Friday, May 05, 2023

How is sleep affected by changing clocks and seasons?

Study finds problems only when getting an extra hour of sleep

AMERICAN ACADEMY OF NEUROLOGY

MINNEAPOLIS – How are you sleeping? A new study has found the transition from daylight saving time to standard time, when one hour is gained overnight, was associated with a brief increase in sleep disorders such as difficulty going to sleep or staying asleep, but there was no such association when an hour is lost in the change from standard time to daylight saving time. The study is published in the May 3, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. It also found a small difference in the amount of sleep people get depending on the season.

“Sleep plays an essential role in maintaining good health, mood, cognition, job performance, and social activity, and it is influenced by the circadian rhythm, the internal clock that regulates body processes,” said study author Ron B. Postuma, MD, MSc, of McGill University, in Montreal, Canada, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. “The good news is that the sleep disruptions we observed following the change to standard time were brief and no longer evident two weeks after the shift.”

The study involved 30,097 people, ages 45 to 85, who completed a questionnaire about sleep duration and satisfaction, ability to fall asleep, ability to remain asleep and excessive sleepiness during the day. Questions included, “Over the last month, how often did it take you more than 30 minutes to fall asleep?” and “Over the last month, how often did you wake in the middle of the night or too early in the morning and found it difficult to fall asleep again?” Those who responded three or more times a week to either of these questions were considered to have sleep problems.

For the change to standard time in the fall, researchers compared people who completed the questionnaire one week before the transition to those who completed it one week after. After adjusting for age, sex and location, they found those who completed the survey one week after the transition had a 34% increased risk of sleep dissatisfaction, with 28% reporting sleep dissatisfaction compared to 23% of those interviewed one week before. Those who completed the questionnaire one week after also had a more than two times greater risk of difficulty falling asleep, a 64% increased risk of difficulty remaining asleep, and a two times greater risk of excessive sleepiness during waking hours.

For the transition to daylight saving time in spring, researchers compared people who completed the questionnaire one week before the change to those who completed it one week after. They found no difference in sleep problems. However, they did find a nine-minute decrease in sleep duration one week after this transition.

Researchers looked at when participants completed the questionnaire: spring, summer, fall or winter. While they found no difference for sleep problems, they did find a small difference in sleep duration.

People who completed the questionnaire in summer had the shortest sleep duration, an average of 6.76 hours of sleep daily. People who completed the survey in the winter had the longest sleep duration, an average of 6.84 hours of sleep daily, a difference of five minutes.

“As disruptive as these transitions may feel in the short term, there may be few long-term implications of the repeated switch back and forth from daylight saving time to standard time.” said Postuma. “However, previous research has linked the transitions to and from daylight saving time with higher rates of accidents as well as an increased risk of stroke and heart attack. Future studies are needed that follow individuals over time, including people living in areas with different light exposure and seasonal changes.”

A limitation of the study was that it included only middle-aged and older adults, and results may not be the same for younger adults.

The study was funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research.

Learn more about brain health at BrainandLife.org, home of the American Academy of Neurology’s free patient and caregiver magazine focused on the intersection of neurologic disease and brain health. Follow Brain & Life® on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

When posting to social media channels about this research, we encourage you to use the hashtags #Neurology and #AANscience.

The American Academy of Neurology is the world’s largest association of neurologists and neuroscience professionals, with over 40,000 members. The AAN is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, migraine, multiple sclerosis, concussion, Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.

For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit AAN.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.

JOURNAL

Neurology

Early life abuse may be linked to greater risk of adult premature death

Findings highlight importance of trauma care for those who have experienced child abuse, say researchers

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMJ

Physical and sexual abuse in childhood and adolescence could be associated with a greater risk of adult premature death (before age 70), finds research published by The BMJ today.

This study extends and refines the existing evidence in this area, and highlights the importance of providing trauma informed care for those who have experienced child abuse, say the researchers.

Early life abuse is a global public health issue because it substantially contributes to child death and a range of long term consequences during adulthood. However, the association of childhood or adolescent abuse with total and cause specific premature death during adulthood remains unclear.

To explore this further, researchers examined data from 67,726 US female nurses taking part in the Nurses’ Health Study II, an ongoing monitoring study that began in 1989.

