davidfcooper

Dec. 19th, 2009

The stereotype of computer scientists as geeks who memorize Star Trek lines and never leave the lab may be driving women away from the field, a new study suggests.

And women can be turned off by just the physical environment, say, of a computer-science classroom or office that's strewn with objects considered "masculine geeky," such as video games and science-fiction stuff.

"When people think of computer science, the image that immediately pops into many of their minds is of the computer geek surrounded by such things as computer games, science-fiction memorabilia and junk food," said lead researcher Sapna Cheryan, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington. "That stereotype doesn't appeal to many women who don't like the portrait of masculinity that it evokes."

The upshot: Women don't feel they would fit in and so steer clear of computer-science majors and jobs, the researchers say. Such avoidance could help to explain why just 22 percent of computer-science graduates are women, a percentage that has been steadily decreasing, according to 2008 data from the National Science Foundation.

Not only are women missing out on some of the "best career opportunities, but computer science is missing out on female perspectives," Cheryan and her colleagues wrote in a recent issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Geeky objects�

The results come from four studies with more than 250 students who weren't studying computer science.

In the first experiment, about 40 male and female students entered a small classroom that either contained objects stereotypically associated with computer science, such as Star Trek posters, video game boxes and Coke cans, or non-stereotypical items such as nature posters, art, a dictionary and coffee mugs. (The students were told to ignore these objects because the room was being shared with another class.)

Then, the students filled out questionnaires about their attitudes toward computer science.

In the geeky environment, women were significantly�less interested than men in computer science, while there was no gender difference for the non-stereotypical classroom. Female students in the stereotypical environment said they felt less similar to computer-science majors than did those in the classroom that wasn't geeked out.

In three other experiments, two of which involved about 90 students each, participants were told to imagine stereotypical and non-stereotypical objects in various environments. Here are some of the results:

When women were given the choice of joining one of two all-female teams at a company, with the only difference between the teams being the objects found in respective workrooms, 82 percent of the women picked the team with the non-stereotypical workroom.

Male and female participants were given the choice between similar jobs at one of two companies with the only difference being the description of objects (either nerdy or generic) for each company. Both genders preferred the job in the non-stereotypical work environment, but women's preferences for the non-geeky environment were significantly stronger than men's.

In another similar job-position experiment, women were more likely to accept an offer with a neutral Web-design company while men had the opposite preference, choosing the stereotypically nerdy company. The more women perceived the stereotypical environment as masculine, the less interested they were in that company.

Changing computer science�

There was a subset of women in the study who didn't view the stereotypical objects as masculine and geeky and aren't turned off by the associated office or classroom.

"That tells me that it's a cultural phenomenon," Cheryan told LiveScience.�"These objects are not inherently masculine or geeky; they've been constructed that way. That means to me we can reconstruct the objects or more importantly the whole field."

Cheryan added one way to change the lopsided field would be, "broadening the image of computer science to make it so that other people feel a connection to the field."

Top 5 Myths About Girls, Math and Science

10 Things You Didn't Know About You

The Biggest Popular Myths

via livescience.com

An interesting example of stereotyping and prejudice. Read the comments as well as the article.

Posted via web from davidfcooper's posterous

The stereotype of computer scientists as geeks who memorize Star Trek lines and never leave the lab may be driving women away from the field, a new study suggests.

And women can be turned off by just the physical environment, say, of a computer-science classroom or office that's strewn with objects considered "masculine geeky," such as video games and science-fiction stuff.

"When people think of computer science, the image that immediately pops into many of their minds is of the computer geek surrounded by such things as computer games, science-fiction memorabilia and junk food," said lead researcher Sapna Cheryan, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington. "That stereotype doesn't appeal to many women who don't like the portrait of masculinity that it evokes."

The upshot: Women don't feel they would fit in and so steer clear of computer-science majors and jobs, the researchers say. Such avoidance could help to explain why just 22 percent of computer-science graduates are women, a percentage that has been steadily decreasing, according to 2008 data from the National Science Foundation.

Not only are women missing out on some of the "best career opportunities, but computer science is missing out on female perspectives," Cheryan and her colleagues wrote in a recent issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Geeky objects�

The results come from four studies with more than 250 students who weren't studying computer science.

In the first experiment, about 40 male and female students entered a small classroom that either contained objects stereotypically associated with computer science, such as Star Trek posters, video game boxes and Coke cans, or non-stereotypical items such as nature posters, art, a dictionary and coffee mugs. (The students were told to ignore these objects because the room was being shared with another class.)

