Stereotype Threat for Boys

From Eureka Alert: Negative stereotypes about boys may hinder their achievement, while assuring them that girls and boys are equally academic may help them achieve. From a very young age, children think boys are academically inferior to girls, and they believe adults think so, too. Even at these very young ages, boys’ performance on an academic task is affected by messages that suggest that girls will do better than they will. Those are the conclusions of new research published in the journal Child Development and conducted at the University of Kent. The research sought to determine the causes of boys’ underachievement at school. “People’s performance suffers when they think others may see them through the lens of negative expectations for specific racial, class, and other social stereotypes—such as those related to gender—and so expect them to do poorly,” explains Bonny L. Hartley, a PhD student at the University of Kent, who led the study. “This effect, known as stereotype threat, grants stereotypes a self-fulfilling power.” In three studies of primarily White schoolchildren in Britain, Hartley and her colleague investigated the role of gender stereotypes. They found that from a very young age, children think boys are academically inferior to girls, and they believe that adults think so, too. The first study looked at children’s stereotypes about boys’ and girls’ conduct, ability, and motivation. Researchers ga...
Source: The Situationist - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Tags: Implicit Associations Social Psychology Source Type: blogs