The Effect of a Fabricated Stereotype Threat on Sex Differences in Object Location Memory

Abstract

Monitoring a negative stereotype coupled with the fear of conforming to it poses the risk for targeted groups to underperform when completing a relevant task. We investigated the impact of a fabricated (empirically invalidated and not socially instilled) stereotype threat on an object location memory task, which tends to show a sex difference in favor of women. The threat stated that women tend to perform worse than men; thus, we tested if a fabricated negative stereotype would decrease performance of an advantaged group. Contrary to expectations, the negative stereotype improved women’s performance: women under threat actually performed better than when not under threat (p = .007, d = 1.094). Discussion focuses on the “mere effort” account and the impact of stereotype salience.

Full text

Running Head: EFFECT OF A FABRICATED STEREOTYPE 1
The Effect of a Fabricated Stereotype Threat on Sex Differences in Object Location Memory
Samantha A. Boomgarden1, Daniele Nardi2, and Joshua M. Aronson3
1Eastern Illinois University
2Ball State University
3 New York University
Author Note
Samantha A. Boomgarden, Department of Psychology, Eastern Illinois University.
Daniele Nardi, Department of Psychology, Ball State University. Joshua M. Aronson,
Department of Applied Psychology, New York University.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Samantha Boomgarden,
Department of Psychology, Eastern Illinois University, 600 Lincoln Avenue, Charleston, IL
61920, USA. Phone: (+1)217-581-2127. E-mail: saboomgarden@eiu.edu

EFFECT OF A FABRICATE STEREOTYPE 2
Abstract
Monitoring a negative stereotype coupled with the fear of conforming to it poses the risk for
targeted groups to underperform when completing a relevant task. We investigated the impact of
a fabricated (empirically invalidated and not socially instilled) stereotype threat on an object
location memory task, which tends to show a sex difference in favor of women. The threat stated
that women tend to perform worse than men; thus, we tested if a fabricated negative stereotype
would decrease performance of an advantaged group. Contrary to expectations, the negative
stereotype improved women’s performance: women under threat actually performed better than
when not under threat (p = .007, d = 1.094). Discussion focuses on the “mere effort” account and
the impact of stereotype salience.
Keywords: stereotype threat, fabricated stereotype, sex differences, object location memory

EFFECT OF A FABRICATE STEREOTYPE 3
The Effect of a Fabricated Stereotype Threat on Sex Differences in Object Location Memory
Stereotype threat occurs when a person’s awareness of a negative stereotype about their
group makes them wary about confirming it (Steele & Aronson, 1995). Under some conditions,
this wariness is intense enough to interfere with one’s ability to demonstrate competence on
tests, in social interactions, and in other situations where performance anxiety is disruptive
(Steele, 2010). For example, in early experimental tests of stereotype threat, Steele and Aronson
(1995) found that African American college students performed worse on a standardized test of
verbal ability when reminded of their race (and thus the stereotype of African American mental
abilities), or alternatively, when led to believe a test was diagnostic of their intellectual ability
(and thus capable of confirming the stereotype about intelligence). Stereotype threat has been
studied for two decades and shown to be operative in a variety of situations and experienced by
individuals with a range of social identities (Aronson & Dee, 2012; Inzlicht & Schmader, 2012;
Reardon, Atteberry, Arshan, & Kurlaender, 2009; Rydell, Van Loo, & Boucher, 2017).
Like earlier work demonstrating the lability in test performances of poor and minority
students (Katz, Epps, & Axelson, 1964; Zigler & Buttefield, 1968), Steele and Aronson’s aim
was to shed light on the role of context in the IQ test score gap and the college learning gap
between White and Black American students (Steele, 1997; Steele & Aronson, 1998). The logic
in all of these studies is that, by making stereotypes salient or seem especially relevant, subtle
cue differences in context can lead to impaired cognitive performance, learning, or social
interaction of individuals to whom the stereotypes apply. As a society, we tend to assume that
intellectual performance is stable from one situation to another, but stereotype threat is one of
many cases that show that this is quite fragile, particularly for groups with a reputation of

