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Article Excerpt
Students' performance on academic tests is influenced by their beliefs about relevant stereotypes (e.g., Aronson, Fried, & Good, 2002; Stangor, Carr, & Kiang, 1998; Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002). As described by Steele et al., stereotype threat refers to the process through which a negative stereotype about a group to which one belongs becomes salient during a performance situation. Stereotype threat is a situational threat that is influenced by an individual's social identities (e.g., gender, race) and previous exposure to stereotypes concerning a variety of contexts (Steele et al., 2002). An individual who is susceptible to this threat has been previously exposed to a negative group stereotype and is in a situation that evokes this stereotype, activating beliefs about one's own likelihood for underperformance in a particular setting.
Gender difference research on beliefs about math ability has shown that female students have more negative perceptions of their math abilities when compared with male students (Eccles, 1983). More recently, Stipek and Gralinski (1991) examined gender differences in beliefs held by third graders and junior high students. Their findings suggest that girls reported beliefs of success in math due to luck and failure in math due to personal deficits. In contrast, they found that boys reported beliefs of math success due to ability and were less likely than girls to internalize poor math performance (Stipek & Gralinski, 1991). These findings indicate that the stereotypical beliefs about math abilities, necessary for activation of stereotype threat, may be present early in students' academic careers.
The potential for stereotype threat to cause harm is particularly relevant during high-stakes testing (Steele & Aronson, 1995). For example, it has been demonstrated that the performance of women on tests of mathematics and the performance of African Americans on intelligence tests decline when relevant stereotypes are activated (Cadinu, Maass, Frigerio, Impagliazzo, & Latinotti, 2003; Davies, Spencer, Quinn, & Gerhardstein, 2002; Steele & Aronson, 1995). This underperformance phenomenon has been found even when skill and preparation for academic performance tests remain constant among members of stigmatized groups (Steele et al., 2002).
Interest in stereotype threat among college women is motivated by findings, such as those of Linn (1994), that female students obtained lower scores on high-stakes academic tests (e.g., the Scholastic Assessment Test) than did male students, despite obtaining higher high school and college grades. Several studies have demonstrated the impact of stereotype threat on women's mathematics performance. For example, women who were told that they were taking a test to determine whether their math abilities were "especially weak" performed worse than did those told that they were taking a test to judge whether their math abilities were "especially strong" (Brown & Josephs, 1999). Spencer, Steele, and Quinn (1999) found that women and men performed comparably when they were told that there were no previous gender differences in test performance. However, women performed worse than men did on a challenging math test when told that there were previous gender differences on the test. Similarly, exposure to commercials that perpetuated negative stereotypes about women resulted in decreased performance by women on a math test and a preference for verbal over math items on an aptitude test (Davies et al., 2002). In addition, Cadinu et al. (2003) found that women who were informed that men typically perform better on a math test than do women subsequently performed worse on the test than did those who were told that women performed better or the same as men. Furthermore, research has indicated that women who were asked to list their gender and ethnicity prior to taking an Advanced Placement examination in calculus performed worse than did those who listed these statuses following the examination (Steele et al., 2002; Stricker, 1998).
Overall, stereotype threat presents a concern in high-stakes testing for women because the elicitation of stereotype threat affects testing performance and undermines accumulative academic achievement when college or graduate admissions are at stake. This is especially relevant for women who have a high interest in math and are at risk for consequences associated with this threat. Steele (1997) found that women who were highly identified with the mathematical domain, such as women who majored in math, were most susceptible to the effects of stereotype threat. Difficult testing situations, based on Steele's findings, partially mediate the impact of this threat among highly mathematically identified women. Accordingly, identifying underlying beliefs about women's mathematical potential, held by these women, is important for modifying the impact of stereotype threat within this group.
Unfortunately, research on stereotype threat is currently limited by a lack of available instruments for assessing stereotype threat. Although scales exist to measure stigma consciousness, the personal awareness of one's stigmatized status (Brown & Pinel, 2003), these scales do not discuss stereotype threat in academic performance settings. Furthermore, although scales exist to measure general anxiety and test-specific anxiety, these instruments were not designed to account for the role of stereotype threat in limiting performance. They address symptoms of anxiety (e.g., feelings of inadequacy, worrying) but fail to address the possible origins of anxiety, such as stereotype threat. In counseling settings, it is important to distinguish between the fear of fulfilling stereotypes in high-stakes performance situations and test anxiety because of the differential implications for treatment. By giving...
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