--- title: Elementary School Girls Think Boys Are Smarter: Study description: Find out what a study published a Science found about how young girls perceive their intelligence as compared to boys. canonical: https://time.com/4651720/elementary-school-girls-smarter-boys-study/ author: Kate Dwyer article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-01-27T15:35:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:04:34.227Z og:title: Elementary School Girls Think Boys Are Smarter og:description: A new study has some grim results og:url: https://time.com/4651720/elementary-school-girls-smarter-boys-study/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9d85cf5a58e0d28a/6988b79297cdff2c0e6af477/elementary-school-studies-girl.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Schoolgirls walking hand in hand at school isle og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Elementary School Girls Think Boys Are Smarter twitter:description: A new study has some grim results twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9d85cf5a58e0d28a/6988b79297cdff2c0e6af477/elementary-school-studies-girl.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Elementary School Girls Think Boys Are Smarter by [Kate Dwyer](/author/kate-dwyer/) ## Kate Dwyer Jan 27, 2017 3:35 PM CUT  Schoolgirls walking hand in hand at school isle Schoolgirls walking hand in hand at school isleKlaus Vedfelt—Getty Images by [Kate Dwyer](/author/kate-dwyer/) ## Kate Dwyer Jan 27, 2017 3:35 PM CUT Gender stereotypes start in elementary school, a study [published today in _Science_](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6323/389.full "undefined") suggests. Though five-year-olds don’t discriminate between genders when deciding whether or not a person is brilliant, six- and seven-year-olds overwhelmingly think men are inherently smarter than women. At the same time, the children included in the study also believed that girls receive better grades in school.The reinforcement of these ideas could lead women to be less ambitious than men once it’s time to choose a career, the study claims. In one part of the study, five-year-olds were told a story about “a really, really smart person” and then asked to guess who the person was, based on two photos. One photo showed a woman, and the other showed a man. Aside from the gender, the pictures were nearly identical, and the five-year-olds generally identified their own gender. But six- and seven year-old girls answering the same question were “significantly less likely” to chose the female photo, reports [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-26/little-girls-doubt-that-women-can-be-brilliant-study-shows "undefined"). Another section of the study introduced children to two board games: one for kids who are “really, really smart” and another for kids who try “really, really hard.” Both five-year-old boys and girls were interested in playing the game for smart kids; but while the older boys continued to want to play that game, older girls preferred the game for people who tried hard. Rebecca S. Bigler, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, told the [Associated Press](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US%5FGENDER%5FSTEREOTYPES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT "undefined") that one possible reason for this is exposure in early grades to history’s luminaries,who are mostly men. “We need to explain to children that laws were created specifically to prevent women from becoming great scientists, artists, composers, writers, explorers, and leaders,” Bigler said. “Children will then be … more likely to believe in their own intellectual potential.” \[H/T [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-26/little-girls-doubt-that-women-can-be-brilliant-study-shows "undefined")\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4651720/elementary-school-girls-smarter-boys-study/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4651720/elementary-school-girls-smarter-boys-study/"},"headline":"Elementary School Girls Think Boys Are Smarter","datePublished":"2017-01-27T15:35:43.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:04:34.227Z","description":"A new study has some grim results","url":"https://time.com/4651720/elementary-school-girls-smarter-boys-study/","keywords":["motto"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9d85cf5a58e0d28a/6988b79297cdff2c0e6af477/elementary-school-studies-girl.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kate Dwyer","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/kate-dwyer/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9d85cf5a58e0d28a/6988b79297cdff2c0e6af477/elementary-school-studies-girl.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Schoolgirls walking hand in hand at school isle","caption":"Schoolgirls walking hand in hand at school isle","creditText":"Klaus Vedfelt—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4651720/elementary-school-girls-smarter-boys-study/","name":"Elementary School Girls Think Boys Are Smarter"}}]}] ```