All 6 articles in this section
Self-assessment differences between girls and boys show up reliably in research. What they measure is calibration, not capability, and the distinction changes everything about what to do next.
Psychologists separate general self-belief from task-specific expectation of success. Only one of them predicts behaviour well, and it is not the one that gets the assemblies and the posters.
Praise for ability and praise for process produce different responses to difficulty. The research is more nuanced than the popular version, and the nuance matters most for high-achieving girls.
Measured differences in risk behaviour between girls and boys shrink sharply once you account for how differently the same behaviour is supervised, punished and interpreted.
The phenomenon is real and well documented. Treating it as an individual pathology to be cured misreads what the feeling is usually tracking.
Research on apology frequency finds a difference — but the mechanism is not what the advice columns assume, and the popular fix may make things worse.