Project Director

Black, Kristen Jennings, 1991-

Department Examiner

Walker, Ruth

Department

Dept. of Psychology

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

Students enrolled in undergraduate universities face numerous stressors every day. Outside of stress from their academic studies (i.e., homework, studying for exams, writing papers), they also encounter daily life stressors relating to self-sufficiency, career choices, families, housing, and many other areas. While every student deals with stress coming from multiple areas of their life, women tend to place more stress on themselves than men due to social pressure to perform well and the feeling of societal expectation to have a high stress load from which to derive personal value. Within the field of Science, Technology and Math (STEM), —a field dominated by men until relatively recently—the same findings of women reporting higher stress levels holds true. Since there is relatively limited research on these broader perceptions of stress between men and women and the worth one derives from perceived stress loads, this study aimed to look at gender differences in such perceptions among STEM students. Survey data were gathered from 151 STEM undergraduate students. This study examined proposed differences in perceptions of stress using four subscales from viewing stress as a badge of honor: stress as achievement, relaxation remorse, stress-related social comparison, and stress-related impression management. Based on previous research finding women to report higher perceived stress levels, we hypothesized that women in STEM will report higher perceptions of stress as compared to men in STEM; and they will also report higher levels of stress as a badge of honor than men. Our findings indicated that women indeed perceived more stress than men in STEM as well as less “stress-is-enhancing" mindsets. However, we found that men reported slightly but not significantly higher levels of stress as achievement, relaxation remorse, stress-related social comparison, and stress-related impression management than women.

IRB Number

22-105

Degree

B. S.; An honors thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Science.

Date

5-2023

Subject

Stress (Psychology); Women science students--Psychology; Women in science--Psychology

Keyword

Stress perceptions; STEM; women; stress badge

Discipline

Psychology

Document Type

Theses

Extent

19 unnumbered leaves

DCMI Type

Text

Language

English

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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Psychology Commons

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