Children's Implicit and Explicit Stereotypes about Academic Abilities

说明(申请人提供)：尽管为提高妇女和少数族裔成员在STEM学科中的代表性做出了相当大的努力，但性别和种族差距依然存在。学术刻板印象在几个方面促成了这些差距；目前的研究旨在更好地理解刻板印象如何塑造儿童对未来成功的期望和对特定学术领域的重视。这项研究的目的是检验外显种族和性别刻板印象中关于年龄、种族和性别差异原因的相互矛盾的假设，并检验内隐刻板印象和外显刻板印象在预测黑人和白人青年的动机信念和行为方面的相对重要性。如果得到资助，这个小项目将为一项更大的纵向研究奠定基础，研究黑人和白人青年的内隐和外显学术刻板印象的发展。来自3年级、6年级和9年级的300名白人和非裔美国青年将参加。样本将根据年级水平、性别和种族进行平衡。在发展心理学和社会心理学新研究的基础上，研究人员将对刻板印象进行显性测量(使用自我报告测量)和隐性测量(使用不需要自我报告的认知任务)。隐含的措施将允许我们捕捉刻板印象的思维过程，这些过程可能在意识之外或故意控制之外运行。通过比较隐含和显性的刻板印象，我们的目标是了解什么年龄的学术刻板印象开始自动出现在脑海中，以及年轻人何时愿意并能够表达或拒绝这些刻板印象。然后，我们将能够在刻板印象报告中测试关于年龄、种族和性别差异的假设，希望澄清早期研究中不一致的发现。学生还将完成学业自我概念、任务兴趣、因果归因和特定领域的学术投入(即英语、科学和数学)的测量，教师将对学生的特定领域投入程度进行评级。我们对儿童新出现的刻板印象与他们的动机信念和行为之间关系的假设的测试，将加强关于刻板印象如何导致一些学生选择退出STEM学科高级课程的理论，并将大量关于内隐社会认知的文献与成熟的成就动机发展理论相结合。因此，该项目将阐明内隐社会认知的这些方面在塑造STEM学科成绩的群体差异中所起的作用，并确定新的干预目标，可能对理解儿童学业发展的社会层面产生重大影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Despite considerable efforts to increase the representation of women and members of racial minorities in STEM disciplines, gender and race gaps persist. Academic stereotypes have been implicated in contributing to these gaps in several ways; the current research is designed to better understand how stereotypes shape children's expectancies for future success and valuing of specific academic domains. Aims of the proposed research are to test competing hypotheses about reasons for age, race, and gender differences in explicit race and gender stereotypes and to examine the relative importance of implicit and explicit stereotypes in predicting the motivational beliefs and behaviors of Black and White youth. If funded, this small project will lay the foundation for a larger longitudinal study examining the development of implicit and explicit academic stereotypes in Black and White youth. Three hundred White and African American youth from Grades 3, 6, and 9 will participate. The sample will be balanced on grade level, gender, and race. Building on new research in developmental and social psychology, the investigators will measure stereotypes both explicitly (using self-report measures) and implicitly (using cognitive tasks that do not require self-reports). Implicit measures will allow us to capture stereotypic thought processes that may operate outside awareness or beyond intentional control. By comparing implicit and explicit stereotypes, we aim to understand at what age's academic stereotypes begin to come automatically to mind, and when youth are willing and able to express versus reject these stereotypes. We will then be able to test hypotheses about age, race, and gender differences in stereotype reports, hoping to clarify inconsistent findings of earlier research. Students will also complete measures of academic self- concept, task interest, causal attributions, and domain-specific (i.e., English, science, and math) academic engagement and teachers will provide ratings of students' domain-specific engagement. Our tests of hypotheses about the relations between children's emerging stereotypes and their motivational beliefs and behaviors will enhance theory about ways that stereotypes lead some students to opt out of advanced classes in STEM disciplines and integrate the large literature on implicit social cognition with well-established theories of the development of achievement motivation. Thus, this project will shed light on the role that these aspects of implicit social cognition play in shaping group differences in achievement in STEM disciplines and identify new targets for interventions, potentially having a major impact on understanding the social dimensions of children's academic development.