From press release at Michigan State University via Eurekalert, something sure to rile almost everyone.
Published: Sept. 14, 2010
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Women tend to believe the scientific consensus on global warming more than men, according to a study by a Michigan State University researcher.
The findings, published in the September issue of the journal Population and Environment, challenge common perceptions that men are more scientifically literate, said sociologist Aaron M. McCright.
“Men still claim they have a better understanding of global warming than women, even though women’s beliefs align much more closely with the scientific consensus,” said McCright, an associate professor with appointments in MSU’s Department of Sociology, Lyman Briggs College and Environmental Science and Policy Program.
The study is one of the first to focus in-depth on how the genders think about climate change. The findings also reinforce past research that suggests women lack confidence in their science comprehension.
“Here is yet another study finding that women underestimate their scientific knowledge – a troubling pattern that inhibits many young women from pursuing scientific careers,” McCright said.
Understanding how the genders think about the environment is important on several fronts, said McCright, who calls climate change “the most expansive environmental problem facing humanity.”
“Does this mean women are more likely to buy energy-efficient appliances and hybrid vehicles than men?” he said. “Do they vote for different political candidates? Do they talk to their children differently about global warming?”
McCright analyzed eight years of data from Gallup’s annual environment poll that asked fairly basic questions about climate change knowledge and concern. He said the gender divide on concern about climate change was not explained by the roles that men and women perform such as whether they were homemakers, parents or employed full time.
Instead, he said the gender divide likely is explained by “gender socialization.” According to this theory, boys in the United States learn that masculinity emphasizes detachment, control and mastery. A feminine identity, on the other hand, stresses attachment, empathy and care – traits that may make it easier to feel concern about the potential dire consequences of global warming, McCright said.
“Women and men think about climate change differently,” he said. “And when scientists or policymakers are communicating about climate change with the general public, they should consider this rather than treating the public as one big monolithic audience.”
###
Michigan State University has been advancing knowledge and transforming lives through innovative teaching, research and outreach for more than 150 years. MSU is known internationally as a major public university with global reach and extraordinary impact. Its 17 degree-granting colleges attract scholars worldwide who are interested in combining education with practical problem solving.
Contact: Andy Henion, University Relations, Office: (517) 355-3294, Cell: (517) 281-6949, Andy.Henion@ur.msu.edu; Aaron M. McCright, Sociology and Lyman Briggs, Office: (517) 432-8026, mccright@msu.edu
When this post went up I posted a link to a blogpost from the always interesting Mark J. Perry about the growing female to male disparity in grad school enrollments, except in the four most Math dominated fields. Professor Perry had a further update to day.
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/09/interesting-fact-of-day-coincidence.html
A couple of pertinent quotes;
“For the four most math-intensive graduate fields of study, which are the fields where men are over-represented, the male-female ratio for enrolled graduate students is 1.70 to 1 (322,516 males to 189,372 females).
Interestingly, according to College Board data released this week, the male-female ratio for 2010 SAT math scores of 700 or above is 1.69 to 1 (65,606 males to 38,728 females).
Coincidence?
Update: More women (827,197) than men (720,793) took the SAT test in 2010. At the highest test score of 800, the male-female ratio was 2.08 to 1 (8,072 males had perfect scores vs. 3,997 females). ”
Of course pointing out this kind of inconvenient data was what got Larry Summers run out of Harvard a few years back. Also, despite the large female deficit in these fields they still hold a more than 40% edge over males in overall grad school enrollments.
Pamela,
My mother was a Democrat until about 10 years ago. My Grandfather was also one of those old, racist Democrats. But, her generation of Democrats was the one of free expression and equality. She raised me to believe that the Democrat party was the party of women, and I bought into it right up until my first presidential election. It didn’t take me long to learn the difference between equality and privilege.
I would appreciate it if you would explain to me how the Republican and/or Tea Parties are trying to hold women back. I get the impression that you are basing this on the right-to-life/right-to-choose issue, but if I am mistaken please tell me.
