A study out of Penn State suggests that girls who are exposed to high levels of androgen, a male hormone, are more interested in "masculine" jobs.
A team of psychologists at Pennsylvania State University looked at the career interests of young men and women with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), a genetic condition in which the body produces high levels of the male hormone androgen. Although they are exposed to androgen while developing, females with CAH are genetically female and reared as females. Their career interests, however, tended to match those shown by males, both with and without CAH. They were less interested in jobs like social worker and teacher than other females.
"We took advantage of a natural experiment," said study researcher Sheri Berenbaum, a psychologist at Penn State University.
Berenbaum and her colleagues asked each participant, whose ages ranged from 9 to 26, to rank 64 jobs based on their like, dislike or indifference to. There were clear differences in how each group of participants — females and males with or without CAH — ranked certain jobs and types of jobs.
Original source: LiveScience
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