The Effects of Demographic Variables and Stereotype Threat on Black/White Differences in Cognitive Ability Test Performance

The present study examined whether a set of demographic variables and stereotype threat could explain African-American/White mean differences in cognitive ability test performance. African Americans and Whites were found to significantly differ in stereotype threat and educational attainment of participants' fathers (i.e., father education). In moderate support of our study hypothesis, stereotype threat and father education partially mediated race differences in cognitive ability test scores. Implications for study findings are discussed, and limitations of the study are noted.     

Relating Test-Taking Attitudes and Skills and Stereotype Threat Effects to the Racial Gap in Cognitive Ability Test Performance

This research extended past studies on race effects and stereotype threat (ST) effects outside the academic domain, as well as exploring the mediating role of test-related cognition, motivation, and emotionality in the Black-White cognitive ability test performance differences. One hundred seventy-two undergraduates took a simulated personnel selection test and responded to measures of attitudinal and test-taking skills prior to and after the test. Half of the participants were told that the test provided the hypothetical employer diagnostic information about their reasoning abilities and limitations; they were also asked to report their racial status prior to taking the test. Significant race differences favoring Whites were found for mathematical and logical performance, holding ability constant. A metacognitive strategy, regulation of cognition, partially mediated race effects on mathematical and verbal performance. Contrary to previous findings, no traditional significant ST effects were found; however, a 3-way interaction revealed that proficiency in test-taking strategies mitigated the Black-White mathematical score gap to a greater extent for those in the ST condition.     

An Examination of Stereotype Threat in a Motivational Context

This study was conducted to explore 2 potential boundary conditions of the stereotype threat effect. First, we sought to determine if threat would occur for a test administered in a motivational context where consequences were linked to test performance. Second, we examine if the threat elicited by 1 test would generalize to a different measure administered in the same testing session. Using a 2 (control vs. threat) × 2 (order of administration of a personality and intelligence test) × 2 (Black vs. White) between-subjects design, we found that threat can influence test scores, but the relationship between threat and test scores is dependent on both domain identity and racial identity. Interestingly, we found that changes in racial identity (assessed before and after the test) had a significant and positive relationship with cognitive ability test performance for Black test-takers, but not for Whites. It seems that Black individuals who dis-identified themselves from their race (during the course of the testing) were able to perform better on the cognitive ability test. Finally, we find that those in the threat condition performed significantly better on the personality test than those in the control condition, suggesting that threat can generalize and influence performance on tests for which no stereotype exists. Implications of these results for research and practice are discussed.     

Stereotype Threat in Men on a Test of Social Sensitivity

This study provides evidence of stereotype threat in men on a test of a feminine ability called social sensitivity, that is, the ability to decode nonverbal cues. Men who were told that the test assessed social sensitivity and produced better scores for women than men performed worse on the test than did men who were told that the test assessed information processing. Because social sensitivity can be an automatic skill and stereotype threat uses mental capacity, this effect was moderated by self-reported strategy usage. Mens performance worsened in the threat condition only when they reported more deliberative and less intuitive strategies for decoding nonverbal cues.     

Peers and Performance: How In-Group and Out-Group Comparisons Moderate Stereotype Threat Effects

The present study examined how exposure to the performance of in-group and out-group members can both exacerbate and minimize the negative effects of stereotype threat. Female participants learned that they would be taking a math test that was either diagnostic or nondiagnostic of their math ability. Prior to taking the test, participants interacted with either an in-group peer (a female college student) or an out-group peer (a male college student) who had just taken the test, and learned that the student had either performed well or poorly on the test. Exposure to either an in-group or an out-group peer whose performance was consistent with the negative stereotype (a poor-performing female or a strong-performing male) exacerbated stereotype threat effects. In contrast, exposure to an in-group or an out-group peer whose performance challenged the negative stereotype (a strong-performing female or a poor-performing male) eliminated stereotype threat effects. These findings demonstrate that people can look to both in-group and out-group peers as sources of inspiration in the context of a negative stereotype.

Stereotype Threat and Employment Testing: A Commentary

This article comments on Sackett, Schmitt, Ellingson, and Kabin's (2001) suggestion that stereotype threat may not generalize to employment testing, and the 4 articles of this issue following from it. We argue that each experiment lacked the no-stereotype threat control group needed to experimentally test stereotype threat effects; that sizeable stereotype threat effects occurred nonetheless; and that research not reviewed by Sackett et al. suggests that stereotype threat may be the sole cause of important real-life test-score gaps. The 4 experiments, we suggest, reveal important mediators of stereotype threat effects; their test-specific and general form, and their generalizability to IQ testing. We offer a framework for assessing its generalizability to real-life employment tests.     