Tamara, you would be right. It is very much like the 2nd amendment right to me. I find any infringement on our 2nd amendment to be a warning signal that a slippery slope lies ahead (I am a multi-gun owner and carry more than one concealed weapon permit – which irritates the hell out of me). The same is true in my opinion, for my right to choose. Once others find they can impose legal restrictions on what I can or can’t do in one area, these same others will find more and more areas they can impose legal restrictions on. Women fought a good fight (and without firing a single shot) to gain their freedom. Anyone who thinks it is okay to give some of it back is nuts.
If I could I would fish every day, and I try very hard to do that. I generate a map of the river (which has no signs and often bends North, South, East and West several times along its run) based on landmark topography. So when it suits the purpose, a landmark map is the way to go. And in this case, the only way to go. This type of mapping is common with all hunters and fishermen. Once you get to the starting point, it’s all distance and landmarks from then on.
And none of what David Wendt comments on has anything to do with the fact that until relatively recently, women were not allowed to study in any of these areas, much less attend a college program at Harvard that focused on these areas.
http://harvardmagazine.com/1999/11/womanless.html
A more telling statistic might be the speed at which we are catching up to you. Yes?
Bad Andrew writes,
“The problem is consensus doesn’t make any particular belief true or false. It’s irrelevant. You are appealing to authority, just like every other AGW advocate who has commented here.”
You’ve won an argument with a voice in your head, or maybe a whole chorus of them (“just like every other…”). I did not say that consensus makes a particular belief true. That’s inverting my actual point, which was that the consensus exists because most scientists, unlike most WUWT readers, see the evidence as persuasive. I wrote,
“It’s their own evidence and knowledge, not some “party line” or “admin Head Orifice types,” that the consensus rests on.”
The “admin Head Orifice types” Brian H invoked to dismiss this consensus exist in Brian H’s head, not in the actual science organizations.
Dan in California stands by his claim that “the alarmist party line is bought by sociologists, psychologists, liberal arts graduates, and some climatologists. On the other hand, the skeptics tend to be physicists, engineers, chemists, statisticians, computer programmers, other climatologists, and farmers.” Certainly there are differing views within every field, including sociologists etc., but Dan offers no evidence to support of his generalization. I don’t know about farmers but regarding scientists, there’s much evidence supporting the opposite: physical scientists have always been leading the way on climate research.
Has the American Sociological Association even made a statement about climate change? Perhaps they are working on one, but if so it will come out years behind the statements already made by the AGU, with its 55,000 members including 13,000 atmospheric scientists; and also by most of the other major hard-science and mathematical organizations with relevant expertise.
Paua, I hear you. Strife and contentiousness is not my preferred mode of interaction. But there are times when I have to draw the line and say, “kiss my grits”.
From: Tamara on September 16, 2010 at 6:26 am
I’m not Pamela Gray, but…
Because if you’re a Republican and/or a Tea Partier then you are a conservative therefore you are anti-abortion therefore against women’s rights, and if you’re a woman who is one or otherwise against abortion then you’re a self-hater in urgent need of psychological counseling at your nearest women’s support center.
I’m not saying any of that makes sense, which it doesn’t, and this is not a site for getting into “women’s right to…” issues. I’m just reporting the lines of reasoning I’ve seen, without regard to the amount of “reason” they entail.
Actually, most women I have met who value their freedom of choice, value the right of any woman to carry a baby full term if that is her choice. If, God forbid, we ever face enforced abortion (which has been the case in some countries), I would take up arms to fight for a woman’s right to carry full term as hard as I would fight for a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. And therein lies the difference between a woman who would vote to take away my right and a woman who would fight for individual freedom to make the choice that is right for her.
Funny thing I have learned about party platforms and candidates. While parties try to embrace and include all folks from all walks of life, a measure of that party’s voting record while in session is the telling measure. There are Democrats in office who would vote to rescind my right to choose and there are Republicans would vote to keep my rights safe. Within that variation, there are majority beliefs that paint one party one color and another party a different color. It is also true that these colors can change over time.
