as feminist. Adopting a feminist identity has been shown to promote activism and education while also mediating authoritarianism and ability to handle sexism. Education on feminist views while providing strong female role models to young girls could possibly protect young girls from the selffulfilling prophecy that causes women to not pursue certain career paths. (Duncan, 2010; Hobson, 2017). There are misconceptions about what feminism ideology entails because it is not well known that there are different types of feminism just like there are different political parties. Each type of feminism holds their own beliefs about the origin of gender inequality and the means of solving issues surrounding inequality. Little research has been done to show the effects of feminism on cognition. This study aims to answer the question does gender or feminist point of views change the way people react to feminist propaganda, and does the knowledge of gender inequality affect the cognitive performance of the genders? The current study aims to identify gender differences in types of feminism or nonfeminism. It was hypothesized that women would be more likely to be labeled as feminists and men would be more likely to be labeled as conservative. The study is also looking at the trends in arousal between the genders and types of feminists when participants are exposed to a video about gender inequality. It was hypothesized that radical feminists and conservatives (nonfeminisits) would have higher percent changes in heart rate and GSR because they hold the
Parnell 4 most extreme views of the six possible perspectives. I was hypothesized that these two groups would perform worse on two-digit addition problems because an increase in emotional arousal can lead to poor cognitive performance (Dolcos, Wang, & Mather, 2015). Method Twenty-four Wofford College students (12 female and 12 male) whose ages ranged from 19-21 were surveyed. Participants first completed a baseline round of two-digit addition problems to assess their cognitive performance before their exposure to feminist propaganda video. They were instructed to complete as many problems as quickly and as accurately as possible. Then they took the Feminist Perspective Scale. This 60 question inventory measured their attitudinal and behavioral perspectives. The inventory allowed participants to be labeled as liberal feminists, radical feminists, woman of color (WOC), socialist/cultural feminist or conservative (nonfeminisit). Ties between categories were possible. A BIOPAC with an electrode lead set and program were used to measure the GSR (peak to peak) and heart rate (average BPM) of participants in the next phase of the study. In this phase, participants were subjected to the video Global Gender Equality by Caroline Feldkamp, which gave results from multiple studies on gender inequality. Some examples of facts in the video are For every dollar a man makes, a woman only makes 77 cents for the same job and 500 Pakistani women are killed annually due to honor killings. After the presentation of the video, participants were given 30 seconds to complete another set of two-digit addition problems. The total completed and percent accuracy of the prevideo test and post-video test were assessed with two repeated measure ANOVAs. The percent change in heart rate and GSR (peak to peak) was also assessed with two between groups ANOVAs. The significance value was set at p =.05
Parnell 5 Results One goal of the current study was to assess gender differences between the types of FemmScores recorded. No gender differences were found in the type of feminist because 22 of 24 participants were labeled as liberal feminist or were tied between liberal feminist of WOC feminist. Table 1. shows the distribution of FemmScores between the genders. Only one participant was labeled a conservative and only one participant was labeled WOC only. About half of the participants labeled liberal were male and half were female. Half of participants labeled liberal/woc were male and half were female. One subject groups cannot be assessed with a 2 x 2 between groups ANOVA, the one WOC participant was grouped with the liberal/woc group and the scores from the conservative male were rejected. Table 1. Gender distribution of FemmScore Liberal Liberal/WOC WOC Conservative Male 6 5 0* 1 Female 7 5 0 0 *One participant scored as WOC only but the participants data was grouped with the liberal/woc group for significance testing purposes A 2 x 2 gender (female, male) x FemmScore (liberal, liberal/woc) between groups ANOVA was conducted to test for significant differences in percent change of heart rate and GSR (peak to peak). A significant interaction between gender and FemmScore was found for change in percent heart rate (F = 7.260, p =.014). Liberal men s percent heart rate (MD = 1.076, SE = 0.023) was significantly greater than Liberal/WOC men s percent change in heart rate (MD = 0.968, SE = 0.03). Figure 1. shows the significant difference in arousal between liberal men and liberal/woc men. There were main effect of gender or main effect of FemmScore for the percent change in heart rates. There were no significant main effects of gender or FemmScore nor significant interactions for percent change in GSR.
