Conformity leads to stereotype

Reason one: Conformity makes people lose their ability to make decision

Reason two: Cultural situation in China influences how people process decisions

Reason three: Brain differences should never be a reason we are defined

"Boys are better at learning STEM while girls are better at learning liberal arts."

I experienced that when I was first choosing my college major. Before coming to America for high school, “colleges” and “future jobs” were already something my father talked to me a lot about. When I started high school, these topics became more commonly mentioned, even on the dining table. I understand I need to make plans for things, but he made it so hastily for me to ask a 16 years old student what they want to do for living in the future. Dining time should be relaxing, but it is completely different in my family. Arguments and fights engaged so frequently, I started to follow what they guided me to do. I spent time learning quantum physics at a college-level conference at Portland State University for 4 hours every Friday after school started from my freshman year. I knew at the very beginning that I was not going to enjoy it that much, but my parents thought boys should do things like these in the future, and encouraged me to take a try. I lost many chances to hang out with friends, which was important for me at that time, since I moved from one country to another country, I feel lonely all the time.

My parents were trying hard to take me to the conference weekly, and I tried my best to understand and learn it. I even went to learn Java-Script both during summertime and take AP computer science class in my Sophomore year. But after the second year, I finally stopped learning it. Because I didn’t like it and felt exhausted doing it.

As half of my high school time finished, and the pandemic made it even more important to learn on oneself, my father started to stress me getting know more majors in college, to be better prepared. I started to look for my interest. I first found those chemical equations and how elements are formed were interesting and started my research on chemical engineering. I took AP chemistry in my junior year. But the more I learned about chemistry, the harder I found it to be. Near the end of my junior year, I occasionally saw a trailer for a movie called Stanford prison experiment which was based on a real event. I looked up searching for what the real experiment looked like. The goal of the experiment was to see the individual's societal role. 24 male college students were test subjects and all of them were random assignments, divided into guards and prisoners. Eventually, those confounding variables like anger, physical damage, and loss of control made them stop the two-week experiment on the sixth day. The result showed that people would conform to social rules they are expected to play, especially those jobs with stereotypes. I found the experiment was interesting, so I started to search for psychology-related videos and articles to study. I realized a big part of psychology is related to the brain, learning how the human brain is related to our behavior and emotions, which I pretty enjoy learning. I went to summer schools learning more about psychology and found I like it in general. That is how I found the major I am interested in.

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Why do many Chinese parents think it is always a good choice for men to learn STEM, and liberal arts for women?

"Your hard-working will proves you are capable of anything."

From a cultural aspect, the time my parents were raised was the most rapid technology improving time. The basic industrial production system was already well enough, but high-tech was a poor area. Many people from rural areas still thought men were inferior to women, which means men should be smarter than women and better at doing high-tech work. So it was always a good path to success for a man who studied STEM as a major, infinite possibility were ahead of them. Women were taught to be elegant and well-educated. So literature and art were always associated with women.

From a social aspect, Conformity is a big reason for the stereotype. Conformity is a type of social influence involving a change in belief or behavior to fit in with a group. Many friends of parents’ generation who chose to study STEM made great success, they made the right choices at the right time, but one thing they missed thinking is the time I live in is different from that of theirs. There are always changes as society is always improving. Some peers a little bit older than me followed their parents' idea, which we call compliance, someone hoping to achieve a favorable action. And they made some achievements. Which makes it more sure that a man with a better future has to learn STEM in college.

From the brain structure, one experiment done by the Pennsylvania University team found that there are significant differences in the way men and women’s brains connect . The team examined connections in the brains of 949 people between the ages of 8 and 22. One of the results is that in women, it is clear that there is a strong connection between the left and right hemispheres(Bottom two). In contrast, men have weaker connections between the left and right hemispheres, but stronger connections in each hemisphere than in women(Top two). The results suggest that women may be better at multitasking, while men tend to focus on a single task, but there is no evidence that this connectivity difference is directly related to how they multitask. Which makes some of the people’s reasons why men's brains are better at learning STEM subjects than women’s weaker.