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Men outscore women in mental rotation. Among the possible explanations for this result are gender stereotypes. Research has shown that instructions confirming or disconfirming the gender stereotype that men are more talented than women may affect performance in some spatial tasks, such as mental rotation, but research so far has shown inconsistent or null results. However, no research to date has assessed whether participants' implicit associations linking men to spatial abilities may modulate these effects. Thus, the goal of this study was to assess the moderating role of the implicit gender spatial stereotyping, that is the automatic associations between men vs. women and space, in male and female participants receiving either stereotypical (stating that men outscore women) or stereotype-nullifying (stating that there is no gender difference) explicit instructions. Results confirmed that men performed better than women in mental rotation, but also showed that in the stereotype-nullifying condition, the higher the automatic associations between space and men the lower men's performance. The discussion focuses on the importance of considering implicit gender spatial stereotyping as a factor that can modulate mental rotation performance., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Social identification denotes individuals' psychological bond with their ingroup. It is an indispensable construct in research on intragroup and intergroup dynamics. Today's understanding of social identification is firmly grounded in self-stereotyping principles (i.e., assimilation to the ingroup prototype). However, we argue for a more integrative approach to understand social identification, including a more prominent role for the personal self. We present the Integrative Model of Social Identification (IMSI) and postulate that there are two cognitive pathways to self-group overlap that can simultaneously yet distinctly explain social identification: self-stereotyping and self-anchoring (i.e., projection of personal self onto ingroup). We review different theoretical and methodological approaches to both processes and integrate them into one model. Subsequently, we empirically demonstrate the positive relationship between self-stereotyping, self-anchoring, and identification in various group contexts and individuals. In sum, our model highlights the dynamic interplay of personal and social self as cornerstones of social identification., (© 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.)

A commonly held stereotype is that women are poor drivers. This stereotype is recognized and endorsed by women and girls very early on, long before taking their driving licence, nevertheless they are less involved in accidents and drive safer and less fast than men. In line with the stereotype threat theory, the present study tests the hypothesis that making the driving stereotype salient will lead women to underperform in a driving simulation task. In Experiment 1women in the stereotype threat condition were told that the aim of the study was to detect gender differences in driving whereas in a control condition no study aim was provided. In Experiment 2, two conditions were compared: stereotype threat (same instructions as in Experiment 1), and stereotype boost (the alleged goal was to compare driving ability of young vs. old people). As predicted, the results of both experiments showed that women under stereotype threat, as compared to either control or stereotype boost participants, doubled the number of mistakes. Nevertheless, they overall expected/self-reported to drive/have driven poorly. Importantly, their level of expectation was a significant predictor of their actual driving performance only in the stereotype threat condition. Implications of these effects of stereotype threat on women's driving performance and self-assessment are discussed., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Although stereotype awareness is a prerequisite for stereotype threat effects (Steele & Aronson, 1995), research showed girls' deficit under stereotype threat before the emergence of math-gender stereotype awareness, and in the absence of stereotype endorsement. In a study including 240 six-year-old children, this paradox was addressed by testing whether automatic associations trigger stereotype threat in young girls. Whereas no indicators were found that children endorsed the math-gender stereotype, girls, but not boys, showed automatic associations consistent with the stereotype. Moreover, results showed that girls' automatic associations varied as a function of a manipulation regarding the stereotype content. Importantly, girls' math performance decreased in a stereotype-consistent, relative to a stereotype-inconsistent, condition and automatic associations mediated the relation between stereotype threat and performance., (© 2013 The Authors. Child Development © 2013 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.)

Self-stereotyping is a process by which people belonging to a stigmatized social group tend to describe themselves more with stereotypical traits as compared with traits irrelevant to the ingroup stereotype. The present work analyzes why especially members of low-status groups are more inclined to self-stereotype compared to members of high-status groups. We tested the hypothesis that belonging to a low-, rather than a high-status group, makes low-status members feel more threatened and motivates them to protect their self-perception by increasing their similarity with the ingroup. Specifically, we investigated the effects of an experimental manipulation that was conceived to either threaten or protect the natural group membership of participants from either a low- or a high-status group on the level of self-stereotyping. The findings supported the idea that only low-status group members protected themselves when their group identity was threatened through increased self-stereotyping.

Previous research on stereotype threat in children suggests that making gender identity salient disrupts girls' math performance at as early as 5 to 7 years of age. The present study (n = 124) tested the hypothesis that parents' endorsement of gender stereotypes about math moderates girls' susceptibility to stereotype threat. Results confirmed that stereotype threat impaired girls' performance on math tasks among students from kindergarten through 2nd grade. Moreover, mothers' but not fathers' endorsement of gender stereotypes about math moderated girls' vulnerability to stereotype threat: performance of girls whose mothers strongly rejected the gender stereotype about math did not decrease under stereotype threat. These findings are important because they point to the role of mothers' beliefs in the development of girls' vulnerability to the negative effects of gender stereotypes about math., (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)

The present work looks at the self-stereotyping process and reveals its underlying cognitive structure. When this process occurs, it is necessarily the result of an overlap between the representation of the ingroup and that of the self. Two studies measured this overlap and showed that it was higher on stereotype-relevant than on stereotype-irrelevant traits, it involved both positive and negative stereotypical traits, and it implied a deduction-to-the-self process of ingroup stereotypical dimensions. Moreover, the status of one's social group was found to be a key variable in this process, showing that self-stereotyping is limited to low-status group members. Indeed, results of Study 2 showed that the overlap between the self and the ingroup for high-status group members was the result of an induction-to-the-ingroup process of personal characteristics. Implications for research on people's self-construal are discussed.

Six studies (N = 491) investigated the inductive potential of nouns versus adjectives in person perception. In the first 5 studies, targets were either described by an adjective (e.g., Mark is homosexual) or by the corresponding noun (e.g., Mark is a homosexual) or by both (Study 3). The authors predicted and found that nouns, more so than adjectives, (a) facilitate descriptor-congruent inferences but inhibit incongruent inferences (Studies 1-3), (b) inhibit alternative classifications (Study 4), and (c) imply essentialism of congruent but not of incongruent preferences (Study 5). This was supported for different group memberships and inclinations (athletics, arts, religion, sexual preference, drinking behavior, etc.), languages (Italian and German), and response formats, suggesting that despite the surface similarity of nouns and adjectives, nouns have a more powerful impact on person perception. Study 6 investigated the inverse relationship, showing that more essentialist beliefs (in terms of a genetic predisposition rather than training) lead speakers to use more nouns and fewer adjectives. Possible extensions of G. R. Semin and K. Fiedler's (1988) linguistic category model and potential applications for language use in intergroup contexts are discussed., ((c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)

This study investigated the role of negative thinking as a potential mediator of performance deficits under stereotype threat. After being assigned to a stereotype-threat or a no-threat condition, 60 female participants were asked to complete a difficult math task. Using the thought-listing technique, women under stereotype threat reported a higher number of negative thoughts specifically related to the test and to mathematics compared with women in the no-threat condition. Moreover, women under stereotype threat also showed a sharp decrease in performance that (a) was most pronounced in the second half of the test and (b) was mediated by the increase in negative thinking.