My Essay on “Creative Thinkers”

My article is on how men are more likely to be seen as “creative thinkers”. Findings suggest that the work and achievements of men tend to be evaluated as more creative than similar work and achievements produced by women. (“Men More Likely to Be Seen as 'Creative Thinkers,” 2015)I chose this article because as I women I want to understand how gender bias is still around in this era. This relates to me as a feminist and a young woman, who plans to have a career in a male-dominated world.

This article opened my eyes to see that gender bias is still prevalent in the workplace unconsciously. I personally don’t believe there should be any gender bias in the workplace.

Creativity should not have a label associated with it, yet, this article/ study shows that people still tend to link creativity to men. This article explores all aspects of this observation that men are seen as more creative than women. Its purpose is to suggest that stereotypical expectations play a critical role in judging creativity In men and women. It further explains the specific qualities of men that people stereotypically associate with creativity. People tend to associate the ability to think creatively with stereotypical masculine qualities. The findings suggest that the work and achievements of men tend to be evaluated as more creative than similar work and achievements produced by women. The study provides a statistical analysis of reactions to online TED Talks showing that ingenuity is heavily more associated with men than women.

When it comes to evaluations at work, women are seen as less innovative. Given that supervisors tend to make use of stereotypes when evaluating employees, these discrepancies substantiate the claim that female workers are stereotyped as less innovative than their male counterparts. There are five different studies that were made for this observation. Using both experimental and archival data, participants were randomly selected and were U.S. residents recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a crowdsourcing marketplace that makes it easier to conducting simple data validation and research to more subjective tasks like survey participation. This conducts of a distributed workforce who can perform these tasks virtually. Study 1 observed if creativity is masculinized. The study examined of masculine traits is seen as more creative than feminine traits. This study had 83 participants, randomly selected from MTurk. Participants were to rate on a sale how 16 personality traits were central to creativity. 8 of the traits were stereotypically masculine. Traits such as competitive, courageous, ambitious, risk-taking, and adventurous.

The other 8 traits were stereotypically feminine. Traits such as caring, sympathetic, and sensitive. Follow up test showed that the participants associated creativity with masculine traits than feminine traits according to the rating scale. The results indicated that masculine traits were seen as more central to creativity. Study 2 observed whether the connection between creativity and masculine traits has to do with if people see male creative professionals being evaluated as more creative than female professions. This study had 169 participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk in the U.S. Participants were to examine photos from two professions, architecture and fashion design. Participants saw three images of houses from the architecture condition and three images of fashion designs in the fashion design condition. After viewing these images, the participants were then to access the creativity of the images from the architecture and fashion design condition. The participants rated the designer as more creative when they believe the designer to be a man rather than women in a male stereotypical field. Study 3 examines the archival data on viewers evaluation of talks posted on TED.com. It is to test if men are more characterized as ingenious compared to females. The data of the TED talk was collected on February 12, 2015.

The study used data from the 100 most viewed TED talks on TED.com. On every talk, there are 14 descriptions you can use to describe the TED talk. These words include beautiful, confusing, courageous, fascinating, funny, informative, ingenious, inspiring, jaw-dropping, longwinded, obnoxious, OK, persuasive, and unconvincing. The study chose the description “ingenious” since it was the best word to depict out of the box creativity. Among the 100 most viewed, the percentage of viewers who described the talks as “ingenious” were greater for male speakers. Study 4 examined whether men are stereotyped as more innovative than women in the workplace. The study analyzed workplace evaluations of high-level male and female employees. It included 403 evaluations by direct reports and 187 evaluations by supervisors. The sample consists of 134 M.B.A students who are senior executives. 100 were men and 34 were women. The study looked at all the student's evaluations. Direct reports rated men’s and women’s creativity similarly, while supervisors—who have been shown to rely more on stereotypes—rated men similarly but women less favorably. Study 5 tested if a behavioral display of masculinity should enhance perceptions of a person’s creativity. The study consisted of 125 U.S. participants. All are employed and 50% are female. Participants were recruited from Clear voice, a national online panel. Participants were to read about a male or female manager whose decision making was described in more or less masculine ways. Participants only knew the managers first name.

They are then to rate the manager's competence and creativity. Participants were also put in two conditions. The first condition is the baseline condition which focused on achieving growth, the second condition is the risky-decision. The risky decision condition has the exact information except for the extra statement that “the managers choice was risky”. After reading a manager’s strategic plan, survey respondents did not rate creativity differently between men and women in the baseline condition, but rated the male manager as most creative than the female manager when the plan was explicitly described as “risky.” These studies indicate that gender stereotypes could influence an individual perceived creativity. The five studies provided evidence that creativity overlaps with male stereotypes. The study found that creativity is strongly associated with masculine qualities. Both experimental and archival data proved that men are judged more creative than women hence the hypothesis was proved. The study, however, cannot definitively rule out an actual difference in the creativity of men and women. The research/study specifically focused on out-side-the-box creativity hence why future research is needed to explore more boundaries. The news article and research article both achieve the same goal of giving out data and information to the reader about the subject of gender bias in creativity. They both have the same purpose of educating the reader.

However, the news article is more condensed in research and information. Everything in the news article is more of a summary rather than an in-depth research article. The news article also inputs quotes from the authors while the research article does not. The news article does include all five studies that were included in the research just more of an overview. The research article has actual graphs of the data and includes all the math that was used to conduct the results of the data. The news article still covers all the important details of the research and accurately describes the research. This subject is very important in psychology because it is often ignored or unchallenged in society. Psychology is constantly challenging sexism and opposing sexist claims made by society. The psychologist has given evidence for understanding gender bias. Understanding how it works can help prevent gender bias from growing and becoming a social norm. This information relates to my personal life as a woman. Gender bias has been around for years. Men getting better jobs than women or getting paid more than women. This article however specifically targets gender bias in creativity. If I was to be in the workplace right now, a man might get a promotion or a reward instead of me because he was seen as more “creative” even though that might have not been the case. It would affect me personally and financially. This also could be the reason why women are seen as much in high business or leadership positions. That easily could be me in the future. I hope society changes its perspective on seeing masculinity as more creative and elite than women.

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