Nurses were aged 37-54 years when they completed a violence victimization questionnaire in 2001 to record experiences of physical and sexual abuse in childhood (before age 12 years) and adolescence (between ages 12 and 17 years).
The researchers then calculated summary measures of abuse and linked these to medical records, autopsy reports, or death certificates to determine age and cause of death.

They also considered other relevant factors, including ethnicity, parental education and profession, physical activity, diet, smoking status, alcohol intake, prescription drug use, and depression.

During 18 years of monitoring, 2,410 premature deaths were identified. Nurses who experienced severe physical abuse or forced sexual activity in childhood and adolescence had a higher premature death rate than nurses without such abuse (3.15 v 1.83 and 4.00 v 1.90 per 1000 person years, respectively).

After adjusting for age, personal characteristics, and socioeconomic status in early life, relative premature death rates were 53% and 80% higher among nurses who experienced severe physical abuse or forced sexual activity in childhood and adolescence compared with those who did not.

Further analyses indicated that severe physical abuse was associated with around a 3-fold greater risk of death due to external injury, poisoning and suicide and a 2.4-fold greater risk for digestive diseases.

And serious sexual abuse was associated with a 2.5-fold greater risk of death due to cardiovascular disease, over a 3-fold greater risk from external injury, poisoning and respiratory disease, and over a 4-fold greater risk from suicide and digestive diseases.

The association of sexual abuse with premature death was stronger among women who smoked or had higher levels of anxiety during adulthood.

The researchers suggest that early life abuse may trigger biological changes, including to immune and inflammatory function and brain development, and heighten vulnerability to later mental health problems and unhealthy lifestyle patterns.

This is an observational study, so can’t establish cause, and the researchers acknowledge that the data relied on personal recall of early life abuse, which may have affected accuracy. And the study included primarily non-Hispanic white female nurses, so results may not apply to the general female population and other more diverse populations.

Nevertheless, this was a large study with 18 years of monitoring, excellent response rates, detailed information on causes of death and abuse history, and adjustment for a range of other potentially influential factors, suggesting that the results are robust.

As such, they conclude: “Women reporting early life physical abuse and forced sexual activity might continue to be vulnerable to premature mortality, highlighting the importance of providing trauma informed care for those who have experienced child abuse.”

“It is now clear that health outcomes for people exposed to serious child abuse or neglect are poor, and for those subject to the highest level abuse truly concerning,” write Australian researchers in a linked editorial.

They call for a proportionate clinical response and say clinicians and health and community services “require the capacity, skill, and funding to deliver the intensive and responsive service models needed to address the trauma underlying many, apparently intractable chronic conditions.”

A long term commitment to a proportionate response “could reduce the disturbing health consequences observed in victims of child abuse and neglect, and prevent the transmission of abuse to another generation,” they conclude.

JOURNAL

The BMJ

DOI

10.1136/bmj-2022-073613

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Research: Association of early life physical and sexual abuse with premature mortality among female nurses: prospective cohort study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

3-May-2023

COI STATEMENT

All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/ and declare: support from the National Institutes of Health for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work

Epilepsy medicine during pregnancy associated with increased risk of psychiatric disorders in children

A major international study emphasizes that women should be very cautious about using epilepsy medicine during pregnancy. Researchers warn against one drug in particular

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AARHUS UNIVERSITY

By: Jakob Binderup, Aarhus University

Some types of epilepsy medicine taken during pregnancy are associated with an increased risk of severe psychiatric disorders in children.

This is the conclusion of a comprehensive study of 38,000 children of mothers with epilepsy by researchers from Aarhus University.

While it has long been known that some forms of epilepsy medicine used during pregnancy are associated with a risk of birth defects, this new study is the most comprehensive study of children's mental health so far.

Among other things, the researchers found a worrying link between the antiseizure medication valproat and the child’s risk of developing a number of different psychiatric disorders.

"Our study shows that four out of ten children born to mothers with epilepsy who had used valproat during pregnancy were diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder before the age of 18, and that the drug was particularly associated with an increased risk of diseases such as autism, ADHD and intellectual disability," explains Jakob Christensen, a professor at Aarhus University and a consultant at Aarhus University Hospital and one of the researchers behind the study.

