Stereotype threat is a phenomenon that was identified in the early 90s and has been a popular topic of discussion for social psychologists, educators, and others ever since. Stereotype threat is a phenomenon where the introduction of a negative stereotype about a group results in diminished cognitive performance for individuals in the group in question. In our study, we are interested in studying the effects of a fabricated stereotype on a societally established minority group. Studies so far have mainly studied the effects of a societally established stereotype threat (i.e. women are worse than men at math),and it 's been found that when reminded of this stereotype women will perform worse than men. But we are interested in seeing if they would …show more content…
We hypothesize that the performance of the women on the cognitive task will still be negatively affected by the fabricated stereotype threat based on recent research that has started to study the cognitive processes behind the diminished performance.
Schmader and Johns (2003) conducted a study to examine the effects of stereotype threat on working memory. They hypothesized that a diminished working memory capacity could account for worse performances on cognitive tasks. This study is one of many that has recently begun to study the cognitive mechanisms behind stereotype threat. 40 males and 35 female students in undergraduate studies were chosen to participate in the study and were randomly assigned to either the control group- no stereotype threat presented- or the experimental group- stereotype threat presented. The stereotype threat presented was that women are worse than men at quantitative cognitive tasks. Subjects were then asked to
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In order to test our hypothesis, we will be conducting an experiment using a spatial location memory task. Before beginning the cognitive task, participants in the experimental condition will be presented with a paper that states that women typically perform worse on spatial tests similar to this one. Participants in the study will then be given a stimulus page with --- objects on it, and be asked to memorize their location for -- minutes. Then, as a distractor, they will be given a series of mazes to work on for one minute. After that minute is up, the participants will be given a test sheet with -- objects on it, but some of the objects will be in a different location than the stimulus sheet. Participants will then be asked to circle any objects in the incorrect location. They will have --- minutes to complete this part of the task. These papers will then be collected and analyzed for the number of objects correctly