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    Joined: Apr 2012
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    I still think that most girls are less competitive than boys. They just don't care about winning as much as the boys do. If my eldest ever got into actual chess competition, she probably wouldn't do so well - and I think it does have to do with gender.

    For example, about five years ago we were at a State Little League Softball Tournament (division for girls 13-16). (Let's just ignore the fact that Little League is a joke.) There was a Little League Baseball State Tournament at the same complex. All of the kids looked pretty competitive while they were playing. These were the eight top teams in the state. However, what did the players do after the game? The girls wanted to go see the local mall, asked where we were going to eat dinner, got out the phones and started texting. The boys played catch, went to the batting cages, etc.

    I'm not saying my girls don't practice to keep up with the competition. There are some days that they practice their sport(s) for four hours. But if they didn't have organized practices, there is no way they would practice that much. Most girls seem to put emphasis on being social and doing a variety of things rather than being really intense in one area.

    Look at competitions like Mathcounts - I don't think a girl has ever won at Nationals. Look at the 2013 USAMO winners - not a girl among them.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/maaorg/8977795239/in/photostream/

    This has nothing to do with the potential of girls - there are girls who are capable of winning these competitions - but I think that most lack the intense focus and desire.

    Of course, that isn't all bad - the girls may be more well-rounded and can operate well in social situations, which sometimes proves to be more important in the long run.

    And I'm a little confused about the original article - if the girl came into the tournament with a higher rating than a boy, what gender chess players did she play in the previous tournament? If girls consistently underperform against boys, then wouldn't their rating slip and begin to reflect that and their future performances would be less and less of an underperformance?

    Last edited by NotSoGifted; 01/28/14 04:16 PM.
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    Quote
    I still think that most girls are less competitive than boys.

    Perhaps. But are they less competitive by nature? Or has it been drilled into them that it is unseemly to be competitive, whereas we encourage it in boys?

    Quote
    And I'm a little confused about the original article - if the girl came into the tournament with a higher rating than a boy, what gender chess players did she play in the previous tournament? If girls consistently underperform against boys, then wouldn't their rating slip and begin to reflect that and their future performances would be less and less of an underperformance?

    This seems to be a reasonable question. I didn't read the original article, which one always should.


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    Scanning the study now--I guess the answer is probably that it's not 100% consistent.

    Quote
    Performance deficits triggered by stereotype
    threat were more likely to appear when the young
    female sample was playing males in more challenging situations. Specifically, females did worse
    than expected when competing against a strong
    opponent (achieving 56% of what would be predicted based on prior ratings), a moderate one
    (82% of expected performance), an opponent
    from a higher grade (73% of expected performance), and an opponent of the same grade(83% of expected performance). This supports the contention that anxiety, arousal, and other
    processes related to stereotype threat only impair performance on difficult, challenging tasks...When competing
    against weaker opponents and opponents from
    lower grades, young females performed about as
    expected or only marginally worse so. This suggests that playing someone perceived as weaker
    or younger may buffer the negative impact of
    playing against a male chess player.

    And, of course, girls don't always play boys!-- though I don't know what percentage of players at tournaments ARE girls.

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    also of interest:

    Quote
    For the oldest participants in the sample,
    playing against a male opponent did not significantly lower overall performance. One possible
    explanation is that these older players represent a
    select sample that has been immune to the attrition common to female chess players.

    and

    Quote
    In the tournaments we examined,
    those females who demonstrated the largest performance deficits were the least likely to play in
    future tournaments and waited longer between
    tournaments if they did play. This fits with the
    notion that stereotype threat can produce disengagement from the threatened domain

    yet

    Quote
    males
    who did worse when playing other males did not
    disengage from chess any more than males whose
    performance exceeded expectation

    which fits with general findings that men overrate their performance and capabilities while women underrate.

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    My son's favorite chess books are written by a woman Grandmaster Susan Polgar. My 4 yr old DD is learning chess now too.

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    Interesting. My 6 yr. old dd is participating in her first ever chess tournament (state qualifier) on Saturday. She can still be kind of silly so I am curious to see how she reacts. My dd is very competitive, in fact she had said that she wanted to stop doing after school chess until she got a giant trophy for having the most points of any rookie in the first half of the year. Now she wants to keep going. Thanks for the discussion--I am not a chess player so it is helpful.