Warning against several drugs

In the study, 42 per cent of children of mothers who used valproat during pregnancy developed a psychiatric disorder before the age of 18. By comparison, only 31 per cent of children of mothers with epilepsy who did not take antiseizure medication during pregnancy developed a psychiatric disorder.

The study also shows that children whose mothers took the drugs topiramate or levetiracetam during pregnancy have an increased risk of ADHD and anxiety disorders.

On the positive side, the study shows that frequently used drugs such as lamostrigine, carbamazepine and oxcarbazepine are not associated with an increased risk of psychiatric disorders.

Need for more research

According to Jakob Christensen, the study confirms the existing warning against the use of valproate during pregnancy and also recommends caution with the use of topiramate and levetiracetam.

"Our research emphasises the importance of understanding the potential harmful effects of epilepsy medicine during pregnancy and the continued lack of knowledge about how different types of medicine can affect the child's psychological development,” he says and continues:

"Our study shows that there is a need for more research and more accurate risk estimates to help pregnant women with epilepsy and their doctors make informed decisions about the use of medicine during pregnancy."

The study was carried out across five Nordic countries – Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland – and it includes children born in the period 1996-2017.

In Denmark, approx. 400 children are born every year to mothers who have taken epilepsy medicine during pregnancy.

The research results - more information

Type of study: Register-based cohort study

Partners: Aarhus University Hospital, University of Bergen, University of Oslo, Karolinska Institute, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, University of New South Wales, University of Reykjavik, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare.

External funding: NordForsk Nordic Program on Health and Welfare (83796; 83539) and Independent Research Fund Denmark (1133-00026B)

Potential conflicts of interest: The researchers have declared several possible conflicts of interest. Dr Bjørk has received fees from a company that has been approved to sell valproat, as well as remuneration and funding for her research from several pharmaceutical companies. Dr Alvestad has received remuneration for being a speaker for Eisai. Dr Igland has received funding for research from Pfizer and Sanofi. Dr Leinonen has received funding from the Inoovative Medicines Initiative, IMI ConePTION and the Finnish Medicines Agency. Dr Zoega has received funding from AbbVie Australia and is employed at the Center for Big Data Research in Health, University of New South Wales, which is also receiving funding from AbbVie Australia for research unrelated to this study. Dr Cohen and Dr Furu have received funding from the Research Council of Norway during the study. Dr Tomson has received funding from several pharmaceutical companies, and Jakob Christensen has received remuneration from UCB Nordic and personal remuneration from Eisai in connection with the study.

Link to publication: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2803245

JOURNAL

JAMA Neurology

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

ARTICLE TITLE

Prenatal Exposure to Antiseizure Medication and Incidence of Childhood- and Adolescence-Onset Psychiatric Disorders

Older people have better mental well-being than 30 years ago

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF JYVÄSKYLÄ - JYVÄSKYLÄN YLIOPISTO

Older people have better mental well-being than 30 years ago — IMAGE: OLDER PEOPLE HAVE BETTER MENTAL WELL-BEING THAN 30 YEARS AGO view more
CREDIT: MOSTPHOTOS

This was observed in a study conducted at the Gerontology Research Center at the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä (Finland). The study examined differences in depressive symptoms and life satisfaction between current 75- and 80-year-olds and the same-aged people who lived in the 1990s.

The results showed that 75- and 80-year-old men and women today experience fewer depressive symptoms than those who were 75 and 80 years old in the 1990s. The differences were partly explained by the better perceived health and higher education of those born later.

“In our previous comparisons, we found that older people today have significantly better physical and cognitive functioning at the same age compared to those born earlier,” says Professor Taina Rantanen from the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences. “These new results complement these positive findings in terms of mental well-being.”

Today, 75- and 80-year-olds are more satisfied with their lives to date. However, there was no similar difference in satisfaction with their current lives. In fact, 80-year-old men who lived in the 1990s were even more satisfied with their current lives than 80-year-old are men today.

“These men born in 1910 had lived through difficult times, which may explain their satisfaction with their current lives in the 1990s when many things were better than before," says postdoctoral researcher Tiia Kekäläinen.

“Individuals adapt to their situation and living conditions. Both in the 1990s and today, the majority of older adults reported being satisfied with their current lives.”

