A threatening intellectual environment: why females are susceptible to experiencing problem-solving deficits in the presence of males.

Abstract in brief

• When females are placed in environments with males, especially as a minority, they tend to perform worse on problem-solving tasks like math tests, indicating a threatened or intimidating intellectual environment.
• The study found that female performance deficits increase with the number of males present in their group, even if females are in the majority, suggesting that gender composition and stereotypes impact confidence and performance.
• These findings relate to concepts like stereotype threat and tokenism, which explain how societal stereotypes and being a minority can negatively influence females' cognitive performance in mixed-sex settings.]