EFFECT OF A FABRICATE STEREOTYPE 4
intellectual weakness in some domain (Aronson & Steele, 2005; Beilock & Carr, 2001).
Although studies have shown stereotype threat effects among various groups in many
situations (e.g., Shapiro & Williams, 2012), the effect has been studied most extensively with
women in situations involving performance in math and hard science domains. For example, in
an early study, Spencer, Steele, and Quinn (1999) found that women underperformed compared
to men when solving difficult math problems but performed significantly better when assured
that the test did not discriminate against women. The take-home message of all this work—from
Katz’s early studies (Katz et al., 1964) to more recent ones (Pansu et al., 2016)—is that even
subtle shifts in context can produce large differences in performance (Beliock, Rydell, &
McConnell, 2007) or learning (Appel, Kronberger, & Aronson, 2011), most often by negating
the working assumption that one is at risk of underperforming and confirming a negative
stereotype in a high-stakes situation.
The tasks in most stereotype threat situations are cognitive and rely on working memory.
However, it has been shown that stereotype threat can also affect skills that are procedural in
nature (Beilock & Carr, 2001). Stone, Lynch, Sjomeling, and Darley (1999) reported that, when
an athletic task is explained as being diagnostic of athletic ability, White athletes
underperformed, but when the same task was framed as being diagnostic of strategic ability,
Black athletes underperformed. This indicates that stereotype threat can apply to a wide variety
of circumstances and performances (Beilock & Carr, 2001).
Research on the causes of stereotype threat has suggested that people under threat
perform more poorly due to cognitive and affective factors involving both automatic and
controlled processes such as stereotype avoidance and automatic vigilance (Schmader & Beilock,
2012). Schmader and Johns (2003) proposed that the mechanism behind the impact of stereotype

EFFECT OF A FABRICATE STEREOTYPE 5
threat is working memory capacity. Working memory capacity was defined as “the ability to
focus one’s attention on a given task while keeping task-irrelevant thoughts at bay” (p. 440). If a
stereotype threat were to be present while completing an assessment, the working memory
capacity for the task would be diminished because of competing demands such as focusing on
the threat and fear of conforming to the threat. Schmader and Johns (2003) used a working
memory capacity assessment coupled with a quantitative assessment to determine if women
under threat have a reduced working memory capacity. They found that, when women were told
that the quantitative assessment showed sex differences, they did indeed present lower working
memory capacity compared to men (Schmader & Johns, 2003). This resulted in lower scores on
the quantitative task. Further evidence has supported a causal link between working memory and
stereotype threat, as described by Beilock, Jellison, Rydell, McConnell, and Carr (2006).
Other factors can account for the effect of stereotype threat by offering an explanation of
performance differences across a variety of situations and could eventually be used to alleviate
the impact of stereotype threat. These include, but certainly are not limited to, anxiety,
individuation tendencies, evaluation apprehension, performance expectation, explicit stereotype
endorsement, self-efficacy, and motivation (Pennington, Heim, Levy, & Larkin, 2016).
Considering motivation, for example, it has been suggested that the presence of a stereotype
threat incentivizes individuals to improve their performance on a task at hand, strengthening their
prepotent response (the most likely response to be produced; Jamieson & Harkins, 2007). This
can be beneficial to individuals if the prepotent response is successful. However, it can also be
detrimental to performance if the prepotent response is incorrect. It seems that a stereotype threat
is particularly beneficial in motivating if the person is engaged in a difficult task with which they
do not strongly identify (Keller, 2007).

EFFECT OF A FABRICATE STEREOTYPE 6
To our knowledge, nearly all of the published research on stereotype threat involves a
stereotype with some accuracy. For example, in the race studies by Steele and Aronson, national
statistics confirm that Black students graduate with grades two-thirds of a letter grade lower than
their White counterparts (American Council on Education, 1990). National test score data
likewise indicate that Asians score better than their White counterparts on tests of mathematics,
and that White male students perform better than White female students on tests of calculus and
other measures of advanced mathematics (Benbow & Stanley, 1983). Thus, the stereotypes can
be thought to be threatening because they are both salient and, to some extent, accurate, which
magnifies the risk of behavior or performance.
In the present study, we examined the power of stereotype threat without this
confirmation of a known, and, somewhat accurate stereotype. Specifically, we asked about the
effects of a fabricated stereotype—an allegation of a group difference previously unknown to a
target. We use “fabricated” to refer to a stereotype that is not socially instilled, meaning that it is
not a stereotype that the participants in the study would be aware of or identify with. This
concept of a fabricated threat has, to the best of our knowledge, been untested in stereotype
threat research. However, it is an important issue because not every cultural group is aware of
stereotypes targeting them, and when changing cultural environment, the potential threat of a
stereotype might hinge not only on its negative connotation, but also on how instilled it is in the
specific person. For example, when immigrants enter a new nation, there may be pre-existing
stereotypes held by the cultures they are entering that they are not aware of (Deaux et al., 2007).
It is important to know if immigrants can be impacted by the stereotypes targeting them held by
others in their new social context. If this is the case, then their performance in various domains
could be diminished upon first exposure to a negative stereotype in the new environment.

