We know gender bias exists but new research suggests it influences learning even earlier than we realize, especially when it comes to math. A Rutgers University study published in Developmental Science found that young children are more likely to believe incorrect math information from men than correct answers from women.
“It’s already been determined that male math bias exists, but this is the first time that we’re seeing gender bias directly influencing how children learn math,” said Kathleen Cracknell, a doctoral student in cognitive psychology at the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences and a lead author of the study.
Numerical estimation is an important early math skill, and while children are born with an intuitive sense of quantity, they generally don’t learn to connect what they see – like a handful of grapes – with numbers until around age 5.
In the study, nearly 200 children aged 5 to 7 (93 girls and 105 boys) were asked to participate in online estimation games. Kids were shown a group of dots on a screen and asked to guess how many they saw. First, the children played the game alone. Then, they were asked to repeat the game with a couple of “friends,” a male avatar and female avatar. In some cases, the man overestimated the number of dots and the woman was accurate, and in others it was reversed. To make sure this wasn’t about general trust, the researchers also included a non-numerical memory game as a control.
When the male avatar gave an incorrect answer and the female avatar gave a correct one, kids’ answers still gravitated toward the male’s estimate. “When kids were repeatedly exposed to incorrect answers from the male, their later estimates stayed biased even after the avatars were gone,” said Julia Hauss, a Rutgers graduate student and co-author of the study.
For Jenny Wang, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology and cognitive science and director of Cognitive Kids, a collaboration of child development research labs at Rutgers, the findings felt both striking and, in many ways, deeply familiar.
“People tend to not really face the reality that this kind of bias exists in our society,” Wang told New Jersey Family. “What was shocking for us was realizing that nobody had really asked how gender bias could influence how children actually learn from other people. It’s such a common phenomenon and such an important part of child development, and yet we know so little about it.”
What’s especially striking is that this kind of gender bias appears even though girls often perform just as well—or better—than boys in math during elementary school, Wang said. For parents, awareness of this bias, and a reminder to our kids that they are their own unique individuals with their own unique capabilities, is key.
“The best line of defense is to prepare our children for the fact that these tendencies exist,” Wang said. “We’re all influenced by the people around us. Sometimes we trust certain people more than others, and that’s something to question.”
Rather than pretending bias doesn’t exist—or treating all kids exactly the same—Wang encourages parents to focus on each child’s individuality.
“It doesn’t matter if your child is a boy or a girl,” Wang said. “If they like math, they should try. Bias exists, but it’s not reflective of any individual child’s abilities or limits.”
In other words, Wang said, it’s important to help kids recognize that bias exists, and to encourage them to trust themselves and their own abilities.
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