My Democratic party affiliation was terminated because of the recent plank added related to CO2 and accompanied with the majority vote by that party in favor of laws, taxes, and restrictions. That I didn’t then register as a Republican does not mean that I think the entire party is devoid of people like me (fiscally conservative and protector of my individual rights as a woman), it is because the majority of their votes seek to rescind my right to choose.
It is rather simple, really. I will vote for the candidate who rejects the notion that CO2 is to be capped, taxed, and/or severely regulated, who seeks to reduce the size, function, powers, and cost of governmental agencies, who promotes anti-discrimination laws related to sexual preference, and who is a defender of my right (or any woman’s right) to choose the reproductive program that best suits me. Why this list? Because these issues affect millions of people and to ignore them would squarely put us on that slippery slope towards massive loss of freedom, and a dictatorial, “taxation without representation” governance. In the US, it would be akin to having King George enthroned in the White House instead of just over the pond.
This has turned into a thread where a number of people are having a go at applying their own biases to figure out the results of a study for which we have no background how the results were obtained nor how they were analyzed. So, I thought I’d throw in my own observations.
Over the many years I’ve managed several work teams. Some all male, some all female and a mix of the two. First observation is that mixed teams are more socially stable, far fewer issues. I can only think that socialization/biology carries over to the workplace and men and women behave better in each others presence.
Second observation is men and women are equally emotional but the triggers and responses tend to be different. Women are more often triggered by hurt to the self, while men by hurt to their ego. Women’s responses are immediate and vocal while men stew silently and response physically (slamming things, pounding a fist on the table, etc.) When angry or hurt, women will often cry because they have no other physical outlet for the intense flood of adrenaline. Fist pounding, slamming things around are not socially acceptable releases for females. Imagine seeing a woman indulging in that behvaiour – we’d think she was having a nervous breakdown. Whereas a man doing that would just be presumed to be angry. Conversely, a man breaking down in tears would be construed as having a nervous breakdown because, like the chair throwing woman, he’d be crossing a strictly observed gender behavioural boundary.
My own experience as a people manager is that our socializing as males and females has a powerful influence both on the way we manage and on how those being managed perceive us. On some issues, women managers have more success and on others, male managers are more successful. I work cooperatively with my male counterparts to use those socialized perceptions to make us all more effective. That is, we cross over to each others teams to roll out workplace changes or deal with team issues. Neither one style or the other is right; it’s just different. You can use the power inherent in that difference. Or, you can ignore it and go it alone.
I’m an engineer by training, have worked in a large manufacturing organization and I’m now a building construction project manager. I’ve seen men and women at their best and their worst and neither gender has exclusive claim on nobility or villainy.
Computer crashed and kept sending me to the Washington Post after I tried to send an addendum to my voting preferences. I also require my politician to vigorously defend my 2nd amendment rights.
Back to the premise of the article. Much has been said anecdote-ally about the differences between men and women. Some of it flies in the face of double blind studies. For example, a commenter above mentioned that women have the baby wants but men by and large do not. Not true according to double blind studies of male preference for body shape without regard to facial beauty. Not only do men prefer wider hips, even if grotesquely wider (as in not possible in the female human shape), they prefer women’s faces during ovulation than at any other time. It also appears instinctive and not by choice. So regardless of what men say about children on an individual level, when studied under controlled conditions they prefer women who are capable, and immediately so, of becoming pregnant and delivering a baby.
All anecdotal beliefs are colored by individual lenses, meaning that stated beliefs and observations can many times be refuted by careful, gold standard color-blind studies.
I couldn’t figure out how to get this to the author of the study, so I place it here. Hope against hope that they or someone they knows reads it:
Sir,
The conclusion is based on a critical assumption, that climate change is indeed anthropogenic in origin, and that the consensus is correct. This is a problem central to the warmist/skeptic debate, i.e. that the data on which the conclusions or opinions are based are valid.
