PSYC336 Exam 1: Gender Stereotypes and Stereotype Threat

What are Stereotypes?

Stereotypes:

• Widely held beliefs about members of a social identity group

• Connection to Schema Theory - Help us efficiently process social information

• The issue? Stereotypes are often incorrect and reinforce inequality

Impact of Stereotypes

Impact of Stereotypes:

• Prime discriminatory or biased behavior

• Reinforce differences in status and power

• Negative feelings about own group (aka internalized oppression)

• Stereotype threat

What is a Meta-analysis?

Meta-analysis: A stronger method for studying differences between groups

• Technique in which results of many separate research studies are standardized and combined 

• Steps to conducting a Meta-analysis 

  • 1. Locate all previous studies on question of interest 

  • 2. Compute effect size difference using Cohen’s d 

  • 3. Average all the values of Cohen’s d across all of the studies 

• Rule of Thumb for Cohen’s d: 

  • Small difference (d > .20) 

  • Moderate difference (d > .50) 

  • Large difference (d > .80) 

Gender Differences

• Aggressive Behavior:

  • Physical: Boys > Girls (d = .55)

  • Verbal: Boys > Girls (d = .09)

  • Relational: Girls > Boys (d = .13-.19)

• Impulsivity:

  • Risk Taking: Men > Women (d = .38)

  • Sensation Seeking: Men > Women (d = .22)

  • Impulse Control: No gender differences

• Self-esteem

  • Overall, men have higher self-esteem than women

  • However, size of differences changes across development

    • Elementary school children: d=.16

    • Middle-school children: d=.23

    • High-schoolers: d=.33

    • Adults: d=.10

    • Older adults: d=.03

  • **Gender differences are largest in White samples (d=.20)

• Helping Behavior

  • Heroic/Dangerous Acts: Men > Women (d=.34)

  • Nurturing/Caretaking: Studied less

• Anxiety

  • Girls and women report having more anxiety than boys and men

Biological Gender Differences

Hormonal Differences

• Testosterone levels affected by socio-cultural conditions (power/competition)

  • Wielding power (either in a stereotypically feminine or masculine way) increased testosterone levels in women

  • Suggests gendered behavior modulates testosterone

    • rather than testosterone levels simply being heritable (nature)

The Gender Similarities Hypothesis

Women and men are similar on most (but not all) psychological variables

Stereotype Threat

• Dr. Claude Steele: Source of stress arising from the risk of personally confirming a negative stereotype about one’s group

• Person begins to expand energy to cope with stress

  • Leads to reduces working memory capacity

  • Can capture physiological markers of stress (e.g. increased heart rate)

Stereotype Threat Across Domains

• Math and driving performance of women

• Academic performance of Black people, Latinx people, and low SES children

• Athletic performance of White men and Black men

• Math performance of White men, when tested with Asian American men

• Childcare abilities of gay men

Stereotype Threat and Intersectional Identities

Moderators of Stereotype Threat

Who is most impacted by stereotype threat?:

• Importance of identification (domain and group)

• Control beliefs (i.e. internal locus of control)

• Knowledge of stereotype

Outcomes of Stereotype Threat

• Disengagement:

  • When stereotype threat leads people to distance themselves from a threatening domain in short-term

• Disidentification:

  • When stereotype threat leads people to avoid domain/detach it completely from one’s identity and/or distance themselves from stereotyped group

    
    

Counteracting Stereotype Threat

• Make people feel powerful

• Reframe & Refine Task

  • Reminding test takers of fairness of test

  • Removing items that make identity salient

• Remind Test Takers of Unique and Valued Traits

  • Increase self-complexity

  • Self-affirmation

• Role Models and Mentors

• Making External Attributions