YA THINK
Female chess players may DO experience gender bias from parents, mentors
Girls seen as having less potential to succeed in chess than boys, study finds
IT'S AN UNFOUNDED UNSCIENTIFIC SOCIAL BIAS
Peer-Reviewed PublicationYoung female chess players often face gender bias both in the male-dominated chess world and among parents and mentors who believe girls have less potential to succeed in chess than boys, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
“It’s disheartening to see young female players’ potential downgraded, even by the people who are closest to them, like their parents and coaches,” said lead researcher Sophie Arnold, a doctoral student at New York University.
The study, which was published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, presents what the researchers say is the first large-scale evidence of gender bias against young female chess players. The study included participants from a U.S. Chess Federation mailing list, comprising 286 parents and mentors of 654 children. Ninety percent of the adults were men, and 81% of the children were boys, mirroring the gender disparities in the chess world.
In response to an online survey, the parents and mentors said they thought girls’ highest potential chess rating was lower than boys’ ratings, especially if they believed that brilliance was required to succeed in chess. Mentors, but not parents, who endorsed this brilliance belief also were more likely to say that female mentees were more likely to drop out of chess because of low ability.
The chess world has always been dominated by men. In 2020, only 14% of all U.S. Chess Federation players were girls or women. More than 100 high-ranking female chess players and coaches recently signed an open letter about “sexist and sexual violence” perpetrated in the chess world, deeming it “one of the main reasons why women and young girls, especially in their teens, stop playing chess.”
“Gender bias also may prevent girls from even starting to play chess competitively if their own parents and mentors aren’t convinced that they will succeed,” Arnold said.
In the study, parents, but not mentors, believed girls had a less supportive chess environment than boys. Nevertheless, neither parents nor mentors believed girls were more likely to drop out of chess because of an unsupportive environment.
The study did not include enough mothers and female mentors to determine if their views differed from those of fathers and male mentors. The findings also may not reflect the opinions of the general public because the participants were already involved in competitive chess and had extensive interactions with the players they were rating which usually reduces bias.
There has been a huge resurgence of interest in chess by girls and boys across the United States. While some strides have been made to address gender bias in the chess world, more work needs to be done, Arnold said.
“Continued structural support for all female players is needed to improve girls’ and women’s experiences in chess,” Arnold said. “Our research also suggests that bias can come even from those closest to girls.”
Article: “Checking Gender Bias: Parents and Mentors Perceive Less Chess Potential in Girls,” Sophie Arnold, BA, Wei Ji Ma, PhD, and Andrei Cimpian, PhD, New York University, April H. Bailey, PhD, University of New Hampshire, and Jennifer Shahade, Woman Grandmaster, International Chess Federation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, published online Oct. 5, 2023.
Contact: Sophie Arnold, BA, may be contacted at sophie.arnold@nyu.edu.
The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA’s membership includes over 146,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication
JOURNAL
Journal of Experimental Psychology
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Survey
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Checking Gender Bias: Parents and Mentors Perceive Less Chess Potential in Girls
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
5-Oct-2023
In checking chess’s gender bias, researchers find parents and mentors shortchange girls’ potential
Findings of NYU study, co-authored by former US Chess champion, show barriers girls and women face when it comes to perceived intellectual ability
“The Queen’s Gambit” miniseries portrayed the life of a fictional chess prodigy, Beth Harmon, who is continuously underestimated in male-dominated competitions. A team of New York University psychology researchers has now found some “real-life” evidence of what Harmon faced as a younger player: Parents and coaches of youth chess players peg the highest potential rating of girl players to be lower than that of boy players.
Moreover, the study’s authors, who included Jennifer Shahade, a two-time US Women’s Chess champion, found that coaches who think “brilliance” is required to succeed in chess also believe that their female mentees would be more likely to stop playing the game due to lack of ability than their male mentees would. But, at the same time, coaches and parents don’t think girls encounter a less supportive environment than do boys—or that girls might be more likely to stop playing as a result.
“While it is inspiring to see a fictional woman winning in a space dominated by men, real-world women remain underrepresented in chess,” says Sophie Arnold, an NYU doctoral student and the lead author of the paper, which appears in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. “This study identifies one contributing reason as to why: Parents and coaches are biased against the female youth players in their own lives.”
“It is striking that even the parents and coaches who have a vested interest in girls’ success hold biases against them and may also have some blind spots about the barriers to girls’ success,” adds Andrei Cimpian, a professor in NYU’s Department of Psychology and the paper’s senior author.
“These beliefs are likely to be harmful both to girls who already play chess and to those who could want to: Would you be interested in participating in an activity where your potential is downgraded by your parents and by your coaches before you have even started?” says NYU alumna Shahade, author of Chess Queens and Play Like a Girl!, who was involved in the study design.
In the US Chess Federation (“US Chess”), only 13% of players are women, raising questions about what drives the gender disparity. Previous studies have largely focused on potential deficits in chess ability among girls, which overlooks the role of adult leadership.
“This line of scholarship can make the overrepresentation of men in chess seem like it’s a ‘girls and women problem’ rather than a ‘chess problem,’ ” says Arnold.
In the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General work, by contrast, the researchers considered how the important people in girls’ lives—coaches and parents—may be biased against them when assessing their potential, even at a young age, and how these perceptions may help explain the huge gender gap in who plays chess.
To do so, the team interviewed nearly 300 parents and mentors—90% of whom were men—who were recruited through the US Chess Federation. In the survey, they reported their evaluations of and investment in approximately 650 youth players. In addition, parents and coaches were asked if they thought aptitude in chess requires brilliance—a measure Cimpian and his colleagues have used in the past to detect stereotyping and gender bias in academic fields.
The researchers found bias against girls across multiple measures. Parents and coaches thought that female youth players’ highest potential ratings were on average lower than those of male players—a bias that was exacerbated among parents and mentors who believed that success in chess requires brilliance. (The researchers note that the sample of mothers and female coaches was too small to analyze separately—a reflection of women’s underrepresentation in chess more generally.)
Notably, these coaches and parents didn’t recognize that their own presumptions may function as a barrier to girls succeeding in the game. Specifically, coaches who thought brilliance was required to succeed in chess also thought their female mentees would be more likely to stop playing chess due to a lack of ability than their male mentees. And, in fact, parents and coaches did not believe that girls—relative to boys—encounter a less supportive environment in chess and might stop playing chess as a result.
However, not all news was bad. For example, the researchers found no bias in the amount of resources—such as time and money—coaches and parents reported being willing to invest in female relative to male youth players.
“This study provides the first large-scale investigation of bias against young female players and holds implications for the role of parents and mentors in science and technology—areas that, like chess, are culturally associated with intellectual ability and exhibit substantial gender imbalances,” notes Arnold.
The paper’s other authors were April Bailey, an NYU postdoctoral researcher at the time of the study and now an assistant professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire, and Weiji Ma, a professor in NYU’s Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science who has previously examined gender bias in chess.
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JOURNAL
Journal of Experimental Psychology General
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Survey
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
5-Oct-2023
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