Article Review 1



Article Review 1

Introduction

Article selected for this review is “Stereotype Threat and Arousal: Effects on Women's Math Performance” by Laurie T. O'Brien and Christian S. Crandall. This article is based on the theory that arousal have different effect on the performance on the basis of gender differences. This research is to identify the effect of threat and arousal on different genders that results in stereotype threat in women, and affect their performance. Math was the base of this research due to the stereotypical notion “girls just aren't good at Math” (McJunkin, 2009). When men and women were informed that Math test is gender based, this caused stereotype threat in women, but it did not affect men. Women performed better in easy test and worst in difficult, while men were good at both.

Discussion

Study Design

Type of Study

The type of this study is experimental as it is based on identification of the scientific reasons logic for the assumption that women are aroused or threatened by telling them that will have a gender biased Math test.

Purpose of the Study

Purpose of this study is to deal with the problems of stereotypical threats and its effect on different individuals and groups. This research also identified that threat or arousal on the gender bases, affects the performance of people (O'Brien & Crandall, 2003). The purpose of this research is also to identify the technique that people can use to avoid negative impact of such stereotypical threats.

Variables

There are different conditions or variables in psychological experimental research that can be used to identify the effect of threats or arousal on participants (Monsen & Horn, 2008). These variables are very important in the psychological experiments in order to identify the result on human psychology due to change of these variables.

Independent and Dependent

There are two types of variables independent and dependent variables. The independent variable that is controlled or manipulated by the researcher is “stereotype threat” and “arousal”. In this research, arousal is used to identify different effects of stereotype threats. Research also used selected genders and different levels of test difficulty that also affect the performance of audiences. As compared to Independent variable, dependent variable is measured through the experiment and effect of independent variable on it, for example, measure of Math test performance is the dependent variable (O'Brien & Crandall, 2003). This measure is manipulated with the threat or arousal in participants on the basis of different genders. Arousal has different effects on men and women, no effect on men, while women show different performances. In easy test perform better in difficult test performance was worst.

Operational Definitions of Variables

Operational definition of independent variable(s)

There is a number of different Independent variable such as predictor variable, which is used to predict the performance, and effect on other variables. For example, “stereotype threat” and “Arousal” is the manipulated or controlled independent variable that is used to test the performance of men and women. In this study, the threat that test will be a problem for the ...