Gender Differences in Adolescents’ Wishful Identification With Scientist Characters on Television

Abstract

Adolescents’ wishful identification with televised scientist characters was examined as related to interactions among the following variables: gender of participant, gender of scientist character, program genre, and selected character attributes. Findings indicated some gender differences in adolescents’ wishful identification with scientist characters they viewed on television. Boys showed more wishful identification with male scientist than with female scientist characters for all character attributes, and girls showed more wishful identification with female scientist than with male scientist characters portrayed dominant or as working alone. Both girls and boys showed more wishful identification with scientist characters in drama programs than for those in cartoon and educational programs across all character attributes. Both girls and boys showed more wishful identification for some character attributes depending on the program genre viewed. Implications of these findings for producers of television programs and other media are discussed related to efforts to encourage adolescent girls’ interest in science careers.