Total Completed Percent Change HR (Average BPM) Parnell 6 1.15 1.1 1.05 1 * 0.95 0.9 0.85 Liberal Liberal/WOC Liberal Liberal/WOC Male Female Figure 1. The percent change of heart rate for liberal men was significantly larger than for liberal/woc men. Arousal after the video was greater for liberal men than liberal/woc men. A 2 x 2 x 2 gender (female, male) x Femmscore (liberal, liberal/woc) x test (pretest, posttest) repeated measures ANOVA was used to assess the difference in amount of two-digit math problems completed before and after the presentation of the video. There was a significant interaction between gender, FemmScore and test (F = 4.486, p =.048). Liberal/WOC men completed significantly more items during the pretest (MD = 9.750, SE = 1.226) than during the posttest (MD = 7.750, SE = 1.137). No other significant main effects of gender, FemmScore or test, nor any other significant interactions were found. Figure 2. shows the amount completed by both genders and both FemmScores. 12 10 8 * 6 4 2 0 Pre Post Pre Post Pre Post Pre Post Liberal Liberal/WOC Liberal Liberal/WOC Male Female
Average % accuracy Parnell 7 Figure 2. Liberal/WOC men completed significantly more items on the pretest than on the posttest. No other significant differences were found within or between the groups. A 2 x 2 x 2 gender (female, male) x FemmScore (liberal, liberal/woc) x test (pretest, posttest) repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to test for differences in the percent accuracy of the pretest and posttest. A significant main effect of test was found. On average the participants accuracy significantly decreased from the pretest (MD = 96.062, SE = 2.031) to post test (MD = 90.879, SE = 1.797), (F = 5.026, p =.037). No other significant main effects or interactions were found. There were main effects of gender or FemmScore nor any interaction found for percent accuracy between the pretest and posttest test. Figure 3. shows the significant decrease in percent accuracy from pretest to posttest. 100 98 96 94 92 90 88 * 86 Pretest Post Test Test Figure 3. The significant decrease in percent accuracy from pretest to posttest. On average participants answered more items wrong after viewing the video than before the video. Discussion One of the interesting findings of the current study was that there are no gender differences in the type of FemmScore participants received. The hypothesis that women would
Parnell 8 be labeled as feminist and men as nonfeminists was rejected. Twenty-three of twenty-four participants were labeled feminist. Half of the male participants explicitly claimed that they were not feminists, yet their scores showed otherwise. The Feminist Perspective Scale was normalized in 1998 (Henley, Meng, O Brian, McCarthy, & Sockloskie, 1998). When the scale was constructed 6 categories were clearly identified. The results of this study showed that three distinct categories exist; liberal, woman of color, and conservative. Perhaps the reason the distribution of categories is different today than it was twenty years ago is because the general beliefs about feminism, the rights of women, and the cause of inequality have shifted in a liberal direction for the current generation. The generation studied in this experiment believes the principles that were shown to them as liberal or WOC feminism, are in fact not feminist views but rather the generally accepted principles of gender and racial equality today. In recent years the U.S. has seen a political push to increase equality between races and genders and that trend can be seen in the participants of this study. What was consider a liberal view in 1998 is now the popular belief of the generation. Duncan (2010) showed that political activism varied between Baby Boomers and Generation X. She also found that Generation Xers were more likely to self-identify as strong feminists. There was no difference in how the generations defined feminism. The observation of the disparity between the self-identified nonfeminist males and their feminist score show that the definition of feminism is not well defined at this point in time. The trend seen in 1992 where the generations had the same definition of feminism may not be the same trend we would observe today. It may be the political push for equality for genders and races over the past twenty years that explains this difference.
