Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Underconfidence in gifted girls

In recent years, spelling and geography bees have been dominated by Indians. When the winners are asked about their future career plans in media interviews, they often mention medicine. Medical school and pre-med classes require a lot of memorization. I decided against being a pre-med in part because I disliked the memorization in my 12th-grade anatomy and physiology class.

Lots of doctors in the U.S. are Indian, some having grown up here, some in India. I think Indians may do well in spelling and geography bees and in medicine because they are willing to do the intellectual grunt work of memorization.

I am a former National Spelling Bee contestant. (The bee was less serious back then and I didn't study very much, but anyway.) I think the environment and prep is useful in the same way that any kind of elite competition is useful. Regardless, you get to the Bee by winning one smaller bee after another. I'm not sure Val's daughter set out to do it from the start as much as she has proven that she is highly competent and now is challenging herself to go farther. That's what happened with me, anyway--and I would certainly have been gobsmacked if someone had suggested that I stop. I got a free trip to DC out of it, after all, and it was a nice experience.

As I say, I did not study very much (I was a young competitor--only 11--and lacked discipline), but since school was easy for me at the time, I can't see how it would have harmed me and would likely have been good for me. OTOH, my parents left it up to me, which I respect. I did not do well, but knew that was my own doing. I was regionally competitive, but not nationally.

There was some research showing that female teachers' math insecurities are passed on to girls but not to boys due to gender role modeling. There's the interesting double-edged sword here in that boys and men are often inaccurately overconfident (girls and women being the opposite, but I think their estimates are closer to their actual ability). I am not a fan of blind overconfidence--I think it does much evil in the world--but OTOH, I am obviously not a fan of underconfidence, either.

I'm not sure anyone "fits" into normative girl culture without significant effort to conform to it, and I'm convinced that it's toxic to anyone.

Ditto normative boy culture. Both are toxic, just in different ways. We're basically talking about people trying to fit into stereotypes, and that's never fun.

I agree with Dude.

Well-stated, Dude.

My DD is particularly lucky that she has two parents who have bucked the traditional gender stereotypes by BREAKING them completely-- me being a super-smart woman who dumbs down for nobody and actively punishes anyone that treats me like an airhead (oh, I'm socially appropriate, but nobody does it to me twice)-- and a dad that broke the "dumb jock" mold, and turned down a full football scholarship to major in a STEM field instead, and who loves the fine arts. So it's healthier than outright "rejection" in that we still do things that might be considered conforming (DH likes cop shows and sports and I sew and knit), but only on our terms.





Same here-- I read widely (being an introverted only child and HG+ one) and it was effortless to qualify at the state level. Truly. It was just fun. I tanked when it started feeling like being under a microscope-- wasn't my thing to seek the limelight, even then.

@ Bostonian — I couldn't tell from your comment whether you think that the correlation between spelling bee performance and going into / succeeding in medicine is causal...is that what you meant?

@ ultramarine — Thanks for sharing your experience! Looking back over the different extracurriculars that you were involved with, does participation in the National Spelling Bee stand out as among the best, or are there others that you found more enriching and/or enjoyable?

As for girls/women assessing their abilities more accurately than boys/men, this may be true in general, but I think that it's less likely to be true for gifted populations. I've seen a number of examples of gifted girls/women underestimate their intelligence by ~1 standard deviation (~15 IQ points) roughly speaking, and fewer instances of gifted boys/men overestimating their intelligence by ~1 standard deviation.

@ master of none — I'm glad to hear that things have been going better, and am sympathetic. Has she thought about going to a math camp for middle school students like MathPath (where I worked for three summers)? A lot of the girls there had very good experiences meeting other girls who share their interests. Art of Problem Solving also has some very mathematically talented girls.

I think that some people like fitting in.

I am speculating that people who train hard and do well in spelling bees gain confidence in their ability to memorize and to retain what they have memorized. This prepares them for subjects requiring memorization.

I agree with that analysis, Bostonian. It was a big confidence booster to me personally, and by extension made me more confident in my "voice" as a writer heading into college.