The fundamental argument of the skeptic side is not that the conclusions are incorrect, inso much as the conclusions flow logically from the data and internal assumptions but that the data and internal assumptions used as a basis of the conclusions are wrong or weaker than proposed. Should underlying assumptions be shown wrong or weaker-than, as, for examples, that water vapour does not create a multiplier effect to a CO2-induced temperature gain, or that the radiative forcing per se of CO2 is less than that proposed, the CAGW hypothesis and threat falls apart. “Normal” levels of temperature gain (of the 1.5 – 1.8K/100 years) are what is going on, regardless of our fossil fuel use. Should the temperature data be shown to be wrong, as in the “corrections” applied by NASA and HadCrut be excessive, the Urban Heat Island Effect be inadequately accounted for, or the (very important for NASA/NOAA) 1200km extrapolation across the Arctic be inappropriate, then the CAGW hypothesis falls apart. I am not saying here that the flaws in the data and assumptions exist, but should they exist to any meaningful extent, then the conclusions coming from the IPCC et al must necessarily be exaggerations or even terminally in error.
Neither men nor women on a large scale study nor understand the technical aspects of climate change. All of us to a large extent use common sense and the conclusions delivered to us by those we consider unbiased experts. We know that experts have a bias in the outcome of their work, but expect that when a “consensus” is reached, there was enough negative considerations given and discussed that the majority felt the situation is as it is reported. However, if you look to the reports in their thousands, you will see that the vast majority operate on the basis of the same data and assumptions. Of course the same conclusions are reached, and we’d be shocked if they weren’t. But that is not the point the skeptics are arguing.
What your study actually measures, in my opinion, is the difference by gender in the weight given to opinions and recommendations by authority figures and technical experts. You are seeing distrust in males and acceptance in females, both of which look strongly like gender-based characteristics you described as commonly observed. Secondly, the technial aspect of the male shows up in the distrust, as males are more typically in the analyltical fields, especially engineering and the earth sciences. It is a long outrage in the alarmist camp that the most vociferous of skeptics is the geoscientist or geologist, prone to thinking about the Earth in long swatches of time. As a geologist I understand. Data collected over 35 years (1975 to present) does not impress me at all, as I hardly consider 5000 years to have much meaning in terms of climate from my career. Engineers are familiar with what goes in and comes out of numerical simulations from their work, and the foolishness they have to discard on a regular basis due to incomplete, bad or erroneous data and assumptions. Suspicion and a desire to see the data itself is rampant in these types of professions. I hardly need to say that the non-social, analytical professions are dominated by males, as your discussion indicates you know that already.
In short, I suggest you rethink what your data tells you after careful consideration of the assumption that underlies your analysis, i.e. that there is no reason to doubt the supporting data that climate change, though real, is anthropogenic, fossil-fuel based, and catastrophic in result. Remember, if our 2ppm/year for the next 50 years doesn’t have any negative effect on the planet, the entire climate change anxiety and concern that your surveys measured are meaningless and artefacts of unreasonable alarmism.
It is not climate change people are responding to, but alarm and predictions of doom. It is not the science that is being supported and agreed to, but the conclusios and projections presented by a group of like-minded experts, politicians and propagandists. I asked for a position on the science of the David Suzuki Foundation. The reply was that they look to the results of peer-reviewed studies to what they believe. They, with all their money and technical resources, will not say that the IPCC is correct, reasonable and worthy of protecting. Which they shouldn’t, at the David Suzuki Foundation does not claim to have an adequate technical knowledge to audit the work of the peer-reviewed reports. But like the majority women in your studies, they choose to believe what authority and technical expertise tell them.
Of interest and pertinent to your gender studies would be how male and females support, are suspicious of or outright reject what authority and experts tell them. Who believes most with what the Church, the Government, the Unions, the teacher, the doctor, the scientist and newscaster says? I suspect you and I already know the answers here. Males are raised to challenge the structures and authorities in a bid to replace them. Women are raised to support the structures and authorities in place over them.
Yours,
Doug Proctor,
P.Geol.
“I did not say that consensus makes a particular belief true.”
