The effects of stereotypes on performance attributions: How gender-math stereotypes lead women to internalize failure

The present research examines the effects of gender on performance attributions and perseverance in different academic domains. Three studies tested whether men and women's reactions to negative or positive feedback differed across academic domains. In Study 1, attributions to ability were influenced by gender: women were more likely to attribute failure on a putative math test to a lack of ability than failure on a putative verbal test, whereas men showed a nonsignificant tendency to attribute failure on a putative verbal test to a lack of ability than failure on a putative math test. Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1 for failure and showed that gender differences in attributions for alleged failure persisted when statistically controlling for past math experience. In addition, the more women attributed failure on a math test to their ability, the less likely they were to persevere in the math domain, suggesting that performance attributions affect subsequent motivation. In Study 3, women were given a test described as either of their math ability or their general cognitive ability and their implicit and explicit gender-math stereotypes were assessed. Stereotype threat did not influence performance attributions. Contrary to predictions, in the threat condition, but not the reduced threat condition, the more women implicitly stereotyped women, the less they attributed mathematical failure to their own ability. Findings are discussed in terms of gender stereotypes influencing performance attributions and perseverance following setbacks. Gender-math stereotypes are known to undermine women's confidence and performance on mathematical tasks (e.g. Spencer, Quinn & Steele, 1999). Thus, stereotypes may also affect women's attributions for their math performance and their motivation to succeed in quantitative fields.