David Miller

Association for Psychological Science

Chicago, IL, May 27 th, 2012

REMOVING STEREOTYPE THREAT

Meta-analysis finds removing

stereotype threat

substantially boosts

women’s spatial

performance

SPATIAL STEREOTYPES?Google “women driving” Google “men driving”

SPATIAL GENDER DIFFERENCESSamples in the US and Germany perceived men as

better at “imaging abstract objects and rotating them mentally in all directions” (Halpern et al., 2011; Haussmann et al., 2009)Mental rotation

Gender d = 0.67(Voyer et al., 1995)

Spatial perceptionGender d = 0.57(Collaer et al., 2007)

STEREOTYPE THREAT

Stereotype threat (ST) = concern about confirming a negative stereotype about one’s social group (e.g., gender)But why focus on the spatial domain?

Stereotypes can harm academic performance (e.g., Steele & Aronson, 1995)

(not as many; they are more recent)

(many studies here)

INTEREST FOR SPATIAL THINKINGUnderstand spatial gender differences

Change spatial gender differences (e.g., Miyake et al., 2010)Wai et al. (2009)

found that 45% of all STEM PhDs were within the top 4% of spatial skills in high school

Training spatial skills -> improved STEM achievement (Miller & Halpern, in press; Sorby, 2009)

Perhaps not most important question

INTEREST FOR SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGYRole of working memory (confirmatory stage)(e.g., Beilock et al., 2007)

Role of gender beliefs (exploratory stage)

Recruits verbal strategies

Recruits spatial strategies ST activation impaired

female performance No ST activation effect

Navigation S

Math S

GeneralSpatial S

Mental rotation gender belief

Spatial ST

How?

???

CURRENT META-ANALYSIS

Practical: ST removal is most important to education

Theoretical: ST activation could introduce new effects not found in diagnostic control conditions

Empirical: ST activation effects did not show consistent effects

ST removal

ST activationST activation

METHOD

Example

Description Exp. condition Control condition

Moe & Pazzaglia (2006)

Refute stereotype This test measures spatial abilities. Research showed that men perform better than women in this test

This test measures spatial abilities. Research showed that spatial ability is very important in everyday life

Huguet & Regner (2007)

Make stereotype irrelevant; diagnostic manipulation

This test measures your ability in drawing

This test measures your ability in geometry

McGlone & Aronson (2006)

Prime a positive stereotype

List three reasons why one might attend a private liberal arts college

List three reasons why one might prefer living in the Northeast to other parts of the U.S.

Search literature databases (e.g., PsycINFO, Google Scholar, PROQUEST) and examine each article’s reference list

Walton and Cohen (2003) argued “refute stereotype” and “make stereotype irrelevant” are conceptually similar

INCLUDED STUDIESStudy N Participants Spatial

MeasureBrownlow et al. (2011) 96 US college students Mental rotationCampbell & Collaer (2009) 124 US college students Spatial perceptionFancher (2008) 32 US college students Mental rotation &

spatial perceptionHuguet & Regner (2007), study 1

40 French high school students

Spatial memory

Huguet & Regner (2007), study 2

454 French high school students

Spatial memory

Huguet & Regner (2009) 199 French high school students

Spatial memory

Martens et al. (2006) 105 US college students Mental rotationMoe (2009) 108 Italian high school

studentsMental rotation

McGlone & Aronson (2006) 60 US college students Mental rotationMoe & Pazzaglia (2006) 134 Italian high school

studentsMental rotation

Titze et al. (2010) 168 German children Mental rotationWraga et al. (2006) 50 US college students Perspective takingWraga et al. (2007) 30 US college students Perspective takingTOTAL 1,600

RESULTS

Comparison effect sizes:

Aggregate d = 0.52

Women Men-0.4

-0.2

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8 Stereotype refuted or made irrel-evant

Effec

t Si

ze (

d)

Effect d ReferenceST Removal - Women 0.5

2Here

Spatial Training 0.47

Uttal et al., in press

Gender & Mental Rotation

0.67

Voyer et al., 1995

d = -0.27

d = 0.30

Only 3 studies!!

BROADER IMPLICATIONS

LIMITATIONS & FUTURE RESEARCH

Limitations

Recommendations for future research

(Miyake et al., 2010, Science)

Publication bias Longevity of effects Application to field

contexts Assessments themselves

Focus on threat removal, not activation More research needed on positive-identity

interventions Investigate role of spatial working memory and gender beliefs Apply to field settings and determine longitudinal effects