What Is Stereotype Threat Affects Performance?

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Prior studies have shown that women and minorities underperform on stereotype relevant tasks because they are concerned it will confirm negative stereotypes about their groups. Stereotype threats have deep implications for the success of stigmatized groups, for example women and minority tend to underperform when it comes to mathematical or intellectual tests. Researchers conducted this study to see if informing stigmatized individuals (women) or groups about stereotype threat would affect their performance in a threatening testing situation. This is an interesting topic because studies have shown that individuals in a stereotype relevant task don’t perform as well as they could due to anxiety and concern for confirming negative stereotypes …show more content…

Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. The problem solving group researchers told them the complete a problem solving exercise for a study of cognitive processes. In the math test group, participants were told it was a standardized test for a study of gender differences in mathematics performance. Lastly the teaching intervention was similar to the math test condition but in addition the researchers described stereotype threat and a suggestion regarding anxiety, negative stereotypes and how it has nothing to do with your actual testing ability. Participants had 20 minutes work on 30 multiple choice word problems. Participants in the math test and teaching intervention were asked to mark their gender on the test. Afterwards the participants did a questionnaire measuring their perception on how researchers thought gender stereotypes could reduce performance on the test, and how they thought the researcher expected men and women to perform relative to each other, and lastly how the participants felt about gender stereotypes contributed to anxiety they experienced during the test (all on a scale from 1-7). Participants were to also report their SAT score, get debriefed and