Files
Abstract
The underrepresentation of women in numerous academic disciplines and high-status professions is a persistent and globally recognized issue. According to the field-specific ability beliefs (FABs) theory, this disparity is associated with the extent to which different fields emphasize brilliance as a requirement for success—a concept referred to as brilliance beliefs. Because women and girls are stereotyped as having lower intellectual ability than men and boys, fields that highly value brilliance may discourage their participation. The present study examined whether parents hold brilliance beliefs that correlate with women’s representation across academic fields, which could be detrimental if transmitted to their children. Results showed that parents’ brilliance beliefs were significantly associated with women’s representation, even after controlling for whether a field belongs to STEM. When STEM and non-STEM fields were analyzed separately, parents’ brilliance beliefs predicted women’s representation in STEM fields but not in non-STEM fields. In addition, college-educated individuals significantly predicted female representation overall and within STEM, while those without a college degree showed only marginal effects across all fields. These findings contribute to our understanding of the distribution and predictive power of parents’ brilliance beliefs and thus offer potential directions for future intervention.