The study was conducted at the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences and Gerontology Research Center at University of Jyväskylä, Finland. The first cohort consisted of 617 individuals born in 1910 and 1914 who participated in the Evergreen study in 1989–1990. The second cohort consisted of 794 individuals born in 1938–1939 and 1942–1943 who participated in the AGNES study in 2017–2018. In both cohorts, the participants were assessed at the age of 75 or 80 years. The study was funded by the Academy of Finland and the European Research Council.

JOURNAL

Journal of Aging and Health

DOI

10.1177/08982643231164739

ARTICLE TITLE

Cohort Differences in Depressive Symptoms and Life Satisfaction in 75- and 80-Year-Olds: A Comparison of Two Cohorts 28 Years Apart

Understanding self-directed ageism

Normal age-related changes in how we think, perceive and reason may increase the risk of older people viewing themselves through a negative and ageist lens, University of Queensland research suggests

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND

The study led by Professor Julie Henry from UQ’s School of Psychology looked at why self-directed ageism is common.

Cognitive changes make it difficult for older people to challenge internalised ageist beliefs.
Image: Adobe.

“Older people are regularly exposed to ageism such as negative assumptions about their worth, capacity or level of understanding, as well as jokes about older age,” Professor Henry said.

“At the same time, as we grow older, we rely more strongly on prior knowledge and cues from our environment to guide how we feel, think and behave.

“In a world that devalues ageing, these cognitive changes make it more difficult for older people to challenge internalised ageist beliefs, known as self-directed ageism.”

Self-directed ageism can present as self-doubt – ‘I'm too old to learn this new technology’ or ‘I’m too old to make new friends’ – and negative perceptions of one’s own aging, such as ‘I'm so much worse at this than I used to be’.

Self-directed ageism can also present as concern over being judged according to age-based stereotypes, such as ‘If I forget to do this, they're going to think it's because I'm old’.

Professor Henry said when ageism is internalised and becomes self-directed, it has been linked to a shorter lifespan, poorer physical and mental health, slower recovery from disability and cognitive decline.

“It can also be harmful when older adults allow their negative beliefs about ageing to undermine their confidence to take on new or challenging experiences and opportunities,” Professor Henry said.

“Interventions, such as creating more opportunities for positive social interactions between younger and older people, are needed to prevent negative views of ageing from developing in the first place.

“Our research also suggests that older adults will benefit directly from a reduction in cues to ageism in our wider social environment.

“If fewer ageist cues attract older people’s attention, the risk of self-directed ageism should be reduced.”

The paper is published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

JOURNAL

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The cognitive tenacity of self-directed ageism

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

4-May-2023

Biological age increases with stress but can be reversed

In preclinical models and in humans, stress from surgery, pregnancy and severe COVID-19 increased signs of biological age, which were reversed following recovery

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL

In preclinical models and in humans, stress from surgery, pregnancy and severe COVID-19 increased signs of biological age, which were reversed following recovery

We may not be able to wind back the clock on our chronological age, but our biological age may be more flexible. Biological age reflects the health of a person’s cells and tissue, and can be influenced by disease, lifestyle changes, environmental exposures and more. While there have been hints that biological age might be reversible, a new study led by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system is the first to provide strong evidence, from both humans and preclinical models, that when stress is relieved, biological age can be restored. Their results, which have implications for testing anti-aging drugs, are published in Cell Metabolism.

“Traditionally, biological age has been thought to just go up and up, but we hypothesized that it’s actually much more dynamic,” said lead author Jesse Poganik, PhD, of the Brigham’s Division of Genetics. “Severe stress can trigger biological age to increase, but if that stress is short lived, the signs of biological aging can be reversed.”

Poganik and colleagues gathered data from several situations that are likely to cause severe physiological stress. In one experiment, they examined blood samples from elderly patients undergoing emergency surgery, looking at samples collected immediately before surgery, a few days after surgery and before discharge from the hospital. The team also looked at blood samples from pregnant mice and pregnant people, looking at samples from early and late phases of pregnancy and after giving birth. And in a third analysis, the team examined samples from patients who test positive for COVID-19 and were admitted to the intensive care unit. They analyzed samples taken when the patient was admitted to the ICU and samples collected over the span of their stay. The team also used a classic mouse model in which, through a surgical procedure, the circulatory systems of younger and older mouse are joined together.