Why the hell should we care about consensus then?
Andrew
Pamela,
Thanks for clarifying. I think that we would be pretty close to on the same page, except for that issue. (My 12th birthday present was a 20 gauge Winchester pump action, which still serves me well.)
I don’t consider abortion to be a reproductive program. If it were, we wouldn’t spay or neuter our pets, we’d just drown all the puppies and kittens.
Women are, perhaps unfairly, burdened with the responsibility of caring for the new life that they create. I believe that we have the capacity to manifest that responsibility be taking preventive measures, or finding alternative parenting arrangements if we don’t want to raise the child ourselves.
I do support abortion in cases of rape/incest, when the women did not have the opportunity to choose.
I think that you can find a lot more gray area among conservatives on this issue than you seem to think.
Pamela Gray says:
September 16, 2010 at 7:17 am
Tamara, you would be right. It is very much like the 2nd amendment right to me. I find any infringement on our 2nd amendment to be a warning signal that a slippery slope lies ahead (I am a multi-gun owner and carry more than one concealed weapon permit – which irritates the hell out of me). The same is true in my opinion, for my right to choose. Once others find they can impose legal restrictions on what I can or can’t do in one area, these same others will find more and more areas they can impose legal restrictions on. Women fought a good fight (and without firing a single shot) to gain their freedom. Anyone who thinks it is okay to give some of it back is nuts.
Pamela, this is a very touchy subject and I usually don’t get involved, but I would like to give you my opinion on this. Why? Because I’m as libertarian as it gets but with a different perspective than the usual religious zealotry. IMO
1. The issue should not have been considered to be about women’s rights in particular. The government has already usurped many of the rights granted to us. Is that good? Well you probably agree that non-segregation is appropriate regardless if some folks want to eat, live, or golf in a cloistered environment. But it is a loss of individual right to chose. Or drinking and driving. How about drugs, that can be construed as an individual right to self destruction. So there are many instances in which you might agree that the government counters individual rights (decisions) by the individual if that decision can have deleterious effects on societal behavior or safety.
2. Therefore, the decision on legal restrictions to termination should have been based on the relative merits of the individuals right and the effect on society in general. Then the question becomes can termination affect more than the individual involved. From my perspective as an individual with personal rights, the slippery slope in this situation involves euthanasia. If in fact we are terminating an (unborn) individuals rights in preference to another’s, then, as you state Once others find they can impose legal restrictions on what I can or can’t do in one area, these same others will find more and more areas they can impose legal restrictions on. the government may find more areas to regulate (as in the clause concerning end of life discussion in the new madicare bailout, or the reduction in life prolonging expensive surgeries). It’s becoming more evident that the government will pursue these issues.
3. The debate should have included a determination, based on science, of identifing when the blastomere took on some aspect of human cognitive thought. One could say that the “consensus” athe the time would have been sometime late in the second trimester. Otherwise, in the current state of affairs, dogs, cats, horses, and Ozark cave darters have more individual rights to existence than pre-adult humans. Do you see a fallacy in logic here?
Oh, and by the way, I have a fundamentalist religious background. Some have said science is my god, others logic. I prefer to be pidgeon-holed as an observationist.
I would also like to clarify that my position is not based on religion. I respect people who have faith in a higher power. I simply have not found that virtue in myself. My opinion is along the lines of Tim Clark’s point 3. The arguments that have been used to justify the time points at which abortion is “OK” do not have a basis in science and are largely arbitrary. My niece and nephew were born at around 26 weeks. They are now fully functional 9 year olds. Since birth they have been an extreme impediment to my sister-in-law’s freedom to do whatever she wants. But most people wouldn’t find it acceptable for her to rid herself of the inconvenience once they left her womb. Having done it twice myself, I know that pregnancy is the easy part. So, I don’t have much sympathy for the right to choose abortion over the inconvenience of a few months of gestation.