EFFECT OF A FABRICATE STEREOTYPE 7
Can a stereotype that suggests an ability difference undermine performance if it is created
de novo in a laboratory, or must a stereotype contain some level of accuracy and be salient
within a society? If the competition for working memory resources is at the core of the
stereotype threat, then there should be a similar effect between a salient and a fabricated
stereotype. Unlike the socially instilled stereotypes used in most of the literature, the targeted
group in the present study was unfamiliar with the fabricated stereotype. However, if they were
made aware of the group difference with an explicit statement, the existence of the stereotype,
and the fear of conforming to it, should still occupy some of the finite working memory capacity
that could be dedicated to the task at hand. Therefore, in the present study, it was reasoned that a
fabricated threat would have the same impact of a typical stereotype threat: impaired
performance of the targeted group.
The assessment chosen for this study was novel in that, to the best of our knowledge, it
had not been used in stereotype threat research before. The assessment was an object location
memory task, as described by Voyer, Postma, Brake, and Imperato-McGinley (2007). This task
involves encoding the location of an array of objects on a piece of paper, and after a distractor,
recognizing whether any of their locations had been changed or not. This task was chosen for
two main reasons. First, unlike most spatial abilities, which tend to show no consistent sex
differences or a male advantage (Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995), object location memory
presents a sex difference in favor of women, as found in a meta-analysis that accounted for 86
studies (mean weighted d of 0.269; Voyer et al., 2007). In general, most of the literature on
stereotype threat deals with assessments that favor men (e.g., mental rotation, advanced
mathematics; see McGlone & Aronson, 2006; Moè, 2009), so it is important to add evidence
from an opposite group difference. Furthermore, the sex difference in object location memory is

EFFECT OF A FABRICATE STEREOTYPE 8
not as commonly known in society because other group differences that have been considered
previously such as quantitative assessment; this allowed us to create a novel threat with little
preconceived notion.
The stereotype threat was elicited by verbally stating: “Women tend to perform worse
than men on this type of assessment.” Therefore, the group difference presented was in the
opposite direction from what literature had indicated (i.e., female advantage). As such, the goal
of the present study was to explore whether a fabricated stereotype threat could decrease (rather
than increase) a group difference by weakening the performance of the advantaged (rather than
the disadvantaged) group, thus extending knowledge on the full possible impact of a stereotype.
We hypothesized that, if a fabricated (empirically invalidated and not socially instilled)
stereotype is sufficient to contend for working memory capacity with the task at hand, a
stereotype threat should be elicited; this should result in women under threat performing more
poorly than their unthreatened counterparts.
Method
Participants
A total of 60 undergraduate students from a small, public, Midwestern university were
recruited for this study via convenience sampling. Participants were recruited in the Physical
Science Building, meaning that most participants were enrolled in psychology, physics, or
chemistry courses. Participants volunteered without any incentive as they walked around the
building after class and were asked to complete a very brief study. Participants were only told
that they would be completing a spatial task. Half of the participants were assigned to the control
(not under threat) condition (10 men and 20 women); the other half to the experimental (under