The team used “biological clocks” to determine the health of cells and tissue. Biological clocks measure levels of DNA methylation—molecular changes that can indicate an increase in risk of morbidity and mortality. These clocks are used widely in the aging research field.

In all of the analyses, the researchers saw indications that biological age increased in situations of several physiological stress but was stored when the stressful situation resolved. In the analysis of patients undergoing major surgery, the team found that signs of biological age increased among patients receiving emergency surgery to repair a hip fracture but returned to baseline 4 to 7 days after surgery. This pattern was not seen among patients who received other non-trauma surgeries.

In the studies of the effect of pregnancy on biological age, the researchers saw a consistent pattern in humans and mice: biological age increased during pregnancy, up to the point of giving birth. This change peaked around the time of delivery and resolved postpartum.

Among patients hospitalized with COVID-19, the team saw an increase in biological age that was partially reversed by the time of discharge from the ICU for female patients. But the team did not observe a significant change among male patients.

The authors note that the clocks they are using are biomarkers—signs that may reflect biological age or could be driven by other factors that have not yet been identified. They also note that not all subjects recover their biological age at the same rate or to the same extent—understanding how and why biological age increases and how to improve recovery will be important areas of focus for future studies. But the work does point to a new understanding of the nature of biological aging, with implications for the study of anti-aging interventions.

“Our findings challenge the concept that biological age can only increase over a person’s lifetime and suggest that it may be possible to identify interventions that could slow or even partially reverse biological age,” said senior author Vadim Gladyshev, PhD, of the Brigham’s Division of Genetics. “When stress was relieved, biological age could be restored. This means that that finding ways to help the body recover from stress could increase longevity.”

Funding: This study was funded by the National Institute of Aging, the BWH Organ Design and Engineering Training Program, and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (5T32EB016652-07).

Paper cited: Poganik JR et al. “Biological age is increased by stress and restored upon recovery” Cell Metabolism DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2023.03.015

JOURNAL

Cell Metabolism

DOI

10.1016/j.cmet.2023.03.015

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Biological age is increased by stress and restored upon recovery

Sexist and impossible standards are still entrenched in UK political reporting, new study finds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SURREY

Female politicians continue to be subjected to sexist, impossible standards at the hands of the UK media, according to a new study conducted by the University of Surrey.

The study analysed more than 115 UK mainstream tabloid and broadsheet articles published directly after the resignation of former Prime Minister, Theresa May in May 2019. The research found a dominant theme in the assessment of May’s legacy was her perceived inability to ‘get Brexit done’.

A large proportion of the coverage framed May as politically and personally fragile despite her 22 years in Parliament. The study argues that this framing was rooted in sexist beliefs that associate femininity in politics with weakness.

Dr Nathalie Weidhase, author of the study and Lecturer in Media Communication at the University of Surrey said:

“We found language that strongly suggested that the ‘feminine weakness’ is the opposite of the ‘masculine strength’ that is deemed necessary to ‘get Brexit done’. Thus, Brexit has been constructed as inherently masculine, and women are considered a threat to this project, highlighting Brexit as a gendered political process.

“Unfortunately, in the eyes of the media, female qualities, and women themselves, can only stand in the way of the success of Brexit as an inherently male political populist project.”

As an example of the sexism female politicians are subjected to, the study shows how newspapers highlighted May’s tears as an extraordinary act for a politician, but also as proof that Theresa May did possess some feminine emotions. This unexpected display of emotions was met with sympathy across the political spectrum. However, it also revealed a range of tensions throughout the British media landscape along political and gendered lines.

Dr Weidhase commented further:

“Emotional performances come at a cost for women. They may make female political leaders more likeable, but in turn they lose credibility and are judged as less competent – trapping them in a double bind that suggests that the assertiveness required for leadership is incompatible with the qualities associated with femininity, such as empathy.

“Female politicians are mediated as women first, politicians second, but are simultaneously meant to represent other women politically – an additional burden in itself. In the context of social media, this intensifies in violent ways with female politicians being regularly subjected to torrents of sexist abuse.”

Read the full study in Feminist Media Studies.

###

Note to editors:   

Contact the University of Surrey press office: mediarelations@surrey.ac.uk

JOURNAL

Feminist Media Studies

DOI

10.1080/14680777.2023.2200552

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Theresa’s tears: gendering mediations of populist leadership failures in Brexit Britain

Integrating STEM majors won’t end gender segregation at work

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N.Y. – Increasing women’s representation in science, technology, engineering, and math majors will reduce—but not nearly eliminate—gender disparities in STEM occupations, Cornell University sociologists report in new research.