Then, the students filled out questionnaires about their attitudes toward computer science.

In the geeky environment, women were significantly�less interested than men in computer science, while there was no gender difference for the non-stereotypical classroom. Female students in the stereotypical environment said they felt less similar to computer-science majors than did those in the classroom that wasn't geeked out.

In three other experiments, two of which involved about 90 students each, participants were told to imagine stereotypical and non-stereotypical objects in various environments. Here are some of the results:

When women were given the choice of joining one of two all-female teams at a company, with the only difference between the teams being the objects found in respective workrooms, 82 percent of the women picked the team with the non-stereotypical workroom.

Male and female participants were given the choice between similar jobs at one of two companies with the only difference being the description of objects (either nerdy or generic) for each company. Both genders preferred the job in the non-stereotypical work environment, but women's preferences for the non-geeky environment were significantly stronger than men's.

In another similar job-position experiment, women were more likely to accept an offer with a neutral Web-design company while men had the opposite preference, choosing the stereotypically nerdy company. The more women perceived the stereotypical environment as masculine, the less interested they were in that company.

Changing computer science�

There was a subset of women in the study who didn't view the stereotypical objects as masculine and geeky and aren't turned off by the associated office or classroom.

"That tells me that it's a cultural phenomenon," Cheryan told LiveScience.�"These objects are not inherently masculine or geeky; they've been constructed that way. That means to me we can reconstruct the objects or more importantly the whole field."

Cheryan added one way to change the lopsided field would be, "broadening the image of computer science to make it so that other people feel a connection to the field."

Top 5 Myths About Girls, Math and Science

10 Things You Didn't Know About You

The Biggest Popular Myths

via livescience.com

An interesting example of stereotyping and prejudice. Read the comments as well as the article.

Posted via web from davidfcooper's posterous

Here is the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the winners:
( Read more... )

Posted via web from davidfcooper's posterous

updated 12:12 p.m. ET Dec. 8, 2009
The human body may be equipped with a separate sensory system aside from the nerves that gives us the ability to touch and feel, according to a new study.
Most of us have millions of different types of nerve endings just beneath the skin that let us feel our surroundings. However, the once-hidden and recently discovered skin sense, found in two patients, is located throughout the blood vessels and sweat glands, and most of us don't even notice it's there.
"It's almost like hearing the subtle sound of a single instrument in the midst of a symphony," said senior author Frank Rice, a neuroscience professor at Albany Medical College in New York. "It is only when we shift focus away from the nerve endings associated with normal skin sensation that we can appreciate the sensation hidden in the background."

Sensitive skin Our skin, the body's largest organ, seems to have some extraordinary qualities, as another recent study showed skin can hear.
The new finding, detailed in the Dec. 15 issue of the journal Pain, could help scientists to understand mysterious pain conditions such as migraine headaches and fibromyalgia. The study, and others by the team, was supported by the National Institutes of Health and several pharmaceutical companies.
The research team discovered the sensory system when studying two patients who were born with very little ability to feel pain — an extremely rare condition called congenital insensitivity to pain. Other individuals with this condition have excessively dry skin, often mutilate themselves accidentally and usually have severe mental handicaps, the researchers say.
It wasn't their pain-free lives that brought the patients into the lab, but rather excessive sweating.
"Curiously, our conventional tests with sensitive instruments revealed that all their skin sensation was severely impaired, including their response to different temperatures and mechanical contact," said study researcher Dr. David Bowsher, Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool's Pain Research Institute.
"But, for all intents and purposes, they had adequate sensation for daily living and could tell what is warm and cold, what is touching them, and what is rough and smooth."
Surprise results
Bowsher took skin biopsies and sent them to Rice's lab for microscopic analyses of the nerve endings.
"Much to our surprise, the skin we received from England lacked all the nerve endings that we normally associated with skin sensation," Rice said. "So how were these individuals feeling anything?"
The answer: While the patients lacked the usual nerve endings in the skin, Rice and colleagues found sensory nerve endings on the small blood vessels and sweat glands embedded in their skin.
"Apparently, these unique individuals are able to 'feel things' through these remaining nerve endings," Rice said. "For many years, my colleagues and I have detected different types of nerve endings on tiny blood vessels and sweat glands, which we assumed were simply regulating blood flow and sweating."
Rice added, "We didn't think they could contribute to conscious sensation. However, while all the other sensory endings were missing in this unusual skin, the blood vessels and sweat glands still had the normal types of nerve endings."

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