Smart girls, dumb boys! how the discourse on 'failing boys' impacts performances and motivational go by Irakli Kavtaradze

Original Article

Smart Girls, Dumb Boys!?

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How the Discourse on ‘‘Failing Boys’’ Impacts Performances and Motivational Goal Orientation in German School Students Martin Latsch and Bettina Hannover Department of Educational Science and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany Abstract. We investigated effects of the media’s portrayal of boys as ‘‘scholastic failures’’ on secondary school students. The negative portrayal induced stereotype threat (boys underperformed in reading), stereotype reactance (boys displayed stronger learning goals towards mathematics but not reading), and stereotype lift (girls performed better in reading but not in mathematics). Apparently, boys were motivated to disconfirm their group’s negative depiction, however, while they could successfully apply compensatory strategies when describing their learning goals, this motivation did not enable them to perform better. Overall the media portrayal thus contributes to the maintenance of gender stereotypes, by impairing boys’ and strengthening girls’ performance in female connoted domains and by prompting boys to align their learning goals to the gender connotation of the domain. Keywords: stereotype threat, stereotype reactance, gender stereotypes, ‘‘failing boys’’, stereotype lift

Triggered by the findings of the large school achievement studies PIRLS and PISA (e.g., OECD, 2011), there is presently a public debate on ‘‘failing boys,’’ which has received considerable media coverage. In Germany, for instance, there is an overrepresentation of boys in the lowest school track (the Hauptschule), an underrepresentation of boys entering the highest school track (the Gymnasium), and a relatively high number of boys leaving school without earning a diploma (e.g., Statistisches Bundesamt, 2011). As a result of these findings, male students are now frequently described in the media as the ‘‘new failures’’ of the educational system. A prominent example of this is seen on the September 14, 2009 cover of Der Spiegel – the most prestigious and highly influential German news magazine – which displayed the title ‘‘Smart girls, dumb boys’’ and whose accompanying article reported that: ‘‘Indisputably, girls have surpassed boys in school and university’’ (translation by authors). Many other media outlets have recently published similar lead stories (e.g., print: Die Welt, No. 162, July 13, 2012, p. 2: ‘‘Erfolgsrezept M dchen’’ (‘‘Recipe for success: Girls’’); Die Welt, No. 15, July 2, 2012, p. 2: ‘‘Jungs sind die Verlierer’’ (‘‘Boys are the losers’’); Frankfurter Rundschau, No. 50, March 1, 2011, pp. 22– 23: ‘‘Das Problem der Jungen ist, dass sie Jungen sind’’ (‘‘Boys’ problem is that they are boys’’); Berliner Zeitung, No. 294, December 16, 2010, p. 29: ‘‘Das Jungs-Problem’’ (‘‘The boys-problem’’); Die Zeit, No. 32, August 5, 2010, p. 1, 28–29: ‘‘Jungs sind so!’’ (‘‘That’s how boys are’’); television: 3sat, March 25, 2009 and July 15, 2010, http://

Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):112–126 DOI: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000167

www.3sat.de/mediathek/?mode=play&obj=12102; radio: Deutschlandradio, April 2, 2012, http://www.dradio.de/ dkultur/sendungen/kritik/943749/). In this manuscript we want to examine the impact that the public discourse on boys’ failing in school may have on those targeted by the negative portrayal. German school students are assumed to be frequently exposed to the ‘‘failing boys’’ issue as they often watch TV, surf the Internet, and chat or discuss in Internet-forums (e.g., Baier & Pfeiffer, 2011; Klingler, 2008; for an example see http:// www.gutefrage.net/frage/maedchen-schlauer-als-jungen from 2012). We therefore wondered whether the negative expectations expressed in the media portrayal of the ‘‘failing boys’’ issue impact male students in their ability to perform, and in their school-related motivational goal orientation. As a first step, in a questionnaire study using an open-response format we wanted to find out whether male and female school students have acquired stereotypes about ‘‘failing boys,’’ that is, do they assume that people in general view boys as failing at school? In a second step, and using an experimental approach, we aimed to identify the effects that the public portrayal of boys as failing at school may have on male students’ performance outcomes and motivational goal orientation in test taking situations that are either positively (mathematics tasks) or negatively related (reading tasks) to the male group stereotype. Male students were the main focus of our experimental studies, however, we included female students as well. While boys are targeted by the public debate, girls are often

