Can Rewards Obviate Stereotype Threat Effects on Mental Rotation Tasks英文文献资料.docVIP

Psychology 2012. Vol.3, No.7, 542-547 Published Online July 2012 in SciRes (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/psych) /10.4236/psych.2012.37080 Can Rewards Obviate Stereotype Threat Effects on Mental Rotation Tasks? Amanda Kanoy, Sheila Brownlow, Tiffany F. Sowers Department of Psychology, Catawba College, Salisbury, USA Email: sbrownlo@ Received March 20 , 2012; revised April 21 , 2012; accepted May 24 , 2012 th st th We examined whether sex-linked performance differences in Mental Rotation (MR) were obviated by rewards for performing the tasks. MR is typically seen as the domain of men, and therefore women com- pleting the MR tasks likely worked under conditions of stereotype threat, which meant that their perfor- mance could vary according to situational variables. Men and women (n = 33 each) performed rotations and provided several self-reflective reports on their performances and background information about their experiences. Half of the participants (within sex) were rewarded for their participation with a gift card. Women’s MR performance was lower than men’s when no reward was given, but equaled it when they were rewarded. The finding was not a function of skill and self-reported effort, and emerged even when a stringent scoring technique was employed. The results suggest that rewards, even if they are not large, may nullify stereotype threat effects on women’s MR. Keywords: Stereotype Threat; Mental Rotation; Sex Differences Can Rewards Obviate Stereotype Threat Effects ethnicity, threat can also hinder performances of people based on Rotation Tasks? on other dimensions, including academic interest (Seibt F?r- ster, 2004), spatial relations (Brownlow, Valentine, Owusu, 2008), social sensitivity (Koenig Eagly, 2005), socioeco- nomic status (Croizet Claire, 1998), and athl