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    Originally Posted by ultramarina
    yet

    Quote
    males
    who did worse when playing other males did not
    disengage from chess any more than males whose
    performance exceeded expectation

    which fits with general findings that men overrate their performance and capabilities while women underrate.

    In order to win you first have to show up.

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    Originally Posted by NotSoGifted
    I still think that most girls are less competitive than boys. They just don't care about winning as much as the boys do. If my eldest ever got into actual chess competition, she probably wouldn't do so well - and I think it does have to do with gender.

    For example, about five years ago we were at a State Little League Softball Tournament (division for girls 13-16). (Let's just ignore the fact that Little League is a joke.) There was a Little League Baseball State Tournament at the same complex. All of the kids looked pretty competitive while they were playing. These were the eight top teams in the state. However, what did the players do after the game? The girls wanted to go see the local mall, asked where we were going to eat dinner, got out the phones and started texting. The boys played catch, went to the batting cages, etc.

    I'm not saying my girls don't practice to keep up with the competition. There are some days that they practice their sport(s) for four hours. But if they didn't have organized practices, there is no way they would practice that much. Most girls seem to put emphasis on being social and doing a variety of things rather than being really intense in one area.

    Look at competitions like Mathcounts - I don't think a girl has ever won at Nationals. Look at the 2013 USAMO winners - not a girl among them.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/maaorg/8977795239/in/photostream/

    This has nothing to do with the potential of girls - there are girls who are capable of winning these competitions - but I think that most lack the intense focus and desire.

    Of course, that isn't all bad - the girls may be more well-rounded and can operate well in social situations, which sometimes proves to be more important in the long run.

    And I'm a little confused about the original article - if the girl came into the tournament with a higher rating than a boy, what gender chess players did she play in the previous tournament? If girls consistently underperform against boys, then wouldn't their rating slip and begin to reflect that and their future performances would be less and less of an underperformance?

    I would argue strongly that much of this is based on how girls are still socialized today. Marketers wield a lot of power and influence and girls are encouraged from a very young age to be consumers concerned with outward appearance and shopping at the local mall.

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    Originally Posted by NotSoGifted
    I still think that most girls are less competitive than boys. They just don't care about winning as much as the boys do. If my eldest ever got into actual chess competition, she probably wouldn't do so well - and I think it does have to do with gender.

    For example, about five years ago we were at a State Little League Softball Tournament (division for girls 13-16). (Let's just ignore the fact that Little League is a joke.) There was a Little League Baseball State Tournament at the same complex. All of the kids looked pretty competitive while they were playing. These were the eight top teams in the state. However, what did the players do after the game? The girls wanted to go see the local mall, asked where we were going to eat dinner, got out the phones and started texting. The boys played catch, went to the batting cages, etc.

    I'm not saying my girls don't practice to keep up with the competition. There are some days that they practice their sport(s) for four hours. But if they didn't have organized practices, there is no way they would practice that much. Most girls seem to put emphasis on being social and doing a variety of things rather than being really intense in one area.

    Look at competitions like Mathcounts - I don't think a girl has ever won at Nationals. Look at the 2013 USAMO winners - not a girl among them.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/maaorg/8977795239/in/photostream/

    This has nothing to do with the potential of girls - there are girls who are capable of winning these competitions - but I think that most lack the intense focus and desire.

    Of course, that isn't all bad - the girls may be more well-rounded and can operate well in social situations, which sometimes proves to be more important in the long run.

    What you wrote is consistent with my posts in the recent thread on prodigies:
    http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....hly_gifted_vs_prodigy_ho.html#Post180027

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    Originally Posted by deacongirl
    I would argue strongly that much of this is based on how girls are still socialized today. Marketers wield a lot of power and influence and girls are encouraged from a very young age to be consumers concerned with outward appearance and shopping at the local mall.
    Companies want to sell to as many people as possible, male or female. If they market different products in different ways to males and females, it's because on average males and females want different things.

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