EFFECT OF A FABRICATE STEREOTYPE 9
threat) condition (13 men and 17 women). All procedures were approved by the Eastern Illinois
University IRB and followed the APA ethical standards for human research.
Materials
Testing occurred in a medium sized classroom on the first floor of the building. The
assessment used was an object location memory task, similar to the one developed by Silverman
and Eals (1992). It consisted of a letter size sheet with an array of 30 objects; this is referred to as
the encoding sheet (see Appendix). These images were random open source images. The test
sheet contained the same 30 objects, but 16 objects were in a different location. Participants had
to circle the objects that had moved (see Appendix). The assessment was scored in the following
manner: any object correctly circled (i.e., that had moved with respect to the encoding sheet)
counted as +1 point, while any object incorrectly circled counted as -1 point. There were 16
objects that moved, so the maximum score that could be achieved was 16. The minimum score
that could be obtained was -14.
A sheet for the distractor task was also used. This task was a maze that participants had to
solve; it was generated from www.mazegenerator.net.
Testing Groups
Data were collected over the course of 4 days. Participants were tested in groups of
different size and composition, and this was approximately balanced between the under-threat
and control condition (see Table 1 for details on group composition). Each group was randomly
assigned to either the control or under-threat condition. When a group entered the testing room,
those participants were instructed to take a seat such that they would not be directly next to
another participant. This meant that participants could sit in a vertical row (one behind the other),
or they could sit a desk apart in a horizontal row.

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10
Procedure
After participants entered the room and were seated, they read a brief information sheet
with a summary explaining the procedure of the assessment. When they had finished, they read
and signed the informed consent form before we proceeded with the assessment. The
experimenters remained at the front of the room throughout the session, only going by the
participants to exchange sheets for the assessment as necessary. There were always two
experimenters present in any session to time and to exchange sheets. Two teams of
experimenters, which alternated randomly throughout data collection, ran the study: one team
was composed of two female experimenters, and the other team of a female and a male
experimenter.
The assessment process began with one experimenter briefly re-explaining the procedure
to the participants. Crucially, when a group of participants was in the under-threat condition, the
experimenter ended the explanation by stating: “It’s been shown that women actually perform
worse than men on this type of assessment.” Participants in the control condition were not
presented with this statement and simply continued to the next step. This was the only difference
between the conditions.
The participants were handed the encoding sheet (see Appendix) and given 60 seconds to
study the encoding sheet before the researcher replaced the encoding sheet with a distractor task.
Participants worked on the maze for 90 seconds. Next, they were given the test sheet (see
Appendix) and reminded to circle any objects they thought had moved. After 60 seconds went
by, the test sheets were collected.
At the end of the session, a debriefing statement was handed to the participants,
explaining the purpose of the study. The overall session took, on average, approximately 10

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11
minutes.
Results
A 2 (condition: under threat or control) x 2 (sex) between-subjects factorial Analysis of
Variance (ANOVA) was used with participants’ scores as the dependent variable (see Figure 1).
There were no significant main effects of condition, F(1, 56) = 1.99, p = .164, ƞ2p = .034, and of
sex, F(1, 56) = 0.73, p = .397, ƞ2p = .013. However, there was a significant interaction, F(1, 56) =
4.19, p = .045, ƞ2p = .070. A post-hoc power analysis was also completed, and the statistical
power of the interaction was .52. See Table 2 for means and standard deviations of the
participant groups and Table 3 for an ANOVA summary table.
Analysis of the simple effects (F-tests with the omnibus ANOVA error term) revealed
that women (M = 11.00; SD = 1.87) performed significantly better than men (M = 8.69; SD =
4.44) when under threat (p = .040, d = .662), but the two sexes (Women: M = 8.25; SD = 3.02;
Men: M = 9.20; SD = 1.81) did not perform significantly differently in the control condition (p =
.413, d = .394). Furthermore, female participants performed significantly better when under
threat (M = 11.00; SD = 1.87) than when not under threat (M = 8.25; SD = 3.02) (p = .007, d =
1.094), and as expected, there was no significant difference between the scores of male
participants exposed to the threat condition (M = 8.69; SD = 4.44) and those in the control
condition (M = 9.20; SD = 1.81) (p = .687, d = .150).
Discussion
Women’s scores in the object location memory task were significantly higher when
confronted with a fabricated threat. Women led to believe that they generally performed worse
on the task scored significantly better than those given no stereotyped expectation. Additionally,

