July 8, 2023
Dina Al Mahdy

According to recent research conducted by Harvard Business School’s Assistant Professor Katherine B. Coffman, researchers believe gender stereotypes hold women back in the workplace. These stereotypes can even lead women to question their own capabilities, thereby limiting their progress. 

Despite constituting over 50% of the labor force in the USA and holding nearly 60% of advanced degrees, women continue to face a significant pay gap and fill fewer seats in the C-suite and top management positions than men, especially in male-dominated professions such as finance and technology.

According to labor economists, the gender gap in wages can be attributed to the phenomenon known as “occupational sorting,” with men choosing careers that pay higher wages than women do, labor economists say. For instance, a mere 26 percent of workers in computer and math jobs in the US are female, as per statistics from the US Department of Labor.

New research identifies one possible reason women might be shying away from certain professions: It appears that many of them lack confidence in their ability to compete in fields that men are stereotypically believed to perform more strongly in, such as science, math, and technology.

Women are also more reluctant to share their ideas in group discussions on these subjects. And even when they have talent—and are actually told they are high-achievers in these subjects—women are more likely than men to shrug off the praise and lowball their own abilities.

This lack of self-confidence can potentially hinder women from pursuing prestigious positions in fields where they doubt their competence, despite possessing the necessary skills to thrive.

According to Coffman, our self-beliefs play a significant role in determining crucial decisions. These decisions can range from the colleges we apply to, the career paths we choose, and even the extent to which we participate in the workplace to secure a promotion. Lack of confidence among women in STEM fields can deter them from exploring these areas entirely. Essentially, it comes down to how we see ourselves and what we believe we can achieve.

Coffman recently authored an article in the American Economic Review and two working papers that explore men’s and women’s beliefs about their abilities. Her research shows that gender stereotypes distort our self-perception as well as our perception of others. Women may find themselves at a disadvantage since they are more likely to internalize these stereotypes, creating a bleak self-image that is setting them back professionally.

Here’s a snapshot of findings from all three research studies:

1. Women exhibit lower levels of confidence than men in certain areas, particularly math

In a journal article titled “Beliefs about Gender” (pdf), Coffman and her colleagues conducted a study where participants were asked to answer multiple-choice trivia questions in various categories, including those traditionally associated with women such as cooking, art, literature, and verbal skills, as well as those typically associated with men, such as business, math, videogames, cars, and sports. Participants were then asked to estimate their own test scores and also predict the performance of an anonymous partner whose gender was disclosed. On average, both men and women exaggerated the actual gender performance differences, inflating male advantages in male-typed domains and female advantages in female-typed categories. Women reported significantly less confidence in their abilities in the subjects believed to be male-dominated.  

“Gender stereotypes determine people’s beliefs about themselves and others,” Coffman says. “If I take a woman who has the exact same ability in two different categories—verbal and math—just the fact that there’s an average male advantage in math shapes her belief that her own ability in math is lower.”

• Women discount positive feedback about their abilities

Coffman’s study, “Stereotypes and Belief Updating,” involved an experiment where participants completed a timed cognitive ability test in five distinct areas: general science, arithmetic reasoning, math knowledge, mechanical comprehension, and assembling objects. The participants were required to estimate their total number of correct answers as well as how their performance compared to others. Results showed that a woman with the same score as a man perceived her score to be 0.58 points lower, which was statistically significant. Even after receiving feedback on their performance, women continued to underestimate their abilities relative to men.

In another study, participants were asked to guess their scores on tests covering randomly assigned subject matter, and to predict their rank compared to other test-takers. Researchers provided participants with feedback on their performance, but both men and women discounted good news about their scores in subjects perceived to be challenging for their gender. Coffman contends that stereotypes play a strong role in shaping our beliefs about ourselves and can make it harder to convince individuals of their talent in fields where they believe their gender is weak.

Coffman suggests that repeatedly giving talented women positive feedback could help improve their confidence in male-dominated fields such as math. However, her research indicates that a single instance of positive feedback may not be sufficient to close gender gaps. Although it remains unclear whether repeated encouragement would be effective in diminishing gender bias over time, Coffman recommends encouraging women multiple times to close these gaps.

Finally, Coffman notes that her studies also show that men are similarly less confident than women in fields dominated by women. According to Coffman, individuals are generally less confident in fields that are stereotypically outside of their gender’s domain, rather than one gender being inherently less confident than the other.

• Women hold back on expressing ideas on ‘male topics’

In a third paper, Gender Stereotypes in Deliberation and Team Decisions, Coffman and colleagues studied how teams discuss, decide on, and reward ideas in a group.

Coffman and her team conducted a study titled “Gender Stereotypes in Deliberation and Team Decisions” in which they observed how teams discussed, made decisions, and rewarded ideas within a group. Two groups were compared based on their free-form discussions surrounding questions that varied in the degree of “maleness.” One group participants’ genders were known, while the gender of the speakers in the other group was not identifiable. Despite having similar abilities to answer the questions, gender stereotypes still warped people’s responses.

As the “maleness” of the question increased, women were significantly less likely than men to promote their ideas when their gender was known, especially when only one woman was speaking with a group of men. However, no gender differences were observed in groups where gender was unknown regarding how much men and women spoke up and received recognition for their input. 

Interestingly, the researchers even found that stereotypes seemed to play a role in the way outside evaluators rated the contributions of each group member after reading transcripts of the conversations. Without knowing the gender of speakers, these evaluators were significantly more likely to guess that participants who came across in the transcripts as “warm,” or friendly, were female and that a negative or critical participant was male—even though researchers found no actual differences in how men and women in the group communicated.  Male raters also were significantly less likely to believe that speakers who were judged as “competent” were female. In addition, warmer participants, particularly warmer women, were less likely to be rewarded for their input in the discussions.

• Women do not speak up for success

According to Coffman, to achieve professional success, individuals must voice opinions and advocate for their ideas while working in decision-making teams. It is a problem that women tend to remain silent on male-typed subjects and receive less appreciation when they do speak up. Thus, there is a need to structure group decision-making in a way that recognizes the contributions of the most talented members despite gender stereotypes.

 Coffman also suggests that it is also important for managers to be aware of how confidence gaps may impact the workplace, particularly in professions long dominated by men, and to realize that women may need extra encouragement to express their ideas or to seek promotion opportunities. 

“I would encourage business leaders to think about how [workers’ confidence levels] impact the processes in their organizations,” Coffman says. “I would say providing extra feedback is a good start. If you as an employer see talent somewhere, reaching out to make sure the person is encouraged, recognized, and rewarded—not just once, but repeatedly—could be a helpful thing to do.”

With this new data on gender stereotyping, Coffman and her colleagues hope their study will inform future research to answer some puzzling questions about why men and women alike believe that men perform better than women in some domains and what interventions can be considered to close this gender gap in self-confidence. 

 “Stereotypes are pervasive, widely-held views that shape beliefs about our own and others’ abilities, likely from a very young age,” Coffman says. “Until we can change these stereotypes, it’s essential to think about how we can better inoculate individuals from biases induced by stereotypes, helping people to pursue fulfilling careers in the areas where their passions and talents lie.”

***If you liked this article, don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter and receive our articles by email