Longitudinal Associations Between Gender-typed Skills and Interests and Their Links to Occupational Outcomes

Can Princesses Be Powerful? A Quasi-Experimental Study Examining Children's Perceptions of Princesses and the Self

Children's gender schematic cognitions guide their attention, affinities, and behaviors, often narrowing their opportunities. The goal of the present study is to examine how children's exposure to animated Disney princesses modeling agentic behaviors (such as being a leader) alters children's gender schematic perceptions of princesses' characteristics, and if this exposure impacts children's perceptions of their own gender-typed qualities. Interviews with 60 children from the northeast region of the United States (M_age = 4.5 years old) at the beginning and end of six weeks indicate that, as hypothesized, children's perceptions of princesses and themselves became less gender schematic after cumulative exposure to animated videos depicting princesses modeling agentic behaviors. Children's perceptions of princesses' agency and their own agency increased throughout the study, asserting that with exposure to nontraditional gender-typed characters, children begin to see themselves as less gender-typed. These findings provide new insights into the role of early children's media exposure in shaping children's gender cognitions.

Math anxiety affects females' vocational interests

Vocational interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields in middle school can predict life outcomes, including enrollment in STEM courses and pursuing STEM careers. Numerical performance, as well as emotional factors such as math anxiety (MA), may influence vocational interests. The constructs of both vocational interests and MA are sensitive to gender differences. Accordingly, this study explored whether the relations among MA, numerical performance, and math vocational interests among middle-school students vary by gender. A sample of 127 ninth-grade students (68 females) performed a computation task and completed MA and trait anxiety (TA) questionnaires. A math vocational interest questionnaire was composed and assessed with an additional sample of 89 ninth-grade students. For females, MA, but not TA or numerical performance, predicted math vocational interest. Those with low MA levels tended to be interested in careers with higher math proficiency such as STEM careers. For males, high numerical performance and low TA, but not MA, related to interest in careers with high math proficiency. Bayes factors indicated that the data strongly supported the theory. The findings support the assumption that high MA levels affect the career plans of female students, whereas low numerical performance can account for both MA levels and future career plans of male students. It is essential to investigate how career aspirations are shaped in young students to promote the choice of STEM careers, especially among underrepresented populations such as females.

Gendered Pathways Toward STEM Careers: The Incremental Roles of Work Value Profiles Above Academic Task Values

Drawing on Eccles' expectancy-value model of achievement-related choices, we examined how work values predict individual and gender differences in sciences, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) participations in early adulthood (ages of 25/27, 6 or 8 years after postsecondary school), controlling for subjective task values attached to academic subjects in late adolescence (11th grade, age 18). The study examined 1,259 Finnish participants using a person-oriented approach. Results showed that: (a) we could identify four profile groups based on five core work values (society, family, monetary, career prospects, and working with people); (b) work-value profiles predicted young adults actual STEM participation in two fields: math-intensive and life science occupations above and beyond academic task values (e.g., math/science) and background information; (c) work-value profiles also differentiate between those who entered support- vs. professional-level STEM jobs; and (d) gender differences in work value profiles partially explained the differential representation of women across STEM sub-disciplines and the overall underrepresentation of women in STEM fields.

Links between gendered leisure time in childhood and adolescence and gendered occupational aspirations

The world of work remains gender-segregated, and research is needed to identify factors that may give rise to women's and men's vocational choices. This study explored bidirectional relations between youth's gendered career aspirations and the proportions of youth's leisure time spent in stereotypically gendered activities and gendered social contexts. Participants were 203 youth (52% girls) from predominantly white, working and middle class families living in the US, who reported on their occupational aspirations and gendered interests in home interviews and on their daily activities in a series of 7 nightly phone interviews on two occasions, in middle childhood (M_age = 10.9) and in adolescence (M_age = 17.3). Path models revealed that aspirations predicted youth's time use more so than the reverse. Time in gendered social contexts, specifically time in female-only contexts, but not time in gender-typed activities, predicted career aspirations. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The Development and Correlates of Gender Role Orientations in African-American Youth

This study charted the development of gendered personality qualities, activity interests, and attitudes across adolescence (approximately ages 9-18) among 319 African-American youth from 166 families. The relations between daily time spent with father, mother, and male and female peers-the gendered contexts of youth's daily activities-and (changes in) these gender role orientations were also assessed. Boys and girls differed in their gender role orientations in stereotypical ways: interest in masculine and feminine activities, and attitude traditionality generally declined, but instrumentality increased across adolescence and expressivity first increased and later decreased. Some gender differences and variations in change were conditioned by time spent with same- and other-sex gender parents and peers. The most consistent pattern was time with male peers predicting boys' stereotypical characteristics.

The Spherical Model of Vocational Interests in Germany

The aim of the present investigation is to examine key aspects regarding the validity of the spherical model of vocational interests in Germany, namely, its structural validity, its convergent validity—with an instrument assessing vocational interests according to the RIASEC (R—Realistic, I—Investigative, A—Artistic, S—Social, E—Enterprising, and C—Conventional) model—and its construct validity regarding the pattern of gender differences. To this end, the Personal Globe Inventory (PGI) was translated and completed by a sample of German university students. Results of randomization tests of hypothesized order relations provided support for the structural validity of the instrument in female and male university students. Principal components analyses with target rotations identified two particular scales as outliers. RIASEC scores derived from the PGI correlated strongly with corresponding scales of another instrument, and gender differences were in line with previous findings reported in the literature. Overall, our results provide evidence for the validity of the spherical model in German university students.