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12
women performed significantly better than men when both sexes were presented with the
stereotype.
These results did not support our hypothesis that a fabricated stereotype would act like a
salient stereotype and undermine performance of the targeted group by contending for working
memory capacity with the task at hand. As expected, men were not affected by the stereotype
manipulation, as their social identity was not threatened. However, contrary to predictions,
women actually performed significantly better—not worse—under the threat as compared to
controls. Interestingly, women’s oft reported advantage in object location memory (Voyer et al.,
2007) appeared under threat, but not in the control condition. This was unexpected, although it
should be emphasized that the female advantage in this ability has not been reported in every
individual study considered in the meta-analysis (Voyer et al., 2007). For our purpose, more
remarkable is the fact that women’s scores in the task improved significantly under threat.
Considering that most of the literature on stereotype threat indicates a detrimental effect on the
performance of the stereotyped individual, this result is noteworthy. Our finding suggests that a
fabricated stereotype had the opposite effect—it improved performance. Why?
One possible explanation is the “mere effort account” (Jamieson & Harkins, 2007), based
on which, motivation to do well is the major mediator in the impact of stereotype threat. When
an individual knows that there is a potential for evaluation, there is additional motivation to
perform the task, and the prepotent response is strengthened. If individuals are given the chance
to practice the task, or the task is simple, their prepotent response will improve their
performance; otherwise their performance might be impaired. According to Jamieson and
Harkins (2007), when stereotype threat is present, it operates similarly to an evaluation:
individuals knows that their performance will be monitored according to their social identity

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13
threatened by the stereotype, and it motivates them to do well on the task at hand. Evidence in
support of this theory has been found in different contexts, from solving GRE quantitative
problems (Jamieson & Harkins, 2009) to rhythmic motor tasks (Huber, Seitchik, Brown, Sternad,
& Harkins, 2015). For example, in a simple visual motor (antisaccade) task, it was found that the
presence of a stereotype threat improved performance. However, as the task became more and
more difficult, the participant was no longer able to improve and instead the performance
diminished under threat (Jamieson & Harkins, 2007). In order for the mere effort account to
explain our results, it has to be assumed that the women performing the spatial memory
assessment already had some skills in this task, or that the task was not difficult, meaning that
their prepotent response would improve their performance. This could well be the case. First, in
general, the task that participants completed in this study seems to be fairly easy: the average
score for each condition fell between +8 and +11, with the possible range being from -14 to +16.
Furthermore, in line with the sex difference in this type of spatial ability (Voyer et al., 2007),
women might have found this task easier than men. Consequently, women could have been
motivated by the presence of the stereotype threat, which in turn activated their prepotent
response improving their performance in the task. Related to this, Keller (2007) found that an
important moderator for the stereotype threat was domain identification. In that study, if the
women solving a difficult math problem did not identify with math, they tended to perform better
under threat than in a no-threat condition. This was ascribed to a motivating role of the threat
without the disruption related to increased arousal/stress that one would expect if the participant
actually identified with the task. A similar situation could have applied to our study. Women
might not have particularly identified with the general domain of spatial skills. In this sense, the
threat might have motivated them to succeed in the task without fear of not meeting expectations.

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14
Another explanation is that inducing the threat motivated women to do better without the
added threat of contending with stereotype accuracy. For example, Deaux and colleagues (2007)
found that first-generation Black immigrants were less susceptible to stereotype threat effects
than second-generation Black immigrants in the laboratory—in fact, their performance improved
compared to their nonthreatened counterparts—because, although aware that Americans view
Black people as less intelligent, the stereotype failed to resonate (and thus threaten them).
Because they did not grow up with it, the threat felt fabricated. This is much like the stereotype
presented in our study. However, second-generation immigrants who grew up in America and
who were subject to American stereotypes about race from an early age did indeed underperform
under stereotype threat conditions, as expected (Deaux et al., 2007). The improvement in
performance for first-generation immigrants was theorized to be due to stereotype lift, a theory
proposed by Walton and Cohen (2003), where performance improvement results when
individuals are aware that an outgroup is being negatively stereotyped. In this case, the outgroup
were the Black individuals in America, which is why the threat did not resonate with the
immigrants. Our study presented a stereotype threat that, similarly, would not resonate with
participants because it was fabricated: the sex difference in object location memory is not
socially instilled. Although the threat was not about an outgroup, it raises an interesting question
of whether a similar stereotype lift can occur when individuals are negatively stereotyped, as
long as the threat does not resonate with the participants.
Admittedly, there are limitations to this study. First is the relatively small sample size and
a low power (.52); future studies should try to replicate our findings with larger groups of
participants. Second, the testing group composition and experimenters’ sex composition were not
consistent throughout the study. However, importantly, the testing group composition was

