In the current set of studies, we examine whether physiological arousal is a mediator of this effect. According to the Yerkes-Dodson (1908) theory of physiological arousal, performance is optimal at intermediate levels of arousal and decreases when arousal is either low or high, resulting in an inverted-U shaped function. We propose that stereotype threat may interfere with performance by leading to arousal that exceeds an optimal level." (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, and Fein, 2002) it is additionally stated in the report of the findings of this study that it is likely that arousal has an important role as a mediator of stereotype threat. Women's performance deficits in the presence of men were attenuated when women were given an opportunity to misattribute their arousal to an external source. When arousal was "removed," by misattribution to a benign source, women were less likely to experience impairments in performance. Furthermore, far from exhibiting performance deficits, women who were in the minority actually showed a trend for performance surfeits in the misattribution condition. That is, they tended to do better on the math test than did minority females not given the opportunity to misattribute their arousal. Although this difference was not significant, it does suggest a trend that future research may revisit. By decreasing the heightened arousal experienced by women in the minority condition, the misattribution may have reduced their arousal closer to optimal levels. Women in the same-sex conditions should not have been as aroused, so it is conceivable that any reduction in arousal caused by misattribution may have dropped their arousal to sub-optimal levels, causing a slight decline." (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, and Fein, 2002)
Findings in the study reported by Inzlicht and Ben-Zeev are stated to support "the prediction that cues in the environment, such as gender-composition, give rise to heightened arousal, which in turn, mediate stereotype threat. In experiment 1, performance deficits associated with stereotype threat were attenuated when females were given an opportunity to misattribute their arousal to an external source. When female participants in our study were outnumbered by males, they suffered impairments in performance. When they could misattribute their arousal to the subliminal noise, however, they exhibited no performance deficits. In Experiment 2, we found a cross-over interaction between identification with mathematics and threat. When female participants identified with the threatened math domain, they experienced performance decrements in the minority environment. When they were not identified with math, in contrast, they actually experienced problem-solving surfeits in the same minority environment. Taken together, both of these experiments suggest that arousal may have an important role as a mediator of threatening intellectual environments." (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, and Fein, 2002) Results of the study reported by Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev hold that stereotype threat has arousal properties and that this has been indicated due to:
1) Recent research examining the role of stereotype threat in the high incidence of high blood pressure among African-Americans indicates that threatening intellectual environments may be stressful Black participants who experienced threat had blood pressure that rose faster and remained higher than non-threatened Black participants or White participants in any condition. Interestingly, although blood pressure was affected by the threat manipulation, actual test scores were not: Black participants scored as well as White participants in both threat and non-threat conditions. On the face of it, it appears that the threat manipulation was not successful; however, an alternative explanation that is in line with the present results is possible. Perhaps the manipulation was indeed successful, but participants failed to be impaired by it because they attributed their arousal to being hooked up to the electrocardiograph;
2) in another study Stone et al. (1999)."..found that White participants performed worse on an athletic task when the stereotype about Black athletic superiority was made salient. This effect, however, was attenuated once participants were asked to monitor the effect of the lab space on their performance -- giving them an opportunity to misattribute their arousal. Although not central to either line of research, these two sets of findings suggest that leading participants to misattribute their arousal -- by focusing on an electrocardiograph or the effects of a lab space -- may have reduced the negative effects of stereotype threat on threatened individuals' performance. (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, and Fein, 2002)
Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev states that this pattern of results."..adds support to the idea that arousal may play a mediating...
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