1)Does females problem-solving performance diminish when they are placed in an environment in which...
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1) Does females problem-solving performance diminish when they are placed in an environment in which males outnumber them? 2) Are such performance deficits specifically linked to domains that are associated with negative stereotypes about females’ intellectual capacity, as former research on stereotype threat with racial groups has shown (Steele & Aronson, 1995)? Minority Status and Stereotype Threat Inzlicht and Ben Zeev (2000) asked two main research questions: © POSbase 2005 Contributor
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Transcript of 1)Does females problem-solving performance diminish when they are placed in an environment in which...
1) Does females problem-solving performance diminish when they are placed in an environment in which males outnumber them?
2) Are such performance deficits specifically linked to domains that are associated with negative stereotypes about females’ intellectual capacity, as former research on stereotype threat with racial groups has shown (Steele & Aronson, 1995)?
Minority Status and Stereotype Threat
Inzlicht and Ben Zeev (2000) asked two main research
questions:
© POSbase 2005Contributor
The basic assumptions are:
• Sex composition may act as a causal situational factor in determining whether gender stereotypes will be activated.
• This activation may cause high-achieving females to experience performance deficits.
• In this threatening intellectual environment performance deficits tend to increase as the relative number of males increase.
© POSbase 2005
Minority Status and Stereotype Threat
© POSbase 2005
Minority Status and Stereotype Threat
• Experiment 1: Was designed to examine the main
research questions, with female participants.
• Experiment 2: Was crafted to control for the
performance of male participants: do males show
the same pattern of decrements as women in a
minority situation? Moreover, the authors examined
whether females’ performance would decrease in
proportion to the relative number of males who
were present in the task environment.
© POSbase 2005
Minority Status and Stereotype Threat
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Math Verbal
Minority
Same-sex
Acc
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SA
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Test
Experiment 1: Accuracy of test performance, corrected for Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) score, as a function of sex composition of group and test type.
© POSbase 2005
Minority Status and Stereotype Threat
These findings showed that when females were
placed in a threatening intellectual environment
– when they were outnumbered by males – they
tended to demonstrate deficits.
Deficits were specific to the negatively
stereotyped task, the mathematics test, not the
verbal test.
© POSbase 2005
Minority Status and Stereotype Threat
0,50
0,55
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0,65
0,70
0,75
0,80
Females Males
Minority
Same-sex
Acc
urac
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rrec
ted
for
SA
T
Sex of participant
Experiment 2: Accuracy of test performance, corrected for Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) score, as a function of sex composition of group and sex of participant.
© POSbase 2005
Minority Status and Stereotype Threat
Experiment 2 provided evidence for three points:
1) Minority status can cause intellectual deficits in stereotyped domains. When placed in the minority, females – but not males – experienced math performance deficits.
2) Stereotype threat can be evoked by environmental cues, thus creating a threatening intellectual environment.
3) Females show decreasing math performance with an increase in the relative number of males in their environment.
© POSbase 2005
Minority Status and Stereotype Threat
• When high-achieving females act in a
stereotyped domain, in which they are in
contact with males, their performance
decreases.
• This phenomenon highlights the indirect
environmental effects of negative stereotypes
on the targets of these stereotypes, in this
case an adverse impact on females’ intellectual
performance.
