How women cope: Being a numerical minority in a male-dominated profession

Richman, LS

vanDellen, M

Wood, W

2016-04-08T15:00:09Z

2011-09-01

Women who have academic careers in engineering have successfully navigated the social identity threats that prevent many other women from feeling that they belong in science, technology, engineering, and math fields. In this research, we examined what factors may be related to resilience in these academic environments. Female academics in engineering and nonengineering fields watched a fictitious conference video depicting either an unbalanced ratio of men to women or a balanced ratio. Subjective measures of identity threat were collected. Past experience with discrimination, positive experience with female role models, family support, and general social support were associated with a greater sense of belonging to or desire to participate in the conference. These variables all buffered negative responding to social identity threat. Implications are discussed for understanding resilience to social identity threat, particularly among women in engineering. © 2011 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

1540-4560

0022-4537

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/11804

Wiley

Journal of Social Issues

10.1111/j.1540-4560.2011.01711.x

How women cope: Being a numerical minority in a male-dominated profession

Journal article

492

509

3

Duke

Psychology and Neuroscience

Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

Published

67