Checking Gender Bias: Parents and Mentors Perceive Less Chess Potential in Girls

Abstract

Girls and women are underrepresented in chess. Here, we explored the role of gender biasin this phenomenon. Specifically, we investigated whether parents and mentors (e.g., coaches) show bias against the female youth players in their lives. Parents and mentors (N = 286; 90.6% men) recruited through the U.S. Chess Federation reported their evaluations of and investment in youth players (N = 654). We found evidence of bias on some, but not all, measures. Most strikingly, parents and mentors thought that female youth players’ highest potential chess ratings were on average lower than male players’, a bias that was exacerbated among parents and mentors who believed that success in chess requires brilliance. In addition, mentors who endorsed (vs. rejected) this belief also reported that female mentees were more likely to drop out of chess due to low ability. These findings provide the first large-scale evidence of bias against youth female players and hold implications for the role of parents and mentors in other domains that, like chess, are culturally associated with intellectual ability and exhibit substantial gender imbalances (e.g., science and technology).