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)? stereotype threat Minority Status and Stereotype Threat Inzlicht and Ben Zeev (2000)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 Accuracy corrected for SAT 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 Accuracy corrected for SAT 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.