Test Anxiety, Self-Awareness, and Cognitive Interference: A Process Analysis

ABSTRACT Participants performed a cognitive task under evaluative, self-awareness, and neutral conditions, Task performance was determined jointly by trait test anxiety and situational factors. Test anxiety led to poorer performance in both evaluative and self-awareness situations, relative to the neutral situation. We examined the cognitive activity variables that might mediate the effects of test anxiety and situational variables on performance, and identified a significant cognitive mediator of the main effect of test anxiety, but not for the Test Anxiety x Situation interaction effect. Therefore, the current experiment offered some support for Sarason's (1980) cognitive interference theory, as well as integrating test anxiety and self-awareness research.     

Effects of Salient Multiple Identities on Women's Performance Under Mathematics Stereotype Threat

Previous research on affective extremity and social identity complexity suggested that women's mathematics stereotype threat might be alleviated by reminding individual women of their multiple roles and identities, most of which would presumably be unrelated and thus impervious to negative stereotypes regarding math performance. To test this hypothesis, we primed the relevant stereotype and then asked men and women college students to draw self-concept maps with many or few nodes. When they drew no maps or maps with few nodes, highly math-identified women scored significantly worse than highly math-identified men on a subsequent Graduate Record Examination-like math test, but when they drew maps with many nodes, they scored as well as those men. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.     

刻板印象威胁下价值肯定对任务表现的缓冲作用

本研究考察了在多重威胁框架下,价值肯定干预对女大学生在刻板印象威胁下的认知任务表现的作用,并比较了群体价值肯定和自我价值肯定的影响差异.实验1发现在群体目标刻板印象威胁下,群体价值肯定降低了受威胁个体的任务表现水平,被试在任务中表现出更大的Stroop干扰效应;实验2发现在自我目标刻板印象威胁下,群体价值肯定和自我价值...     

The Stereotype Threat Hypothesis: An Assessment from the Philosopher's Armchair,for the Philosopher's Classroom

According to Stereotype Threat Hypothesis (STH), fear of confirming gendered stereotypes causes women to experience anxiety in circumstances wherein their performance might potentially confirm those stereotypes, such as high‐stakes testing scenarios in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses. This anxiety causes women to underperform, which in turn causes them to withdraw from math‐intensive disciplines. STH is thought by many to account for the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields, and a growing body of evidence substantiates this hypothesis. In considering the plausibility of STH as an explanation for women's disproportionate attrition from undergraduate philosophy programs, one is struck by dissimilarities between STEM and philosophy that appear to undermine the applicability of STH to the latter. In this paper, I argue that these dissimilarities are either merely apparent or merely apparently relevant to the plausibility of STH as an explanation for gender disparities in philosophy. I argue further that, if research from STEM uncovers promising strategies for confronting stereotype threat, we should think about how to apply those strategies in our introductory philosophy classrooms.     

Reactions to Feedback about Performance: A Test of Three Competing Models1

Reactions to an important college exam were used to test enhancement, consistency, and stability contingent theory. Before the exam, students completed a measure of level and stability of self-esteem. After the exam, cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to the feedback were taken. Enhancement theory predicts that persons low in self-esteem have a strong need to think and feel better about themselves. Thus, they should indicate more acceptance of success and more rejection of failure than persons high in self-esteem. Consistency theory asserts that people avoid inconsistency because it is psychologically uncomfortable. This model predicts that high self-esteem persons should accept success more than lows, who in turn should be more accepting of failure than highs. Finally, the stability contingent theory highlights the importance of stability of self-esteem as a moderator of self-motives. This model predicts that enhancement effects should occur for persons with unstable self-esteem, whereas consistency effects should occur for those with stable self-esteem. Our data provide no support for the stability contingent theory. Support for the other two models depended upon the type of feedback that was assessed: Cognitive reactions to feedback supported consistency theory, whereas affective reactions supported enhancement theory.     

Depression and Anxiety: Integrating the Tripartite and Cognitive Content-Specificity Assessment Models

The cognitive content-specificity hypothesis proposes that depression and anxiety can be discriminated on the basis of unique cognitive profiles. Alternatively, the Tripartite model suggests that, although depression and anxiety share a general distress factor, anhedonia is a characteristic of depression with anxious arousal a characteristic of anxiety. Past research devoted to integrating these two models has been limited in a number of ways. To remedy these limitations, this study attempted to assess the complete Tripartite model and used a multidimensional cognitive assessment tool to handle the heterogeneity of anxious cognitive content. Results on data collected from 411 clients seeking services at a university counseling center suggested that a one-to-one mapping between Tripartite dimensions and cognitive content was possible. Further, variables from each model simultaneously explained unique variance in depression and anxiety ratings.     

Blatant Stereotype Threat and Women's Math Performance: Self-Handicapping as a Strategic Means to Cope with Obtrusive Negative Performance Expectations

Research on the effect of stereotype threat has consistently shown that a reduction of stereotype threat due to decreased salience of negative stereotypic expectations in testing situations results in a performance boost. This article reports on an experiment (n = 75 high school students) designed to test the impact of increased salience of negative stereotypic expectations on math performance. As expected, female participants in the condition of heightened salience of negative stereotypic expectations underperformed in comparison to their control group counterparts. Moreover, it was found that the effect of blatant stereotype threat resulted in increased self-handicapping tendencies in women, which in turn led to significantly impaired math performance.     