Parnell 9 Overall there were no gender differences in the amount of arousal in participants during the presentation of the video. This reflects the participants FemmScores. There were no gender differences in the type of feminist males and females were and there were not differences in arousal as measure by heart rate and peak to peak GSR. This is another indication that males and females of this generation share the same beliefs on the topic of global gender equality. There was a significant difference in liberal men s percent change in heart rate and liberal/woc percent change in heart rate. Liberal men were aroused more than liberal/woc men. This was not reflected in their cognitive performance. Liberal/WOC completed significantly less math problems after being presented with the video regardless of their low arousal. There was no difference in liberal men s number completed before and after the presentation of the video even though their arousal was high during the presentation of the video. One explanation of this is that math problems are not an accurate measure of cognition for the current experimental design. Emotion can inhibit the speed of cognitive processing (Dolcos, Wang, & Mather, 2015). Testing anxiety also inhibits cognitive processing on an individual level. It may be by random chance that liberal/woc men had higher test anxiety than liberal men and therefore performed worse on the posttest. On the other hand many of the facts presented in the video were facts about different races of women and injustices that happen on a global perspective. It is possible that men who scored as liberal/woc are more sensitive to the addition of information regarding different races because their FemmScore indicates that they have strong feelings towards racial equality. They may have been effected by the facts presented in the video and performed worse but the decrease was not due to arousal. Liberal men on the other hand showed increased arousal compared to liberal/woc men. It is possible that liberal men were not aware of the racial and gender coupled
Parnell 10 injustices around the world and due to this they were more shocked by some of the facts. The amount of prior information known by the participant and the effect of familiarity is speculation because the amount of information that was known prior to the experiment was not assessed. If the participants were familiar with the facts they may not have had intense reactions because they were familiar with the facts. Women may be more familiar with the inequality facts and therefore were not aroused by or cognitively affected by the video and therefore show no differences in their performance or arousal. Overall there was a decrease in accuracy from the pretest to the posttest. This may be explained by an increase in anxiety when participants were told they had to complete more math problems following the video. Anxiety can negatively impact cognition by taking away mental energy from the cognitive task at hand and dedicating it to the anxiety (Dolcos, Wang, & Mather, 2015). Though it was not quantified, the BIOPAC was still recording when participants were told they had to complete another round of math. The peak to peak GSR increased sporadically for every participant. It is possible the participants wanted to outperform their scores from the first test, or as explicitly said by three participants, outperform other participants. This led to test anxiety and to lower accuracy on the second round of math problems. Conclusion Liberal men were more aroused than liberal/woc men after the presentation of a feminist factual video. Contradictory to the inhibitory effect of emotional arousal on cognition, it was the liberal/woc group that performed worse on the posttest math problems. Women of either FemmScore were not aroused by the video nor did it affect their cognitive performance. The finding may be the result of familiarity with the material or experience. Women face injustice every day and therefore may be more equipped to manage their cognitive tasks than
Parnell 11 men who are unfamiliar with global gender inequality facts. Overall percent accuracy decreased from pretest to posttest which may be an effect of testing anxiety. References Bluhm, R. 2012. Self-fulfilling prophecies: The influence of gender stereotypes on the functional neuroimaging research on emotion. Hypatia 28(4), 870-886. Duncan, L. 2010. Women s relationship to feminism: Effect of generation and feminist selflabeling. Psychology of Women Quarterly 34(4), 498-507. Dolcos, F., Wang, L., & Mather, M. (2015) Current research and emerging direction in emotioncognition interactions. Frontiers Research Topics. Frontiers Media SA, 1-2. Henley, N., Meng, K., O Brian, D., McCarthy, W., Sockloskie, R. 1998. Developing a scale to measure the diversity of feminist attitudes. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 22, 317-348mo. Hobson, K. (2017) Young girls are less apt to think that women are really, really, smart. National Public Radio. Retrieved http://www.npr.org/sections/healthshots/2017/01/26/511801423/young-girls-are-less-apt-to-think-women-are-really-reallysmart Rosenthal, R. & Jacobson, L. (1968) Pygmalion in the classroom. The Urban Review 3(1), 16-20.A