Overall, 36% of the gender segregation seen among college-educated workers is tied to their undergraduate degrees, according to the most comprehensive analysis of that relationship to date. The rest is attributable to labor market factors, potentially ranging from discrimination to family leave policies, that may sort men and women into different types of jobs even when they have the same degree.

The findings suggest that integrating academic majors—particularly those dominated by men and closely linked to specific careers—will help slowly chip away at gaps in pay, prestige, and other aspects of gender inequality at work. On the other hand, most of the problem unfolds outside of higher education.

“Integrating fields of study is an important mechanism for addressing gender inequality in the labor market, especially in STEM fields,” said Haowen Zheng, a doctoral student in the field of sociology. “But even if you do that, you still have a long way to go to integrate the labor market among college graduates.”

Zheng is the lead author of “How Gender Segregation in Higher Education Contributes to Gender Segregation in the U.S. Labor Market,” published recently in the journal Demography with co-author Kim Weeden, a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, and director of the Center for the Study of Inequality.

College majors are assumed to impart skills and credentials that lead to job opportunities, such that the labor market will echo gender or racial disparities in fields of study. Attention and resources have focused most prominently on STEM degree programs as pipelines for diversifying the STEM workforce, but few researchers have examined the relationship across the full range of fields and careers.

The new study fills that gap, analyzing a sample of nearly 2.4 million college graduates from five years of census data (2015-19), which tracked 173 undergraduate fields of study and more than 400 occupations.

The data highlights well-known disparities across fields of study, with a smaller share of women earning STEM degrees and a larger share earning degrees in health, social sciences, humanities and education. The researchers said integrating “high-linkage” fields that funnel graduates into a limited number of professions, including many STEM fields, would be most beneficial for integrating male-dominated professions, compared with “low-linkage” fields like liberal arts or international studies.

But Zheng and Weeden, borrowing a methodology developed recently by scholars of residential racial segregation, calculated that the different undergraduate degrees among men and women have a modest effect in the labor market, accounting for roughly one-third of occupational segregation.

“After that,” Weeden said, “if the goal is to even out what’s going on in the labor market, you have to look beyond fields of study in college to figure out policy levers for integrating labor markets.”

The census data does not contain detail about subfields and why men and women end up in them, but research has identified factors that can push women out of male-dominated fields or professions. They include unwelcoming or hostile work environments; policies related to household and caregiving responsibilities; organizational cultures that promote “overwork”; discriminatory views of women’s competence; and sometimes women’s self-evaluations of their abilities.

Zheng said teasing out the role of college degrees in career outcomes for women and men was a step toward understanding what is driving those trends.

“Just integrating fields of study is not enough,” she said. “We need more research and policies to figure out why we still see so much gender segregation in the labor market, even when women and men are from the same fields.”

For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

Cornell University has dedicated television and audio studios available for media interviews.

-30-

JOURNAL

Demography

DOI

10.1215/00703370-10653728

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Integrating STEM majors won’t end gender segregation at work

Tracing charisma with avatars

Are mainly people of high status perceived as being charismatic? And what does this mean for people with lower status? An interdisciplinary research project at the University of Konstanz focuses on the charisma of politicians from socially marginalized base

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF KONSTANZ

This group – women, for example, or people with a different social or ethnic background compared to the majority society – is still underrepresented in politics, according to several studies. "Do perceptions of charisma vary depending on people’s social status?" asks sociolinguist Judit Vári, the coordinator of the project. The researchers want to discover both, conscious charisma attributions and subconscious ones by using stimuli including only voices, only images, or both combined.

Studies have shown that physical appearance generally plays a major role in the perception of charisma. As the project team aims to identify individual pieces of the puzzle, they do not use real people in the experiments, but avatars designed specifically for this purpose. These avatars do not only look naturalistic, but can also be animated in a naturalistic way. Using avatars helps the researchers to isolate single factors by changing only one characteristic, such as skin colour.

