Petrasso,
Sara (1/10) What about social class? Situational and dispositional
attributional processes involved in class-based stereotype threat effects (Gary
Kose, Ph.D.; Joan Duncan, Ph.D.; Paul Ramirez, Ph.D.)
The current study investigated whether
individuals' explanatory styles (i.e., Locus of Control and Attributional
Style) influenced their vulnerabilty to stereotype threat. Participants were 96
university students who were randomly assigned to one of four conditions that
varied in level of class-based threat (manipulated by presenting the task as
diagnostic of intelligence or not, and by asking participants to reveal their
parental income level as well as their subjective sense of their socioeconomic
identity). Participants also completed self-report measures of Locus of Control
and Attributional Style, and were asked to make causal attributions about their
performance on a difficult 15-item test of verbal reasoning and vocabulary
knowledge.
Results revealed a main effect of
class-based stereotype threat. Diagnosticity had no effect on participant
performance. A two-way interaction between threat condition and parental income
level was found. Low SES participants in the threat condition performed more
poorly than Low SES participants in the no-threat condition. The same was true,
unexpectedly, for High SES participants. However, Middle-SES participants did
not perform significantly differently. No significant performance differences
were revealed between SES cohorts in the no threat condition. Attributional
Style and Locus of Control were not found to influence stereotype threat
vulnerability. Furthermore, causal attributions were not found to correlate to
either Locus of Control or Attributional Style, nor were they affected by
threat condition. Though the study has limitations, the findings strengthen the
class-based stereotype threat arena. Implications and suggestions for future
research are made.
