Empathy and Low Participation of Women in Engineering: Is There a Hidden Link

Women are severely underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and the related work force. One of the reasons for the low presence of women in engineering is a lack of connection between engineering-related values and women’s personal values and beliefs, in particular the difference in empathy value. This study examined how empathy may have contributed to the low enrollment of women in engineering majors. An online survey was used to collect data from undergraduate students in an urban university in the United States. Statistical procedures were carefully selected to analyze the survey data and answer the four research questions. The results indicate that 1) students with a stronger empathizing trait reported lower likelihood of majoring in engineering; and 2) the perceived empathy level of a given academic discipline was a significant factor in students’ major choice. The lower likelihood of majoring in engineering was associated with its low empathy level perceived by the students. The major findings of the study call for reformulation of the engineering education so that human-centered values can be emphasized as critical components to the existing curricula

A Game Theoretic Approach to Behavioral Economics

This thesis explores games that are played between individuals who exhibit non-standard preferences. The first two essays focus on firm behavior, while the third one focuses on the behavior of individuals. In the first essay (Chapter 2), I explore the welfare effect of advertising as a memory aid to consumers with limited attention. In the second essay (Chapter 3), jointly authored with Aleksandr Yankelevich, we explore asymmetries in firm pricing that stem from differences in consumer characteristics such as proximity to a particular firm. In the third essay (Chapter 4), I explore whether repetition can generate strategic altruism when players exhibit altruism towards kin, but kin recognition is noisy

Consumer search with asymmetric price sampling

We explore asymmetries in the way consumers sample prices in a simple sequential search framework. In equilibrium, the price distribution of a firm catering to more local consumers first-order stochastically dominates that of its rival. Prices rise in the degree of asymmetry. © 2013

An Empirical Investigation on the Transfer of Expatriates Within MNCs from a Knowledge Perspective

We study the use of expatriates in transferring knowledge within a multinational corporation (MNC). We argue that MNCs use expatriates to allocate knowledge between headquarters and its foreign affiliates. With data from MNCs headquartered in South Korea, we trace unobservable knowledge using observable labour mobility. Our empirical analysis shows that the use of expatriates increases as communication between South Korea and the host country becomes more costly. However, the extent to which the use of expatriates relates with communication costs decreases in the sectoral complexity

Are changes of major major changes? The roles of grades, gender, and preferences in college major switching

The choice of college major is a key stage in the career search, and over a third of college students switch majors at least once. We provide the first comprehensive analysis of major switching, looking at the patterns of switching in both academic and non-academic dimensions. Low grades signal academic mismatch and predict switching majors - and the lower the grades, the larger the switch in terms of course content. Surprisingly, these switches do not improve students’ grades. When students switch majors, they switch to majors that “look like them”: females to female-heavy majors, and so on. Lower-ability women flee competitive majors at high rates, while men and higher-ability women are undeterred. Women are far more likely to leave STEM fields for majors that are less competitive – but still somewhat science-intensive – suggesting that leaving STEM may be more about fleeing the “culture” of STEM majors than fleeing science and math

Drop out, switch majors, or persist? The contrasting gender gaps

Men and women respond differently to early-college struggles. Men are more likely than women to drop out of college, while women are more likely to switch majors. These effects offset so that there is no gender gap in the probability of graduating in one\u27s initial major choice. For students who begin in STEM majors, however, women are far less likely to graduate in the field, driven by the fact that they are twice as likely to switch majors. We find no evidence that women are more sensitive to poor academic performance in the switching or dropout decisions

Advertising for consideration

We analyze markets where firms competing on price advertise to increase the probability of entering consumers’ consideration sets. We find that moderately costly advertising allows firms to raise prices and possibly profits by reducing the fraction of price-conscious consumers, and by segmenting the market according to whether or not consumers consider the lower priced firm. However, when the cost of advertising is sufficiently low, advertising leads to a prisoners’ dilemma that adversely impacts profits without affecting expected prices

Empathy and gender inequity in engineering disciplines

Based on analysis of published studies, we posit that the current owned identity of many engineering disciplines lacks empathy as a core element and that this may be a barrier to entry for women, especially in disciplines that are perceived as having little concern for the welfare of others. Moreover, as a consequence of this lack of empathy, the actual identity of engineering as embodied in faculty and academic programs may be in conflict with those human-centered values expressed by it\u27s professional organizations. Therefore, to increase enrollment of women in engineering programs, a reformulation of the engineering identity to consciously incorporate empathy may be required. Our overall research efforts will be centered on first characterizing the empathetic aspects of this owned identity within some of the sub-disciplines of engineering, identifying the degree to which a perceived lack of empathy forms a barrier for women pursuing engineering as a field of study, and finally to formulate ways of transforming faculty and student attitudes in ways that will lead to the formation of an engineering identity that is more open to the concerns of women and more consistent with the values defined in the professional codes and creeds. This paper reports on our progress to date and our plans for future studies

Empathy and gender inequality in engineering: Is there a hidden link

Guided by the empathizing-systemizing theoretical framework, this study found that women college students had higher empathy scores than men. Women had lower likelihoods of majoring in engineering because not only was empathy negatively associated with choosing engineering majors, but engineering was perceived as one of the disciplines having lowest empathy level