Gender discussion is too often framed as male vs. female these days. That's come from 30+ years of flawed output from the social science echo chamber and dogmatic denial of human nature. It doesn't matter if boys and girls do better under different conditions, they shouldn't be expected to perform equally in this way. What matters is that we understand those unique conditions and help children thrive whatever their gender. It's great to see research like this, especially when boys across the western world are struggling in academic environments that are perhaps favouring ways of learning more suited to girls.
Told reading tests are a game, boys score higher
31–40 of 194 posts
Re: Told reading tests are a game, boys score higher
#32It not only seems that boys do better when told it's a game, girls do worse when told it's a game.
I guess it is a bit too simplistic to conclude that the boys prefer competitive environments more than girls?
It's not immediately clear to me whether "it's a game" or "it's a test of reading ability" makes it sound more competitive.
"I want to win at the game" vs "tests = boring" / "I'd better do well on the test as it sounds important and people might think I'm stupid" vs "it's only a silly game"
Perhaps one leans towards being competitive about what your peers think of you, and one towards being competitive about what teachers/adults think? Not sure.
Re: Told reading tests are a game, boys score higher
#33[deleted]
Re: Told reading tests are a game, boys score higher
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is very likely, considering how different girls and boys are raised in regards to authority and competition. On reddit’s /r/science several people with degrees in the relevant fields have also speculated that this might be the case. From personal anecdote, I can confirm that guys usually care less about what an authority thinks, and more about how they are in relation to their peers, while girls consider competi…
Any links? I would very much like to see the results of a formal study on this.
The reddit thread was already linked by someone else below. People with flair specifying their qualifications had to provide proof of having them, so only look at those comments.
Re: Told reading tests are a game, boys score higher
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
What matters is raising and parent models, not gender.
At risk of being patronizing, you're probably being downvoted by parents who figure you don't have kids. We have spent many years trying to present gender-neutral environments to our children. Yet at age 3 my son completely ignored the giraffe we were trying to point out at the zoo, and would only focus on the irrigation pump. That kind of experience was repeated often with him and my daughters. One daughter would on…
You are being patronizing, though. Cordelia Fine, who does psychological research on this, has a great anecdote about this entire line of argument- the nonsexist parent who tried to do gender neutral parenting, comically failed, and then realized boys and girls truly are different, and now campaigns from the opposite perspective.
She brings up one such anecdote from another book, where parents really tried to give their daughter firetrucks AND dolls, jeans AND dresses, but at the end of the day, the girl was tucking the firetruck to bed like a good mom and wanted to wear dresses. That book was all about how girls have innate nurturing tendencies and so on.
Of course, the mom was the one tucking the girl to bed almost every night. It was funny that parents failed at giving their daughter fire-trucks, but it's even funnier that someone would ignore the massive impact their own behavior had imprinted on their kids. Same with dresses- mom may wear jeans frequently, but dad absolutely never wears a dress. How are you going to ignore this, even if your kid is only three years old? They learn to speak like you in such a short period of time, and you're going to chalk up zoos vs. irrigation pumps to biology? You say you're a proud machinist and woodworker in your profile. Does your wife spend equal amounts of time in the shop? Do you think your kids are not already making choices about whether they're more like you or your wife?
She also brings up some interesting research by Castelli et al [0], where parents are interviewed about their opinions about racism (ie: I am NOT racist, and I teach my kid to NOT be racist), but then evaluates them on their implicit attitudes towards race (everyone's somewhat racist, I hope you'd agree), and kids match their parents really well not compared to their explicit attitudes, but more in the implicit ones.
The truth is that if you tried to raise your kids in a gender-neutral environment, you completely failed, because we make it absolutely impossible, unless you control absolutely all media and social influence and tune your own behavior accordingly, which would be creepy and Stalinesque.
It doesn't mean that there are no innate gender differences, or that they undesirable, but it definitely means that parents who get together to talk about how they "can't believe what [they] used to think" because they've been awokened to gender differences have just swapped one unfounded source of condescension for another.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19271841 > Previous literature based on self-report measures has not found a clear relationship between the ethnic attitudes of White parents and those of their children. In particular, no study has evidenced such a relationship in the case of preschool children. In the present study, the authors measured parents' implicit and explicit racial attitudes as well as the racial attitudes of their 3- to 6-year-old children. They found that parents' explicit attitudes were not related to children's responses. In contrast, mothers' implicit attitudes (but not fathers' implicit attitudes) were significant predictors of children's attitudes. Results demonstrate that early racial attitudes might develop within the family.
Re: Told reading tests are a game, boys score higher
#36Wow. And after the study they went to the cafeteria and ate food from intentionally smaller plates which tricked their brains into believing they were full -- for about a week.
Psychology is so full of lies. Both the content of the 'studies' and the studies themselves (all testing and no theory). Also the motivations for the studies seem to be quite often political. (Presumably this helps for obtaining public money.)
Here's a little study I propose. Have children, don't send them to school and notice how they learn to read without teaching or testing. And how much better adults report they feel when they aren't trying to do these things to children.
Re: Told reading tests are a game, boys score higher
#37I'm not even sure what they tested has anything to do with reading ability. Other than identifying certain kinds of words in a list, it certainly didn't require comprehension or understanding. The task was actually more like a game that involved words than a reading test. So while they may have observed an effect (still a smallish sample) I don't think it says anything meaningful about reading ability.
Re: Told reading tests are a game, boys score higher
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
What matters is raising and parent models, not gender.
At risk of being patronizing, you're probably being downvoted by parents who figure you don't have kids. We have spent many years trying to present gender-neutral environments to our children. Yet at age 3 my son completely ignored the giraffe we were trying to point out at the zoo, and would only focus on the irrigation pump. That kind of experience was repeated often with him and my daughters. One daughter would on…
If the parents are gendered, how can they possibly present a gender-neutral environment? They would have to cross-dress, vary their speech and mannerism, vary the length of their hair, be androgynous...
Perhaps the parents you're referring to are failing to realize just how strongly gendered their lives are.
Re: Told reading tests are a game, boys score higher
#39It not only seems that boys do better when told it's a game, girls do worse when told it's a game.
And that they perform same way when the problem is framed in a way that's most motivating for them.
That's what intuitively thought about tests. They show a bit of how much you can but also whole lot of how much you care.
Re: Told reading tests are a game, boys score higher
#40I'm a man and I really dislike competitive aspects of society. I mean if I'm playing a game and it's for fun, I'm okay with it, as long as everyone play to play, not play to win. If I'm literally competing to earn a living, or if it ends up in praising winners and blaming losers, it won't be enjoyable, and I'd rather not play at all. Having humility also means that when you win, you also congratulate losers for playi…
You are right and you are probably left leaning politically and are pro immigration, also you are probably not physically strong. The reason for your avoidance of competition is both environmentally affected and genetic. Your parents, maybe even grandparents, were probably raised in an environment where they didn't have to struggle too much at life. This kind of life changes genetic expression in a way that adapts to this environment. It causes rabbit like behaviour - breed as much as possible, don't care to much about offspring, don't care to much about quality of mate, consume food without much competition for it and react only to the current and immediate threat to your life. If threat avoided, don't plan ahead to prevent it. Physically the affected gene expression reduces the size of amygdala which causes individual to be unable to perceive threats. Also it causes the brain to constantly seek novelty and reduces dopamine reward for things that normally would motivate you to seek competition and success. So your avoidance of competition is likely inherited.