Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Neuburger, Sarah
• Jansen, Petra
• Heil, Martin
• Quaiser-Pohl, Claudia
• Schober, Barbara
• Hausmann, Markus

Titel

A Threat in the Classroom: Gender Stereotype Activation and Mental-Rotation Performance in Elementary-School Children

Ist Teil von

• Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 2012, Vol.220 (2), p.61-69

Ort / Verlag

Göttingen: Hogrefe Publishing

Erscheinungsjahr

2012

Quelle

Sociological Abstracts

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Females' performance in a gender-stereotyped domain is impaired when negative gender stereotypes are activated (Nguyen & Ryan, 2008). "Stereotype threat" affects the gender difference in adults' mental-rotation performance (e.g., Moè & Pazzaglia, 2006). Our study investigated this effect in fourth graders. Two hundred sixteen males and females solved two mental-rotation tests. In between, a gender-difference instruction was given ("boys better," "girls better," "no gender difference"). A significant interaction of time and gender was found in the "girls better"-condition and in the "no gender difference"-condition: As expected, the male performance advantage disappeared after these two instructions, because girls improved and boys deteriorated. Thus, the study suggests that the gender effect in mental rotation is affected by stereotype threat and stereotype lift from the very beginning of its occurrence. Results are discussed within a biopsychosocial framework and seem to play an important role with regard to the "hidden curriculum" in schools.