Miss France: A Math Ambassador for Girls?
Over the course of a week, mathematics has (once again) been a hot topic in France. First came the release of the results from the well-known PISA study, which raised concerns about the performance of French students in the subject. Then, the Miss France pageant brought the university track into the spotlight, as this year’s winner happens to be a student of applied mathematics.
Angela Sutan, Burgundy School of Business ; Noémie Bobin, University of Montpellier and Sylvain Max, Burgundy School of Business
Could a Miss France who is a math major serve as a role model for young women and encourage them to pursue a field of study that they are currently shunning in droves?
It is a hypothesis that one might be tempted to put forward, given that role models can inspire career choices and that interactions between professionals and high school students can help overcome barriers to certain academic paths. However, we must take into account a well-known phenomenon in behavioral economics: the “dilution effect.”
Female students and role models
Eve Gilles is not the first Miss France to be a mathematician. In 1962, Muguette Fabris had already won the title while holding a degree in mathematics. And many contestants for the Miss France title are pursuing, or have pursued, advanced degrees, sometimes in the sciences. Yet, neither in 1962 nor since then has their presence on the catwalk served as a “role model,” inspiring young women to follow in their footsteps and pursue studies in the sciences.
A "role model" is someone who has achieved particular success in a field where the group to which they belong is generally considered to be less successful. Numerous studies show that a role model—that is, a member who defies the stereotypes of their social group—can serve as an inspiring figure. Others may want to emulate or imitate their qualities or achievements.
This is wheretheso-called“dilution effect”comes into play: behavioral science has shown that people tend to instinctively believe that a product that serves a single purpose is better than one that serves the same purpose plus additional functions (for example, a product that cleans and is environmentally friendly).
In other words, having multiple objectives can reduce or dilute the perceived effectiveness of achieving each objective, thereby reducing the likelihood that the purpose for which the object in question was originally designed will be perceived as an effective use.
This is true of objects, but the same principle applies to people: a contestant in the Miss France pageant, where beauty is the primary criterion for selection, will be considered less beautiful if, in addition to being beautiful, she is also… intelligent. In fact, the new Miss France has faced a wave of criticism on social media.
Cognitive biases to be aware of
In marketing theory, people who vote in the Miss France pageant make choices that reflect their preferences, based on the available information. The fact that a contestant is selected as a finalist validates her “beauty” attribute. This primarily resolves a problem of information asymmetry: the belief attribute (I believe a girl could be beautiful, but I’m not sure about the prevailing beauty standard or what others think) becomes a search attribute, reducing uncertainty (I’m certain this contestant is beautiful relative to a social standard, and now it’s a matter of choosing the most beautiful one).
Consequently, it makes intuitive sense to inform voters of another attribute of the candidate in question, especially if that attribute does not objectively affect her “beauty”: the fact that she has a college education, for example, is not supposed to detract from her beauty capital. It should even work in her favor. However, in practice, things are more complicated, because people mistakenly perceive that the beauty dimension may have been diminished due to her education… due to the orthogonality and thus the dissonance between these two attributes.
There are two reasons for this discrepancy: first, the goal dilution model suggests that when multiple goals are pursued through a single means, individuals perceive them as being achieved less effectively than when the goals are pursued individually.
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Second, the zero-sum heuristic suggests that people believe that an increase in quality in one aspect of a product is automatically offset by a decrease in quality in other aspects: if, in addition to being beautiful, one is also intelligent, it is at the expense of being less beautiful, as if the sum of intelligence and beauty must remain constant and therefore, to be intelligent, one must sacrifice a little beauty.
The zero-sum bias refers to the tendency to intuitively judge a situation as zero-sum: resources invested in one dimension are automatically assumed to be offset by an equivalent loss of resources invested in other dimensions, even if the objective situation is actually non-zero-sum.
Talking about sports instead of math?
It therefore seems pointless to keep talking about the beauty queens’ educational backgrounds. This will not have the desired effect in the long run, and in the short term, it will reinforce the perception that a beauty queen is less attractive.
However, there is one quality that most contestants in the Miss France pageant share—and one that doesn’t get enough attention: a quality that goes hand in hand with beauty. It is the practice of sports.
Contrary to what one might expect, talking about sports could encourage more young girls… to study math! Why? It is well established that athletes enjoy a “sports premium” in the form of higher salaries and benefits, better employability, and shorter periods of unemployment.
Athletes are more likely to be paid based on their performance, which reduces the gender pay gap. The psychological traits of athletes may also align with those that drive entrepreneurial intent and success.
All of this has significant implications for higher education policy. Participation in sports has a causal influence on success in competitions (such as the Miss France pageant, but also in life in general), and this argues in favor of strengthening its role in the education of all young people. Increasing competitiveness through participation in sports appears to be a viable way to bridge the competitiveness gap between men and women.
Angela Sutan, Professor of Behavioral Economics, Burgundy School of Business ; Noémie Bobin, PhD Candidate in Behavioral and Experimental Economics, University of Montpellier and Sylvain Max, Social Psychologist, Associate Professor, Burgundy School of Business
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