University of Rhode Island DigitalCommons@URI Open Access Dissertations 2009 Stereotype Threat and Implicit Attitudes: Implications for the Leaky Pipeline of Women in Science Karen E. Stamm University of Rhode Island Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.edu/oa_diss Recommended Citation Stamm, Karen E., "Stereotype Threat and Implicit Attitudes: Implications for the Leaky Pipeline of Women in Science" (2009). Open Access Dissertations.edu/oa_diss/918 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@URI.
For more information, please contact digitalcommons@etal. STEREOTYPE THREAT AND IMPLICIT ATTITUDES : IMPLICATIONS FOR THE LEAKY PIPELINE OF WOMEN IN SCIENCE BY KAREN E. STAMM A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PSYCHOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 2009 ABSTRACT Historically , women have been under-represented in science disciplines. This phenomenon has been described as a "leaky pipeline" where fewer women advance to higher levels of the pipeline.
A possible mechanism behind the leaky pipeline is stereotype threat, the fear of being negatively evaluated because of one's group membership. Stereotype threat can undermine the performance of the members of any disadvantaged group. For example, women may not perform well on science tasks because of the stereotype that "women can't do science." This project examined whether stereotype threat negatively influences performance on an Implicit Association Test (IAT), a test that measures unconscious attitudes. The sample included 311 male and female students and faculty.
In order to activate stereotype threat , participants in the experimental condition were asked to indicate their gender and were given instructions that the test is intended to measure scientific thinking. A series of two-way ANOVAs included gender, discipline (science, social science, non-science), or student-faculty status (undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty) as the first independent variable; experimental condition was the second independent variable. Performance on the IAT was the dependent variable , where high scores represented greater implicit endorsement of traditional gender-science stereotypes. Results indicated no differences by gender.
The discipline analyses revealed an interaction between discipline and experimental condition. Individuals in the no-stereotype-threat condition (control) from science disciplines showed greater endorsement of traditional gender stereotypes, followed by individuals in social science disciplines, and individuals in non-science disciplines. There were no differences in the stereotype-threat condition. The student-faculty analyses found that there were differences between undergraduate students and all other participants.
Graduate students and faculty in the no-stereotype-threat condition showed greater endorsement of traditional gender stereotypes than undergraduate students in the no-stereotype-threat condition, while there were no differences in the stereotype-threat condition. A structural equation model found that, for men, a latent construct measuring General Academics was a predictor of a latent construct measuring Science Identification , which in turn was a predictor of the performance on the IAT. The structural equation model did not fit as well for women. Implications for women in science and the leaky pipeline are discussed.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people, organizations , and entities who I wish to acknowledge and thank for their assistance with this project. I thank the Undergraduate and Graduate Research Grant Committee and the Graduate Assistants United union for funding a significant portion of my research. I thank my committee for their input and suggestions: Ellen Flannery- Schroeder , Faye Boudreaux-Bartels , John Boulmetis, and Tom Malloy. I thank Tom for encouraging me to turn my class project from his social psychology seminar into actual research.
I thank Faye for her helpful comments during the pilot phase of my study. I thank my major professor, Lisa Harlow, for her support and encouragement, not only in this project but also throughout my graduate career. She taught me statistics and how to teach. I consider it a great compliment when a friend told me I sounded like Lisa.
I thank the ADVANCE Program for supporting me as a research assistant and for providing me with the basic idea for my dissertation. I thank the creators of www.org for maintainin g a well-organized and up-to -date website that significantly cut down on the time I needed to search (and re-search) the literature on stereotype threat. I thank my family, in particular my husband Miguel , my parents, and my in- laws, for their ongoing encouragement and support. I thank running for teaching me everything I needed to know about graduate school.
One of the best convergence of events was finalizing my dissertation proposal iv while training for a half marathon. The processes were remarkably similar. I successfully completed the half marathon and proposed my dissertation in the same week, both in just under two hours. I repeated the process while I was preparing to defend my dissertation.
Again, I finished the half marathon and the defense in under two hours. Graduate school is a marathon, not a sprint. Persist in the face of pain. Try again if you don't get it right the first time.
Celebrate when you meet your goals. I thank the Halftime Program and the Intersections Project at Boston College for providing me with a framework of three key questions: What are my talents and gifts? What brings me joy? Who needs me to do it? These questions focus on talent, joy, and need. Another way to phrase the questions is: Where have you been? Where are you now? Where are you going? These questions are aimed at identifying vocational discernment, but I have always thought the questions are useful for making a decision at any crossroad. I have returned to the questions many times, and they have been very helpful in helping me to find my way.
The most recent set of questions became: What can I learn? What can I do? What do I want to be able to do? I owe a final thank you to the countless people who helped to put me on the right path. Like most graduate students, I doubted whether I could actually reach my goals. I realized that I picked the wrong path, slowed down, turned myself around, and completely changed my research interests. It was incredibly challenging to switch gears, but it was tremendously worthwhile.
I ended up studying exactly what I thought I was going to study when I first came to graduate school: gender stereotypes. I am leaving graduate school as a quantitative social psychologist. V DEDICATION To justice, self-control, and jumping over the hurdl es Vl TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .vi TABLE OF CONTENTS .vii LIST OF TABLES .x LIST OF FIGURES. 1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM.
