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Mindsets and Stereotype Threat

Joshua Aronson

New York University

Overarching Question

How can we help students engage

and maintain motivation in the face of

threat, anxiety or in low motivation

situations?

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Three Pillars of Achievement

• Intelligence

• Motivation

• Intellectual Curiosity

• Each is fragile; suffers in stressful situations

“Human intelligence is among the most fragile

things in nature. It doesn‘t take much to

distract it, suppress it, or even annihilate it.”

--Neil Postman

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“It is little short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not already completely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry….

--Albert Einstein

“People are naturally curious, but curiosity is very fragile.”

--Daniel Willingham

Identity Threat(Steele & Aronson, 1995)

Definition

Potentially disruptive mindset in which one

worries one’s performance will confirm a

negative stereotype or personal reputation

as true or as self-characteristic.

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Steele & Aronson (1995)

Method: Inducing the Relevance of Race

Measure: Blacks’ and Whites’ Verbal GRE

Performance

Laboratory Experiment on Identity Threat

Verbal Test Performance

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Additional Studies Finding Performance Effects

• Women Taking Math Tests

• Latinos taking verbal tests

• Elderly taking short-term memory tests

• Low SES Students taking verbal tests

• Blacks and Miniature Golf

• Women taking tests of Political Knowledge, Driving, Chess,

Computers

• White males taking tests of social sensitivity

• Princeton Students from non-preppy backgrounds on math tests

• White Males Taking Math Tests

When White Men Can’t Do MathAronson, et al., (1999). Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

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When White Men Can’t Do MathAronson, et al., (1999). Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

d = .93

"No circle is more vicious than the one having to do with intelligence. Children who may be only a little behind their peers to begin with tend to avoid those things that could have made them a little smarter. As a result they fall further and further behind. Meanwhile the kids who started out a little ahead are doing push-ups with their brains.”

Judith Rich Harris

From Vulnerability to Low Ability

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From Vulnerability to Low ability

Motivation is Fragile

Stereotype

Threat

Stereotype

Threat

Avoidance of challenge/evaluation

Avoidance of challenge/evaluation

Underdeveloped

Competence

Underdeveloped

Competence

Lower ability Lower ability

“Victim” of Stereotype Threat

“In the perception of society my athletic talents are genetic; I am a likely mugger-rapist; my academic failures are expected; and my academic successes are attributed to others. To spend most of my life fighting these attitudes levies an emotional tax that is a form of intellectual emasculation”

--Neil de Grasse Tyson •

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Neil de Grasse Tyson

Verbal SAT score = 500; Lower than G. W. Bush’s

Improving Intellectual Performance:

Positive Identity Mindset

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Vandenberg Mental Rotation Task

A meta-analysis containing 286 data sets and 100,000

subjects found a highly significant male advantage for mental

rotation; this pattern remains stable across age and has not

decreased in recent years.

Identity Salience Influences Women’s Mental

Rotation Performance

McGlone & Aronson (2006). Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.

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Identity Salience Influences Women’s Mental

Rotation Performance

McGlone & Aronson (2006). Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.

Identity Salience Influences Mental Rotation

Performance

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Improving Motivation and Curiosity:

Positive Identity Mindset

Boys and Girls got one of 2 questionnaires at a college fair—one about cafeteria food; the other about resisting conformity, being a “trailblazer”

1. All students expressed negative attitudes toward conformity and cafeteria food.

2. No effect on boys

3. Girls who received the conformity measure before selecting pamphlets were twice as likely to express take pamphlets STEM majors

Identity Salience and College Major

Intentions

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How Many Girls Requested Information Pamphlets on STEM Majors ?

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Cafeteria Food Survey TrailBlazer Survey

Num

ber

of

Gir

ls T

akin

g

Pam

phle

ts

Questions?

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Question:

Can understanding stereotype threat reduce its

effects?