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referred to as the superior comparison group. We therefore expected that girls would either be unaffected by the depiction of boys as ‘‘scholastic failures’’ or display a pattern opposite to that of the boys.

Boys Are Failing at School! Are They? A look into the German statistics on gender distribution of school diplomas reveals that, while girls were at a clear disadvantage until the mid-1970s, from the early 1980s onwards they were slightly more likely than boys to finish school with a diploma enabling them to pursue higher education (i.e., the Abitur), with girls’ lead steadily increasing since the early 1990s (Helbig, 2010, p. 95). On the whole, gender differences in educational participation and success in Germany have reversed over the last few decades. As illustrated by data from the Mikrozensus (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2010, p. 9), concerning the age cohort of over 65-year-olds, 64.3% of the surveyed men but 71.5% of the women had left school with a certificate from the lowest school track (Volksschulabschluss, Hauptschulabschluss), and 19.4% of the males but only 7.8% of the females had earned the Abitur. In contrast, in the age cohort of 20–25-year-olds, 24.5% of the male respondents but only 15.0% of the females had left school with a Hauptschule diploma, while 37.0% of the surveyed men but 45.6% of the women had earned the Abitur (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2010, p. 9). Interestingly, while the above-mentioned figures illustrate boys’ declining participation and success in education, studies employing standardized performance tests to measure male and female students’ competences do not substantiate the view that boys perform more poorly in school in general: While girls reach higher levels of competence than boys in reading, boys tend to outperform girls in mathematics (e.g., Driessen & van Langen, 2013; PIRLS: Mullis, Martin, Foy, & Drucker, 2012; PISA: OECD, 2011; TIMSS: Mullis, Martin, Foy, & Arora, 2012). For instance, PISA 2009 found 9th grade girls (15-year-olds) to outperform boys in reading in every participating country by an average of 40 points (mean scale score 500, standard deviation 100). In Germany, the gender gap was equivalent to the effect of 1 year of schooling: Girls achieved 518 points and boys 478 points on the reading scale (Naumann, Artelt, Schneider, & Stanat, 2010; effect sizes were not reported). In contrast, for mathematics PISA 2009 found that boys achieved higher levels of competency than girls in 35 of the 65 participating countries (compared to just five

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countries where girls outperformed boys) and surpassed their female classmates by an average of 12 score points. In Germany, girls obtained 505 points and boys 520 points, a difference which corresponds to half a year of schooling.1 To summarize, while in the public discourse boys are depicted as struggling at school in general, studies using standardized performance tests show that they in fact lag behind girls only in reading-related domains, but not in mathematics where they tend to do better than girls. This pattern of gender differences in school-related competences is also reflected in traditional gender stereotypes. Gender stereotypes consist of socially shared knowledge about descriptive and prescriptive characteristics of males and females (e.g., Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000). Many studies have found (high capabilities in) mathematics and reading to (implicitly and explicitly) be associated with males or females, respectively (e.g., Cvencek, Meltzoff, & Greenwald, 2011; Plante, Th or t, & Favreau, 2009; Steffens & Jelenec, 2011). Correspondingly, both girls and boys consider school subjects related to reading capabilities to be ‘‘for girls,’’ and school subjects related to mathematics capabilities to be ‘‘for boys’’ (e.g., Colley & Comber, 2003; Hannover & Kessels, 2002; Plante et al., 2009). In summary, consistent with traditional gender stereotypes, boys tend to underperform only in subject domains that are connoted as female, such as reading, but tend to do even better than girls in male connoted domains, such as mathematics. Disregarding boys’ relative strength in mathematicsrelated domains, the public media discourse portrays male students as failing at school in general. This overgeneralization of boys’ school-related deficits in the media raises two questions to be addressed in our research: Firstly, do school students themselves believe that people in general see boys as struggling at school? In other words, do school students’ gender-related stereotypes correspond to the picture drawn in the media? This question will be investigated in Study 1. And secondly, with the media portrayal of boys inadequately reflecting their good performance in male connoted domains, we wondered whether exposure to this public portrayal would simultaneously trigger two different psychological reactions in male school students: Feelings of stereotype threat and feelings of stereotype reactance. We expected that boys would be both worried about confirming the negative depiction of their group as ‘‘scholastic failures,’’ and motivated to disconfirm this depiction. While feelings of stereotype threat should become evident with poor performance, feelings of stereotype reactance should appear in self-reports that are contrary to those prescribed by the stereotype. These assumptions are tested in Studies 2–4.