Astonishingly, people can make many inferences from voices, for example the speakers’ ethnic background. Therefore, the researchers test variations of accents and dialects with auditory stimuli. Vári explains: "We are particularly interested in the combination of factors: Are persons still perceived as charismatic when they look different? And even though two persons speak equally fast, equally high or low and use the same words, their charisma may be assessed differently, because some characteristics of the lower status speech can be detected anyway".

Another factor are the listeners themselves as they also impact how charisma traits are perceived, something on which there is still hardly any research. That is why the project team focuses on differences between listeners: Who considers whom to be charismatic and on what does this perception depend?

That is not all: The study runs in Germany and the UK, and the researchers will compare the results. "We expect to see differences between the countries, simply because of the different organisation of the political systems. The perception of political debates is probably different," says Judit Vári

The detailed article about the research project “Perceptions of political charisma in low-status speakers” which is funded by the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality", is freely available (in German) in the magazine uni'kon of the University of Konstanz (uni'kon #77 from p. 18): in the e-reader and in the PDF version on page 18.

New research exposes differences between how men and women compete against each other

Online gaming environment enabled women to reveal or conceal their gender identity in competition

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INSTITUTE FOR OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND THE MANAGEMENT SCIENCES

Key Takeaways:

Online video gaming environment makes it possible to compare male and female approaches to competition, and the differences when those gender identities are known or concealed.
Men are more likely to try harder if they know their opponent is female.
Women don’t change their approach based on their opponent’s gender.

BALTIMORE, MD, May 4, 2023 – It is well understood that in the labor market there exists wage gaps between men and women, and in general, women had to fight to break the “glass ceiling” to get to upper management in the workplace. The causes of the gender gap could be multiple factors from discrimination to ability difference, and it is not easy to separate one from the other.

These questions were on the mind of researchers when they decided to use video game platforms to get some answers. They chose the online video gaming environment to do their research because you can be two dimensional there. When creating a character or avatar, you can use your birth sex, or you could conceal your gender and portray yourself virtually as the opposite sex.

In the end, the researchers found that men are more or less motivated by the knowledge of the gender of their competition, whereas women are not. Further, they found that this leads to poorer performance for women when competing against men unless they conceal their gender.

The study, “Does Concealing Gender Identity Help Women Win the Competition? An Empirical Investigation into Online Video Games,” is authored by Xinlei (Jack) Chen of the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance; Xiaohua Zeng of Peking University HSBC Business School; and Cheng Zhang of the Fudan School of Management in Shanghai.

“Given the competitive nature of video games, we wanted to explore the similarities and differences between the aggressiveness of men versus women,” says Chen. “Common stereotypes assume that men tend to be more aggressive, while women are more passive, and that in a competitive environment, men would strive more for dominance while women would not. This is the ‘dominance effect.’”

“Through our research, we found that women did perform better when they actively concealed their gender identities in online video games,” says Chen. “To understand these findings, you have to know that online video games can be a toxic environment for women. According to a Pew Research Center survey on online harassment in 2014, compared with male players, female players experience more severe harassment, such as stalking, sexual harassment and sustained bullying.”

The researchers said that this has caused women to quit playing online video games. For those who stayed, by muting their voices and concealing their identity, they were able to play under ambiguous or male names, and ultimately perform on a par with or better than their male counterparts.

“To analyze competitive performance, we had to examine the dominance effect among players of online video games,” says Chen. “When men perceive their opponent as female, they tend to exert increased effort in competition, while women seem unaffected by their opponent’s gender.”

In the end, the researchers confirmed that gender stereotype arises during interpersonal competition and does affect the outcome of the competition.

“It’s important to note that the reason for this is not that women are submissive, but rather, when men perceive their opponent to be female, they are more likely to exert increased effort than they would if they perceive their competitor to be a man,” adds Chen. “Women don’t change their approach regardless. So, by concealing their gender, they gain an advantage simply by the neutralizing effect such knowledge has on their opponent.”

The study authors conducted extensive empirical research to arrive at their findings.

Link to Study

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Marketing Science is a premier peer-reviewed scholarly marketing journal focused on research using quantitative approaches to study all aspects of the interface between consumers and firms. It is published by INFORMS, the leading international association for the decision and data sciences. More information is available at www.informs.org or @informs.

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JOURNAL

Marketing Science

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

“Does Concealing Gender Identity Help Women Win the Competition? An Empirical Investigation into Online Video Games”

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