Raising Students' Awareness of Women in Psychology

Abstract

The near invisibility of women's contributions to psychology is a serious problem in the teaching of psychology. We tested the effectiveness of a teaching exercise aimed at increasing students' awareness of women's contributions to psychology. The exercise involved making, displaying, and examining posters about women in psychology. Students (a) named more women who contributed to psychology, (b) identified more contributions of women to psychology, and (c) listed more women with their accurately matched contributions following the assignment than they did before the assignment. This exercise can be modified to teach students about the contributions of other groups (e.g., racial and ethnic minorities) to psychology.

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