Investigating the Effects of the Stereotype Threat (Steele &

Aronson, 1995) in Female High School Students

IB Psychology Internal Assessment

Candidate Code: jgw172

Candidate Code of Other Members: jgw092, jgw099, REN

Date of Submission:

Word Count: 1636

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………… 3

Exploration ………………………………………………………………………………………. 4

Analysis ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 6

Evalution ………………………………………………………………………………………… 7

Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………….. 8

Appendix ………………………………………………………………………………………… 9

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 INTRODUCTION
The study that will be replicated is the Stereotype Threat theory researched by Claude M.
Steele and Joshua Aronson in 1995. The original study consists of testing African American and
White college students in a 30-minute window. The group that was told the test would be
diagnostic implied that their intellectual abilities would be tested which created a threat to Black
students; this group tested in stereotype-threat conditions. Meanwhile, the other group was told it
was purely for laboratory problem-solving tasks that are non-diagnostic. This eliminated the
threat against the Black students. This study tested the threat against race while for this paper, the
threat will be tested on women; in a women vs. men environment.
This change was made because there were not enough students at this school that were
around the same age and race that could perform these tests. The initial idea was to test Mexican
students against Korean students, but there were not enough Korean students in 10th grade that
would give us the necessary information. The test variables were changed from race to gender
since that is something more realistic that can be seen in our everyday life. This experiment of
men vs. women where the women were exposed to a stereotype threat has already been done
(Spencer et al., 1999). This study showed that men outperform women when they were aware
that they were being tested for gender differences in mathematical ability. The experiment based
on Steele & Aronson (1995) was done by Spencer et al. (1999) where women and men were
compared in their mathematical abilities using the same theory. This paper is the replication of
the study with minor changes to the dependent variable which is race to gender.
The aim of this study will be to find a correlation between stereotype threats in the
performance of the participants. It is important for this relationship to be studied because it can
disrupt an individual’s cognitive processes. This means that their access and use of knowledge
will be restricted and interrupted. It is also important to study this phenomenon since it can lead
to lowered self-esteem, poor performance in academic and even post-academic situations, and
loss of interest in the topic. Doing this study and understanding the concept of stereotype threats
can help put into perspective how much what individuals say to each other can affect their
performance. Not just in academic situations but also in real world situations like jobs and
friendships.

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Independent Variable:
Verbal instruction given prior to the test. (See Appendix 1.)

Dependent Variable:
Test scores of participants after threat is presented.

Null Hypothesis:
There is no difference in test performance between men and women’s performance during a
standardized test, when a stereotype threat is present.

Alternative Hypothesis:
There is a difference in test performance between men and women’s performance during a
standardized test, when a stereotype threat is present.

EXPLORATION
Research Design
The research design used in this experiment will be the Independent Measure Design. This was
done since 2 groups were needed, a control group, and one that will be tested. There is also only
one manipulated variable, which is: being told if they were being tested for diagnostic reasons.
Repeated Measure Design was not used in this case because there is a group that has the threat
inflicted upon, while the other is left untouched.

Sampling Method
Opportunity sampling will be used in this experiment since we select those who are willing to
participate in the experiment, from a select group of people (10th graders).
Note that the identification “F” will be used for female participants along with the color pink.
The identification “M” will be used for male participants along with the color blue, throughout
the entirety of this paper.

Choice of Participants
The participants required for this experiment were 10th graders of 16 years of age.

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Control
The control variables for this experiment is the Standardized Test paper since that is what will be
the same for both groups, the room that the experiment will be conducted in is the same where
there were no distractions like people walking by or the school bell ringing.

Materials
● Standardized Test Paper (See Appendix 2.) made by experimenters
● Informed Consent Form (See Appendix 3.)
● Standardized Debriefing (See Appendix 4.)
● Standardized Instructions (See Appendix 1.)

The Standardized Test consisted of 4 Mathematics questions and 3 English Vocabulary questions.
Each question had points assigned to them which would later be added according to which ones
the participant got correct. The grading scale was placed at the end of the paper just in case the
participants wanted to see how the pointing system works. After, the papers were collected and
put into a Google Sheets Document, also known as the Raw Data (See Appendix 5.). The reason
why Mathematics and English was chosen was because they were the most convenient and most
basic subjects.

