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Gender Differences in Persistence and Attributions in Stereotype Relevant Contexts

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Abstract

The present research was designed to examine the effects of gender math stereotypes on performance attributions and persistence. Two experiments tested whether stereotypes guided men’s and women’s reactions to negative or positive feedback on an alleged test of verbal or math ability. In Study 1, attributions to ability were influenced by gender stereotypes: women were more sensitive to feedback on a test that was described as a test of their math ability than when the same test was described as a test of their verbal ability, whereas men showed the opposite pattern. Study 2 replicated these findings for negative feedback and further showed that gender differences in attributions to ability mediated the gender difference in persistence in the math domain following an alleged failure on a math test. The implications of stereotype-consistent attributions for women’s persistence in quantitative fields are discussed.

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Notes

  1. To avoid the potentially confounding effects of negative stereotypes regarding ethnic minority groups, only European American participants were recruited for both studies.

  2. A factor analysis using Varimax rotation was conducted on all of the ability items. This analysis revealed two factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, the first of which accounted for 60% of the variance. As all of the items loaded highly on this first factor (factor loadings >0.6); the items were averaged together to create a single scale.

  3. Results were unchanged when we included suspicious participants and participants who attempted fewer questions than implied by the feedback in an overall analysis.

  4. Test performance was a significant predictor of ability attributions, b = −0.097, p < 0.001. Inclusion of test performance as a covariate in the above analyses produced only slight alterations in the above results. First, the three-way interaction of gender, test description, and feedback did not reach statistical significance, F(1,157) = 2.82, p = 0.10. There were no other alterations of the results.

  5. Results were unchanged when we included suspicious participants and participants who attempted fewer questions than implied by the feedback in an overall analysis.

  6. Math SAT scores did not significantly predict test performance, F(1, 137) = 1.28, p > 0.2, and were therefore not included in these analyses.

  7. Actual test performance significantly predicted ability attributions, b = −0.20, p < 0.05, and verbal SAT scores approached significant prediction of ability attributions, b = −0.15, p = 0.07. Actual test performance and verbal SAT scores were therefore included as covariates in a 2 (test description: verbal, math) × 2 (gender: men, women) between-subjects factorial ANCOVA. Math SAT scores did not significantly correlate with ability attributions above and beyond other covariates, b = −0.09, p > 0.3, and were therefore not included as a covariate in subsequent analyses. Controlling for verbal SAT scores and current test performance did not significantly alter the results as reported, with one exception: the effect of test description on men’s ability attributions approached significance, such that men were more likely to attribute failure to their ability on a verbal test (M = 2.94; SD = 0.86) than they were on a math test (M = 2.68; SD = 0.80), F(1, 137) = 2.90, p = 0.09.

  8. To ensure that participants’ reports of their SAT scores were not influenced by the test description, 2 (test description: verbal, math) × 2 (gender: men, women) between-subjects factorial ANOVAs on math and verbal SAT scores were conducted. There were no significant effects of gender or test description on verbal SAT scores. There was a significant main effect of gender on math SAT scores, F(1, 137) = 14.27, p < 0.001: women reported lower math SAT scores (M = 616.02; SD = 63.01) than did men (M = 666.21; SD = 89.05). In addition, there was an effect of test description on math SAT scores that approached significance, F(1, 137) = 3.31, p = 0.07: participants in the verbal condition reported higher SAT scores (M = 662.54; SD = 80.27, p = 0.01) than did participants in the math condition (M = 626.21; SD = 78.16). These main effects were qualified by a significant interaction of gender and test description on Math SAT scores, F(1, 137) = 3.95, p < 0.05. Simple effects tests showed that men in the verbal condition reported significantly higher test math SAT scores (M = 690.97; SD = 77.29) than did men in the math condition (M = 640.00; SD = 94.19), F(1, 137) = 17.27, p < 0.001. In addition, men in the verbal condition reported significantly higher test math SAT scores (M = 690.97; SD = 77.29) than did women in the verbal condition (M = 613.81; SD = 60.33), F(1, 137) = 7.68, p < 0.01.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, San Francisco, Health Psychology Program, 3333 California St., Suite 465, San Francisco, CA, 94143-0848, USA

    Amy Kiefer

  2. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Margaret Shih

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  1. Amy Kiefer
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Correspondence to Amy Kiefer.

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Kiefer, A., Shih, M. Gender Differences in Persistence and Attributions in Stereotype Relevant Contexts. Sex Roles 54, 859–868 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-006-9051-x

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