Krendl,
Richeson, Kelley, & Heatherton
This experiment used functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) to investigate the brain regions engaged
as women performed math in the absence and presence of
stereotype threat. Female
undergraduates who highly identified with math completed a series of math problems while
in an fMRI scanner (to establish baseline levels of
brain activity) then completed a task to assess
attitudes towards math because "research has shown
gender differences in math ability and performance"
(stereotype threat) or to assess political attitudes
(control). All students then completed a second set of
math problems. Results showed that math performance
improved slightly from the first to the second set of
problems in the control condition, but students in the
stereotype threat condition performed somewhat worse on
the second compared with the first problem set. fMRI
data showed that women in the control condition showed
heightened levels of activation in a network of regions
central to math reasoning and performance, such as the
angular gyrus. In contrast, women in the
stereotype threat condition showed higher levels of
activation of the ventral anterior cingulate cortex, a
region that has been implicated in the processing of
negative information.
These data show that stereotype threat might undermine
performance because brain regions necessary for
mathematical reasoning are not activated to the degree
necessary for success. Instead, neural structures
associated with the processing of negative information receive heightened activation under threat. This study is
the first to implicate patterns of neural activation as
a possible mechanism in stereotype threat.
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