ANALYSIS
Raw Data
The raw data of the experiment that was recorded in a table found in Appendix 5. The results
showed that in the control group (Group 1.) the test scores are in the 80-100 out of 100 range. In
the manipulated group (Group 2.) the test scores especially in women were lower than those of
men with the range of 60-100 out of 100. The male participants were recorded to have a higher
score than those of the female participants. Though it should be noted that in both females and
males for Group 2., there was one female participant who performed well, and one male
participant who underperformed. In some cases, the results of those 2 participants from Group 2.
will be excluded to keep a balanced result. Though this will be mentioned again throughout the

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paper and how that affects the validity of the results obtained. Eliminating the data from each
group will cause less deviations when it comes to analyzing the results.

Processed Data

Graph 1. Test scores of Group 1. participants, pink for females, blue for males.

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 Graph 2. Test scores of Group 2. participants, pink for females, blue for males.

Through the processed data, it can be seen that in Graph 1., both females and males do
relatively well. The female participants have an average of 90/100 which could be concluded by
adding up all 7 participants’ scores, and dividing it by 7. In Graph 2., the female participants can
be seen to have a lower score than the male participants. As mentioned in the previous section,
excluding the one participant with a perfect score, the average of the female participants in
Group 2. was 68/100.

EVALUATION
Findings
After displaying all the data and information that resulted from the experiment, the
findings were the following. In the environment where there was no stereotype threat, both
female and male participants performed well. As seen in Graph 1. the scores stay at a relatively
high rate, around the 70 point mark. This means that this group can be used as a control group.
Any changes that can be seen and analyzed will be based off of the data collected in Graph 1.
On the other hand, taking a look at Graph 2., the overall scores of the experimented
group are comparatively lower than those of Graph 1. Their score lands in the middle and higher

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scores, but not to the point where academic success can be seen. Here is where the stereotype
threat can be found to have an effect on individuals. Just mentioning the difficulty level to a
specific group of people could bring down the self-esteem of the individual, causing them to
underperform in a task.
Though this experiment supported the hypothesis that the Stereotype Threat affects
performance, there is also the opposite phenomenon. The school teachers and counselors
assumed that Asian American students are smart, disciplined, and studious. They steered this one
Asian American student into a high level Maths class where she excelled. This student had never
thought that they would be able to do so well in Maths. This phenomenon is called the
Stereotype Promise (Lee & Zhou, 2015) where a stereotype enforces the individual to succeed
unlike the Stereotype Threat, as shown in this experiment.
The limitations this experiment had was that we were only able to recruit 14 members per
group. In the original experiment done by Steele and Aronson, they were able to recruit 117 (114
members after excluding those who were unprepared for the task) Black and White members.
Another limitation we had was that some of the participants knew the IB Psychology class of
12th grade were doing (unharmful) experiments for a project. Though that was the case, the
participants were unaware of the theory and experiment that was replicated. If the participants
knew about either the theory or experiment they were going into, the experimenters would have
let them know their participation can not be accepted. Though that did not happen, it was a
possibility that the experimenters took into consideration.
Another limitation of this model is that it does not show the achievement gap that
happens in real life. Though this phenomenon is seen in small portions here and there, the reason
that some people underperform compared to others can also just be about the motivation or
self-esteem the individual has. This model also slightly encourages stereotypes since it shows
that the stereotype is an accurate representation of the specific group.

The Hypothesis
Though the findings of the experiment does support the hypothesis presented previously,
it also has its wrongings. The hypothesis mentions that stereotypes do have an effect on women
during standardized testings. Though it may be accurate, it also has a large amount to do with the
intelligence or knowledge level of each and every individual that was tested. If more accurate

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testing were to be done, it would probably be best to select students with around the same Maths
average to get an accurate reading. Though this solution goes against this model which is to find
out if a verbal instruction would affect performance based on a stereotype, it is also a very
specific scenario. Even for this experiment, 2 scores of individuals per Group had to be taken out
of consideration since they did not work with the data or the theory that the experimenters were
looking for.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Steele, C., Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance of
African Americans. Attitudes and Social Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.69.5.797

Spencer et al. (1999). Stereotype Threat and Women’s Math Performance. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology 35, 4–28.
https://www.hendrix.edu/uploadedFiles/Academics/Faculty_Resources/2016_FFC/Spencer,%20
Steele,%20and%20Quinn%20(1999).pdf
APPENDIX

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Appendix 1:

Appendix 2:

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Appendix 3:

Appendix 4:

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Appendix 5:

Appendix 6:

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 Graph 1. Disorganized, raw view of Group 1. and their test scores.

Appendix 7:

Graph 2. Organized view of Group 1. and their test scores.

Appendix 8:

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Graph 3. Organized view of Group 2. and their test scores.

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