Walking in Her Shoes: Pretending to Be a Female Role Model Increases Young Girls’ Persistence in Science
研究让4-7岁女孩假装自己是成功的女性科学家，发现这能显著提高她们在科学活动中的坚持性，甚至达到男孩水平，而仅仅听说科学家则无效。
Pretend play is a ubiquitous learning tool in early childhood, enabling children to explore possibilities outside of their current reality. Here, we demonstrate how pretend play can be leveraged to empower girls in scientific domains. American children ages 4 to 7 years ( N = 240) played a challenging science activity in one of three conditions. Children in the exposure condition heard about a successful gender-matched scientist, children in the roleplay condition pretended to be that scientist, and children in the baseline condition did not receive information about the scientist. Girls in the roleplay condition, but not in the exposure condition, persisted longer in the science activity than girls in the baseline condition. Pretending to be the scientist equated girls’ persistence to that of boys. These findings suggest that pretend play of role models motivates young girls in science and may help reduce gender gaps from their roots.