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15
approximately balanced between the two conditions (see Table 1), and the two teams of
experimenters (two women in one team; a woman and a man in the other team) alternated
randomly. Therefore, these procedures did not cause a systematic difference between conditions
and their effects were approximately equal in the two conditions; for this reason, the difference
in performance obtained is unlikely due to this. Third, we lacked a systematic manipulation
check on the participants. However, anecdotally, responses of many participants indicate the
activation of the stereotype. At the end of the experimental session, many women unsolicitedly
reported to the experimenters that, upon hearing the fabricated threat, their initial thoughts were
“I’m going to have to prove that wrong” or similar, which imply they took it as a challenge. This
suggests that the threat was heard and processed by the participants. Additionally, no
demographic information besides the sex of the participants was collected. Because of these
limitations, this can be considered an exploratory study, and the evidence gathered may open the
topic up for more thorough investigation.
In conclusion, a fabricated stereotype targeting women did not impair their performance
on the task. Previous studies have indicated that a salient stereotype can diminish the
performance of a vulnerable group. Conversely, here we addressed whether a fabricated,
negative stereotype would weaken the performance of a group with an existing advantage in the
task; our findings show that, on the contrary, it improved the performance of said group. This
suggests that a stereotype threat has to resonate with the threatened individual in order to
diminish their performance. When this is not the case, they are actually motivated to perform
better on the task at hand, thus resulting in higher performance than their nonthreatened
counterparts. However, our findings can be explained also by the mere effort account and by
domain identification. T distinguish among these possibilities, future research should use a

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16
fabricated stereotype with tasks of different difficulty levels, and with different levels of
identification with the task. The effect of a fabricated stereotype can allow us to better
understand how stereotype threat operates and whether a threat must be known and salient to
undermine performance. Stereotypes are not always equally salient in different cultural groups,
so this is a question worthy of further exploration.

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17
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Table 1
Group Composition
No Threat
Under Threat
Total
Individually tested
1M, 1M, 1F, 1F
1M, 1M, 1F
4M, 3F
Homogenous Groups
– All men (M)
2M, 2M
0
4M
Homogenous Groups
– All women (F)
2F, 2F, 3F
2F, 2F, 2F, 4F
17F
Heterogeneous
Groups
2M/4F, 1M/4F, 1M/3F
1M/2F, 2M/2F,
7M/1F, 1M/1F
15M, 17F
Total
10M and 20F
13M, 17F
23M, 37F
Note. Number and sex of participants in each group for the control (no threat) and under threat
condition; each group is separated by a comma. For example, some participants were tested in
groups which happened to be all women (Homogenous Groups – All females). Three such
groups were tested in the “No Threat” condition (two women, two women, and three women),
and four such groups in the “Under Threat” condition (two women, two women, two women,
and four women). The total column/row reports the total number of participants collapsed.

EFFECT OF A FABRICATE STEREOTYPE
23
Table 2
Participant Groups Means and Standard Deviations
M
SD
Under Threat
Women
11.00
1.87
Men
8.69
4.44
Control
Women
8.25
3.02
Men
9.20
1.81

EFFECT OF A FABRICATE STEREOTYPE
24
Table 3
Summary Table for Two-Way Analysis of Variance of the Effects of Sex and Experimental
Condition
Source
SS
df
MS
F
p
η
p2
Main Effect of Sex
6.45
1
6.45
0.73
.40
.01
Main Effect of Condition
17.60
1
17.60
1.99
.16
.03
Interaction Effect
37.14
1
37.14
4.19
.05
.07
Error
496.12
56
8.86

EFFECT OF A FABRICATE STEREOTYPE
25
Appendix.
Encoding Sheet and Test Sheet
Out of 30 objects, 16 had moved in the test sheet with respect to their position in the encoding
sheet. The assessment consisted in circling the objects that had moved.

EFFECT OF A FABRICATE STEREOTYPE
26
Figure 1. Average score in the task for men and women under threat and in the control condition.
There was no significant main effect of sex or condition. However, the interaction was
statistically significant. The error bars represent standard error of the mean.