Method: Forewarning about ST or Test Anxiety

Measure: Blacks’ Test Performance a week later

Reducing Identity Threat: The role of self-

awareness

Self-Awareness/Affirmation

Mindset

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Affirming Self-Esteem Can Help

Vulnerable Students’ Performance in School

Geoffrey Cohen et al, 2006

Method:

At beginning of school year, Students wrote essays about important personal values

– Own values (experimental group)

– Other people’s values (control group)

End-of-quarter course grade: Replication(After 2 treatments)

(Adjusted for baseline performance within-race)

2

2.5

3

3.5

European

Americans

Minority Students

Control

Affirmation

Cohen, Garcia, Apfel, & Master, 2006, Science

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African American’s GRE Performance

8

16

Forewarning-ST Forewarning-Test Anxiety

Control

SC

OR

E

Stereotype threat

No stereotype threat

Questions?

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Reducing Stereotype

Threat/Boosting Performance:

The Growth Mindset

Assumptions

• Beliefs about the nature of what is being measured matters, particularly for students under ST

• If the ability being measured is thought to be fixed, disruptive processes (anxiety, avoidance,demotivation) will be higher than if ability in question is thought to be improvable.

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Beliefs about Intelligence

Differ Across Experts

“The mind is much more like a muscle than we’ve ever realized… it needs to get cognitive exercise.”

James Flynn, intelligence expert, 2007

“…we do not know how to change intellectual ability after children reach school…”

Charles Murray, Bell Curve coauthor (2008)

ETS statements on what

their SAT measures

“For all practical purposes, [IQ tests and Scholastic Aptitude Tests] are the same thing.”

“The SAT is designed to measure aspects of developed ability.”

“Aptitude tests are really the same as ability tests, but neither is the same thing as intelligence.”

•

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Students differ on what SAT Measures

“The SAT measures a student's knowledge gained throughout attended school years and how that knowledge can be applied to questions given by the college board.” Hispanic Male (17)

“It measures how good you can take a test. I don't believe it measures your intelligence or how good of a student or person you are.” White Male (17)

“It measures how smart you are” Hispanic Male (17)

“I think it tests the speed and thoroughness of one's intellect as well as gained knowledge”White Male (17)

Method: Present MCAT test as a test of ability that

predicts medical school performance well…

vs a set of problems tapping a skill that can improve

and therefore is not a perfectly reliable predictor of

medical school performance

Measure: MCAT Test Performance

Experiment

Aronson, McGlone & Alter, (in progress)

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Threat Instructions

The Test you are about to take, the verbal portion of the MCAT, is

in large part, a measure of your verbal intelligence and verbal

reasoning ability. As you may know the MCAT is an excellent

predictor of how well people perform in medical school. People

who do well on the MCAT tend to perform well in Med school

because verbal intelligence and reading comprehension,

retention and speed are vital to assimilating the large amount of

information presented in the Medical school curriculum.

Growth Instructions

The problems you are about to solve are taken from the verbal

portion of the MCAT, which is one measure of your preparedness

for Medical school. As you may know, the MCAT is not a

measure of verbal ability; rather it is a measure of your current

level of reading comprehension, retention, and speed, and thus

it does not predict performance in medical school very well. All

of these skills can improve considerably with practice, so you

should view this exercise as a challenge that will improve your

level of skill, rather than as a measure of your underlying verbal

ability.

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14.89

17.63

7

9

11

13

15

17

19

21

23

MC

AT

VE

RB

AL

PE

RFO

RM

AN

CE

Threat Mindset

Growth Mindset

Minority Premed Students Verbal MCAT Performance

Method: Framing GRE Verbal test as an endowed ability

Vs.. An improvable skill vs. just like the SAT

Measure: Test Performance on 24 Verbal GRE items

Experiment

Aronson, McGlone & Alter, (in progress)

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Conceptions of Ability and Test Performance

Question:

Can a growth framing improve math test scores

among black school children (aged 9-13) ?

Method: Black North Carolina students primed for race, told

that the test measures ability; half are told to think of it as

“a challenge that can help you learn math.”

Measure: Math Test Performance (EOG)

ExperimentAlter, Aronson, et al (2009)

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End of Year Math Test Performance

Black Grade School Students

Reducing Stereotype Threat in Middle

School: A field Intervention

Question: Can psychological intervention raise test scores of minority students?

