Social and academic stereotypes and their Impact on students Keller (2002) Gender Schmader, Johns & Barquissau (2004) Gender Aronson, Fried & Good (2002) Racial

This ad from Mademoiselle magazine is directed at young women. What stereotypes apply?

1 Does playing a sport make one more masculine? 2. Does cooking make one more feminine? the majority of males felt that masculinity or femininity was not determined by something a person does. The majority of females had a converse opinion. They felt that playing a sport did not make one more masculine, but cooking did make one more feminine.

Male Female Sport Cooking

Predictive relationships (also called correlations) range from 0 (no relationship) to 1 (a perfect relationship). The relationship between birth and death is a perfect 1. The closer the relationship is to 1, the better the prediction.

The relationship between high school GPA and college GPA is: 0.6 If you have a high GPA in HS, the odds are your college GPA will also be high The relationship between sex and quantitative skills, and sex and verbal skills are about 0.1

Math Skills

annual gender roles in children’s interactive media (GRIIMS) survey.

Lead roles:

Gender Appeal

Keller Blatant Stereotype & Self- Handicapping Schmader, Johns, & Barquissau The Costs of Accepting Gender Stereotype

Keller (2002). Why did women in the experiment underperform in comparison to the control group? They had heightened salience of negative stereotypic expectations. How did this impair them? increased their self-handicapping tendencies This in turn led to significantly poor math performance

Why is gender difference in math performance assumed to be a universal phenomenon? Countries studied have a heterogeneous cultural mix South Africa Russia France USA

3 main theoretical approaches to gender differences: 1. Biological models (What factors?) brain differences hormonal influences genetic factors evolutionary processes 2. The psychosocial approaches (What factors?) learned helplessness autonomous learning behavior expectations and values

3. Stereotype Threat Theory (STT) (Factor?) Cognitive abilities What is STT The situational aspects in testing sessions undermines the negatively stereotyped group’s performance: Members of stereotyped groups face pressure when they find them in a situation that their performance is being judged as confirming the negative stereotypic expectations.

Under what conditions does the stereotype threat affect women? where the test pushes ability to the limit, tests of a high level of difficulty when ability is evaluated and scrutinized when a negative stereotypic expectation is directly applicable to the test performance.

What other tendency is related to STT ? Self-handicapping What does it mean? Target groups of blatant stereotype threat offer external explanations for a possible weak performance on the test

Among women, what results from increased applicability of negative stereotypes? decreased performance by members of negatively stereotyped groups.

What happens if men are positively stereotyped? under conditions of high stereotype salience no reduction was found in the performance of men. no heightened degree of self- handicapping tendencies in men no evidence in support of the hypothesis that positive stereotypes may threaten intellectual performance

What is a mediating factor between STT and women’s math performance? impact of self-handicapping tendencies What is the impact? blatant stereotype threat induces a need to protect the self from negative attributions

What occurs with the elimination of STT? No self-handicapping What results from a blatant STT? Strong degree of uncertainty follows, which sets off self-handicapping tendencies.

Keller Blatant Stereotype & Self- Handicapping Schmader, Johns, & Barquissau The Costs of Accepting Gender Stereotype

Schmader, et al. (2004) Why is stereotype endorsement an important variable in this study on gender? for understanding women’s lower levels of involvement in math-related fields as well as their lower test scores.

What do women who believe that status differences between the sexes are legitimate, endorse? gender stereotypes about women’s math abilities predicted more negative self- perception of math competence less interest in continuing math studies

What theory/ factor predict these beliefs? Social dominance theory Legitimizing ideologies

Why do some people believe in dominance over other groups? They subscribe to social dominance ideologies How is this explained? people have a pervasive tendency to assume that it is an inevitable fact of human society that some groups must dominate other groups (Sidanius & Pratto, 1993).

What are legitimizing ideologies? Who believe in them? members of advantaged groups are more likely than disadvantaged groups to endorse legitimizing ideologies sometimes also endorsed by lower status and socially disadvantaged groups

Who are more likely to endorse gender stereotypes about women’s math ability? women majoring in male- dominated fields who believe that status differences between men and women in society are legitimate

Why does Protestant work ethic, seem to have a more beneficial association for women? It was related to less endorsement of gender differences in math ability

What does the study show as the consequences if college women endorsed math-related stereotypes? fewer intentions to attend graduate school in their math-related major more negative self-perceptions related to their math abilities less confident in their abilities and had lower performance self-esteem

What did endorsing gender stereotype lead to? lower test performance women’s lower levels of involvement in math-related fields