| Summary: | The theory of stereotype threat states that activating self-relevant stereotypes
can lead people to exhibit stereotype-consistent behavior. Stereotype threat most
commonly arises under circumstances in which a negative self-relevant
stereotype is applicable, the person's membership in the stereotyped group is
made salient, and the person believes that their performance on a task will be
evaluated.
It seems that a certain element in stereotypes conveys an inescapable expected
behavior to members of the stereotyped social group. Putting this assertion to
test we manipulated the perceived inevitability of a stereotype-related group
difference. Research on Nature vs. nurture causal attributions suggests that
people perceive genetic causes to be more inescapable than experiential ones.
Using a repeated measures design, causal attributions concerning gender-based
differences in mathematical ability were manipulated by presetting either geneticbased
or experientially-based explanations for the gender-related math
performance differences, while the strength of the alleged differences was held
constant. A third condition asserted that there are no gender differences in math.
Additional variable tested was the presence of men's influence on women math
performance.
Results supported the hypothesis that the perceived cause for gender differences
in math ability affects women's mathematical performance. Women who were
exposed to a genetic explanation performed significantly worse than those
exposed to experiential explanation. Men's presence did not significantly
influence women's math performance. The results indicate one way in which
genetic essentialism might affect people's behaviour. Several more implications,
as well as future directions are discussed. === Arts, Faculty of === Psychology, Department of === Graduate
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