The social science theme here proved evocative, as Anthony expected, though perhaps in unexpected ways. A survey-based study finds that women are more likely than men to be concerned about climate change. Some WUWT readers dispute that finding, and some dispute the author’s interpretation. Lots of remarks about his sex life, I guess anything goes.
But I’m struck by how many posters above, maybe around half, jumped at the chance to proclaim their own “weaker sex” beliefs. I started to collect quotes but quickly ran out of steam, they were too many and more kept coming in (until things shifted to abortion). Maybe a sociologist will finish the job, for a case study of WUWT.
++++++
INGSOC says:
“My wife reads this blog, thus preventing any sort of comment from me whatsoever!”
Fred from Canuckistan says:
“So in summary, women are more gullible than men.”
Wondering Aloud says:
“No this tends to confirm the perception that men are more scientifically literate.”
thegoodlocust says:
“I’m not really surprised. This tends to confirm my experience and intuition. I believe men are also more confident than women, which I think would tend to make us more non-conformist about certain things.”
polistra says:
“No mystery. Modern news media (TV and newspapers) are written for a female audience. Modern college courses are aimed largely at a female audience. Males understand that they’re “not wanted” in those circles, so they find their information elsewhere.”
kramer says:
“That fact that men are more skeptical has to do with us looking into the science more than the women do.”
Tom says:
“We’re losing the proles! Fine tune the propaganda Target women and tell them to go with their feelings. Men are a bunch of troglodyte throwbacks who whouldn’t know what global warming was unless it wore a tight skirt!”
Greg says:
“You could take the same data and argue that women are, as the author puts it, “less confident in their scientific knowledge” and conclude that therefore they are less likely to challenge the “consensus” even if they see flaws in it or it doesn’t make sense to them.”
John M says:
“Weren’t women at the forefront lobbying for prohibition too?
How’d that turn out?”
Robin Kool says:
“Is that really a surprise? Hasn’t it been the case for centuries that courage is a capacity that more men than women strive to develop?”
Richard Holle says:
“Sounds just like a presidential campaign storming session, we needs ta bring the ignorant, religiously biased, weaker sex, on board to help fuel the PR campaign, to attract the single / horny male voters.”
Dennis Nikols, P. Geol. says:
“All this demonstrates is women are more willing to accept faith based and emotional explanations than men.”
Bernie says:
“All this indicates is that women are more gulluble or more easily conned.”
stumpy says:
“Doesnt this actually CONFIRM men ARE more scientifically literate?”
P Walker says:
“Despite my wife’s anxieties we have avoided bird flu , swine flu , West Nile Disease, salmonella , the Gulf oil spill getting caught in the dread loop current and polluting the beaches of South Georgia and a host of other miseries . She still hasn’t learned to take alarmist headlines with a grain of salt . I can say this because she does’t read this blog”
davidmhoffer says:
“When it comes to breast feeding infants, women are so vastly superior to men that the ratio of competant women divided by competant men is infinity, proving that women have boobs.
Of course these are just studies, and at the end of the day, the fact is that men are more likely to want to check for themselves. That last one in particular”
Jack Lacton says:
“The real answer, politically incorrect as it is, is that women are 1) more gullible than men and 2) defer to men/authority on issues of science (and maths etc) while men are much more skeptical because that’s what has kept the species going for millenia.”
Charles Higley says:
“This one’s simple. The gender or any individual who realizes that global warming is a scam and that “consensus” is meaningless in science knows more science (real science) than the other(s). Women might be more likely to do or buy things that would counter warming, but that does not obviate the fact that their basis for these decisions is centered on a false proposition.”
Joseph Day says:
“This is a sexist discussion, by definition. So why not make it more obvious? AGW is hysteria. The word ‘hysteria’ is derived from the greek word ‘hystera’, meaning ‘uterus’. QED.”
chris h says:
“An endless appeal to authority,and a denial of science
Mostly not the domain of the male.
The only blokes i know that pretend to buy into this nonsense are trying to get their leg over various slightly crusty hippy chicks……and it works!
(so i`ve been told;)”
REPLY: …and with this summary, I think it is time to close the thread. – Anthony