• Method: mentoring study; attitude change

• Conditions:

– Malleability of intelligence (Japanese)

– Role Models: senior students who stress the normality of early difficulty

– Control (drug abuse message)

• Measure: Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS)

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7th Grade Reading TAAS--LatinosGood, Aronson & Inzlicht (2003) Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.

7th Grade Girls’ Math TAAS

Good, Aronson & Inzlicht (2003) Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.

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Reducing the effects of Stereotype Threat In the

real world: Shaping implicit theoriesAronson, Fried & Good (2002)

Question: Can getting people to believe in expandable intelligence reduce effects of stereotype threat on GPA?

• Method: Attitude change

• Measure: End of year GPA

GPA at Year End

2.8

2.9

3

3.1

3.2

3.3

3.4

3.5

3.6

Malleable Intelligence Curriculum

Control CurriculumGPA (Adjusted by SAT)

Black Students White Students

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Questions?

Improving Motivation:

Meaningfulness

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Meaning/Relevance Mindset

• Harackiewicz had students in 9th grade science classes evaluate

their expectations for success in their science class. Students

were then randomly assigned to one of two conditions:

• 1) Control condition: Students wrote a brief essay

summarizing the material they were covering in science class

• 2) Experimental condition: Students wrote about the value

and usefulness of the material they were covering in class, and

how it might relate to their own life.

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

Low Expectations High Expectations

Science Interest

Control

Relevance

Source: Hulleman, C. S. & Harackiewicz, J. M. (2009). Promoting interest and performance in

high school science classes. Science, 326, 1410-1412. doi: 10.1126/science.1177067

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2

2.5

3

3.5

4

Low Expectations High Expectations

Course Grades

Control

Relevance

Source: Hulleman, C. S. & Harackiewicz, J. M. (2009). Promoting interest and performance in

high school science classes. Science, 326, 1410-1412. doi: 10.1126/science.1177067

Personal Relevance and Performance

Do such mindsets work for all

students?

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What about the truly unmotivated?

Think bout Snooki,

seriously, when we talk

about teachers, and we try to

lay all the blame on them ...

watch 'Jersey Shore,' watch

it. And tell me what teacher

could possibly have reached

any one of them, to get any

one of their scores up, in any

subject.”

Lawrence O’Donnell

Helping others as motivator?

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Solar Students

Solar Students

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Solar Students

Solar Students

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Effects of helping others on

Achievement

Method: Low achieving adolescents students

randomly assigned to work serve others (e.g.,

tutoring) or control group

Measure: Suspensions, course failure, pregnancy

Entry to Exit Change in Problem

Behaviors: Suspension

23.8

28.7

17

13

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Entry Exit

% S

tud

en

ts S

usp

en

de

d

Control

Teen Outreach

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Entry to Exit Change in Problem

Behaviors: Failing Courses

37.8

46.8

30.3

26.6

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Entry Exit

% S

tud

en

ts F

ail

ing

Co

urs

es

Control

Teen Outreach

Entry to Exit Change in Problem

Behaviors: Teen Pregnancy

10 9.8

6.1

4.2

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Entry Exit

% F

em

ale

Stu

de

nts

Pre

gn

an

t

Control

Teen Outreach

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Experiment: Motivation in the Face of Threat

Essay paradigm:

108 college students of different ethnicities write essay on the

pleasures of college; receives harsh but constructive feedback from

an editor.

Manipulation:

“published in a book”

“published in a book to be distributed to poor children in Harlem”

DV: How many students will overcome the ego sting and submit

revised essays?

0

1 1

5

1

6

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Whites Hispanics Blacks

"Published in a Book"

"Published in a Book for Children"

Num

ber

of

studen

ts

Number of Students who revised essays after harsh

feedback

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“insert the phrase 'for the children' into any policy

pitch, the pollsters report, and popular support rises

10 percent.”

---David Kirp

Conclusion

Threatening situations can undermine performance

and motivation. But if threats can be re-construed as

meaningful challenges (i.e. opportunities to develop

knowledge or intelligence or to helop others) threats

can facilitate higher performance and motivation.

In this sense, stereotype threats can be opportunities;

they can energize performance and motivation

without debilitating them

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Questions?