The Roles of Self-Efficacy and Task Complexity in the Relationships Among Cognitive Ability,Conscientiousness, and Work-Related Performance: A Meta-Analytic Examination

Although cognitive ability and conscientiousness have been found to predict work-related performance, less is known about whether and when certain mediating variables help explain these relationships. This study examined meta-analytically whether self-efficacy mediates the cognitive ability-performance and conscientiousness-performance relationships, and whether task complexity moderates the extent to which self-efficacy mediates these relationships. Results indicated that cognitive ability and conscientiousness positively relate to self-efficacy, but that the magnitude of these relationships varies with task complexity. Furthermore, results showed that self-efficacy mediates the relationships of cognitive ability and conscientiousness with performance on simple tasks, but not on complex tasks. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Self-Affirmation in Occupational Training: Effects on the Math Performance of French Women Nurses under Stereotype Threat

This study examined the conditions affecting the math performance of French female student nurses in a setting where they were likely to experience stereotype threat (supposedly poor scientific skills), but in a context which enhanced their status as women and strengthened their self-affirmation. We hypothesized that self-affirmation through their nursing identity would deflect the negative impact of the stereotype threat on performance and would reduce the threat’s harmful impact on attentional processes, as reflected in perceived stress, perceived concentration and self-estimate of performance. Ninety-five female students enrolled in a nursing school in France carried out a dosage calculation—a typical nursing task—which drew directly on their math skills. They were assigned to one of four experimental conditions: 2 (threat: task presented as being diagnostic of women’s difficulty in math calculation compared to men vs. no threat: task presented as a typical nursing-school exercise) x 2 (self-affirmation: choosing from a list and describing the most important characteristics for them as women and as nurses vs. control condition: same task but for the characteristics that were least important for them but important for other people). As expected, under stereotype threat relating to their math skills, women performed better under the self-affirmation condition than under the control condition. However, this improved performance was associated with a lower self-estimate of their performance. We discuss the consequences, in this specific occupational and cultural context, on the way women can overcome the negative impact of gender stereotypes.     

African Americans and High Blood Pressure: The Role of Stereotype Threat

We examined the effect of stereotype threat on blood pressure reactivity. Compared with European Americans, and African Americans under little or no stereotype threat, African Americans under stereotype threat exhibited larger increases in mean arterial blood pressure during an academic test, and performed more poorly on difficult test items. We discuss the significance of these findings for understanding the incidence of hypertension among African Americans.     

Predictors of Managerial Performance: More Than Cognitive Ability

This study investigated the discriminant validity of cognitive ability, managerial potential, fear of negative evaluation, interaction anxiousness, and audience anxiousness as predictors of managerial performance. As hypothesized cognitive ability significantly predicted only thinking and knowledge criteria. However, managerial potential was significantly correlated with all the criteria. As predicted, fear of negative evaluation predicted thinking and knowledge criteria, interaction anxiousness, and audience anxiousness. In turn, as predicted, interaction anxiousness significantly predicted interpersonal behavior and audience anxiousness significantly predicted communication behavior. Managerial potential and fear of negative evaluation were the only two predictors that were significantly correlated with overall performance.     

Masculinity, Femininity, and Marital Satisfaction: An Examination of Theoretical Models

ABSTRACT This study sought to investigate the relationship between masculinity, femininity, and marital satisfaction. A number of polynomial multiple regression analyses were performed in an effort to determine the validity of six theoretical models linking sex roles to marital satisfaction. These are the femininity model, masculinity model, sex-typed model, additive androgynous model, interactive androgynous model, and curvilinear model. The sample was composed of 117 couples who completed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (Bem, 1974) and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976). For men, the results showed that marital satisfaction was related to (a) their self-described levels of femininity and masculinity, (b) the level of self-described femininity of their wives, and (c) the presence of feminine qualities as well as a limited optimal level of masculine qualities which they perceived in their wives. For women, marital satisfaction was associated with (a) the number of self-described feminine qualities and (b) the level of masculinity, as well as an optimal level of femininity, which they perceived in their husbands. Further-more, small actual-ideal discrepancies in levels of masculinity and femininity ascribed to partners constituted reliable predictors of marital satisfaction for both men and women.     

考试焦虑影响考试成绩的基本模式

以整合的思路、建构包括九个中介变量的考试焦虑影响考试成绩的结构方程模型。用AM和MG两种路径分析方式相结合的方法．发现考试焦虑对中介变量的影响甚于中介变量对考试成绩的影响。考试自我效能感、成绩-接近目标、认知干扰是受考试焦虑影响和影响考试成绩程度比较一致的中介变量(简称为“一致性”的中介变量),成绩-回避目标定向、担忧、学习和考试技能变量屑于“非一致性”的中介变量。掌握目标定向、情绪性和应付反应作为中介变量不具有实际意义。