3 JUSTIFICATION FOR THE PROJECT. 3 The Leaky Pipeline : Losing Women in Science. 3 Considerat ions of Social Context. 9 THEORET ICAL FRAMEWORK .9 Social Identity Theory.
9 Cognitive Processes: Identity Threats. 12 Empirical Research on Stereotype Threat. 13 Stereotype Threat and Identifica tion. 15 Limitations in Previous Empirical Research on Stereotype Threat.
17 Impl icit Attitudes. 34 Student-Faculty Status. 36 Revised Discipline and Student-Faculty Status Analyses. 40 Familiarity with IATs.
61 Comments on the Experimental Manipulation and Other IA T Issues. 65 Stereotype Threat and Women in Science. 66 viii Implications for the Leaky Pipeline. IA T Instructions for Blocks 1-7.
Categories and Items Used in the IAT. STEM and Non-STEM Disciplines. Informed Consent Form. 120 ix LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE Table 1.
Selection of Empirical Literature on Stereotype Threat in Women in Science. Implicit Association Test (IAT) Block Overview. Procedures and Experimental Design. Frequency Crosstabulations for Gender, Discipline , and Student-Faculty Status and Chi-Square Results.
D Score Means and Standard Deviations for Gender , Student-Faculty Status by Experimental Condition. Two-way ANOVA Source Table for Gender, Discipline , and Student- Faculty Status by Experimental Condition Analyses. Frequency Crosstabulations for Gender, Revised Discipline , and Revised Student-Faculty Status and Chi-Square Results. D Score Means and Standard Deviations for Revised Discipline and Revised Student-Faculty Status by Experimental Condition.
Two-way ANOVA Source Table for Revised Discipline and Revised Student-Faculty Status by Experimental Condition Analyses. Correlation Matrix for Identification Survey Items and D Score for the Full Sample. Correlation Matrix for Identification Survey Items and D Score for Men. Correlation Matrix for Identification Survey Items and D Score for Women.
Means , Standard Deviations , and Reliability Estimates for Identification Survey Items. Hierarchical Multiple Regression Results for Men. Hierarchical Multiple Regression Results for Women. 95 XI LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE Figure 1.
Theoretical Model of Under-representation of Women in STEM Disciplines. Diagram of Anticipated Prediction Model. Means Plot for Gender and Experimental Condition. Means Plot for Discipline and Experimental Condition.
Means Plot for Student-Faculty Status and Experimental Condition. Revised Means Plot for Discipline and Experimenta l Condition. Revised Means Plot for Student-Faculty Status and Experimental Condition. Mediational Model with Measurement and Structural Paths for the Full Sample.
Mediational Model with Measurement and Structural Paths for Men. Full Model with Measurement and Structural Paths for Men. Direct Effects Model with Measurement and Structural Paths for Men. Post-Hoc Adjusted Mediational Model with Measurement and Structural Paths for Men.
Mediational Model with Measurement and Structural Paths for Women 108 Figure 14. Post-Hoc Adjusted Mediational Model with Measurement and Structural Paths for Women. 109 xii CHAPTER 1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Diversity is important in the pursuit of scientific knowledge (National Science Foundation, 2005a). Historically, women have been underrepresented in the sciences.
Although women's participation in the sciences has increased, advancement has been uneven. Fewer and fewer women continue to higher levels of professional advancement, a phenomenon that has been described as a "leaky pipeline" (National Science Foundation, 2005b ). The theoretical framework behind the leaky pipeline of women in science is rooted in social identity theory (Tajfel, 1981). Social identity theory explains some of the mechanisms related to the functioning of the social self and the need for positive social identities (Schmader, 2002).
The theory examines the social self in relation to group membership , identification, social comparison, and self-esteem needs. Identity threats, such as social identity threat and stereotype threat, extend from the theoretical framework and can undermine participation in the sciences. Social identity theory -lays the foundation for stereotype threat , which is the idea that performance can be impaired because of a negative stereotype regarding a group to which an individual belongs (Steele, 1997). One way to study stereotype threat is through the use of implicit associations, which are attitudes that exist outside of awareness (Nosek, Banaji , & Greenwald, 2002a).
Both stereotype threat and implicit associations can operate outside of conscious awareness. However, 1 stereotype threat and implicit associations have a key difference. Stereotype threat only affects the members of the disadvantaged group. For example, women may be impaired in science tasks because of the stereotype that women do not do well in science domains.
Stereotype threat would not have the same effect on men attempting a science task. In contrast, implicit associations are held by both stereotyped and non- stereotyped group members. For example, men and women are equally likely to endorse the stereotype that women do not perform well in science domains. This project examined whether performance on an implicit association task is negatively influenced by stereotype threat.
That is, individuals who experienced stereotype threat were expected to be negatively influenced and show implicit associations consistent with traditional stereotypes. Additionally , the project examined whether stereotype threat plays a role in the leaky pipeline of women in science. It is important to measure the effects of stereotype threat through indirect measures (Greenwald et al., 2002), such as implicit associations , in order to prevent response bias that can be found in explicit atti~des.