Effect sizes for gender differences typically range between small and negligible and they vary strongly cross-nationally (e.g., Else-Quest, Hyde, & Linn, 2010). In countries with tracked schooling systems like Germany, however, gender differences in favor of girls diminish and gender differences in favor of boys increase once school type is taken into account: students learn more the higher the school track and girls are overrepresented in higher school tracks (e.g., Becker, L dtke, Trautwein, & Baumert, 2006). As a result, studies comparing girls’ and boys’ performance within school types yield much smaller advantages for girls in reading and much larger advantages for boys in mathematics than studies like PISA which compare students of the same age or school year but do not take school type into account (e.g., Baumert et al., 2001; Hosenfeld, Kçller, & Baumert, 1999).

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Do School Students Have Stereotypes About ‘‘Failing Boys?’’ With the media portrayal of male students as ‘‘scholastic failures’’ inadequately reflecting the more complicated pattern of gender differences found in the quality of school leaving certificates and competency in different performance domains, we wondered whether school students are in fact aware of a negative school-related stereotype about boys, that is, whether they assume that people have stereotypical beliefs about boys behaving or performing less well in school in general. Hartley and Sutton (2013) have recently shown that girls as young as 4 and boys as young as 7 years had acquired academic-related gender stereotypes: In response to questions like ‘‘Who do grown-ups think (mostly boys or mostly girls) . . . do the best at school’’ or ‘‘. . . are better at sitting quietly and listening to the teacher’’ the children were significantly more likely to point to a silhouette depicting a female person than to a silhouette representing a male person. To our knowledge, no previous research has ever investigated academic-related gender stereotypes in older groups of school students. Therefore, using an open-response format, in Study 1 we investigated the assumptions that secondary school students have about people’s views on boys at school.

How the Public Depiction of ‘‘Failing Boys’’ May Impact Students via Stereotype Threat and Stereotype Reactance The potential impact of negative expectations – such as the ones expressed in the portrayal of boys as ‘‘failing at school’’ – has been extensively studied within the stereotype threat paradigm: In achievement contexts, individuals may underperform due to their awareness that their social group is not expected to do well (Steele, 1997). Therefore, whenever a stereotype pertaining to a person’s social group membership is a liability for succeeding in a task, and is activated within a testing situation, the person is at risk of underachieving. In a meta-analytic review, Nguyen and Ryan (2008) found an overall effect size of d = .26 for the impairment experienced by stigmatized test takers due to the situational activation of a negative stereotype. In Studies 2–4 we investigated whether exposure to the ‘‘failing boys’’ media discourse triggers stereotype threat in male school students in testing situations that are negatively related to the stereotype about males’ capabilities. We have speculated that exposure to the ‘‘failing boys’’ narrative not only triggers stereotype threat but at the same time motivates boys to counteract the disproportionately negative picture drawn about their own social group. In applying psychological reactance theory (Brehm, 1966) to achievement situations, Kray, Thompson, and Galinsky (2001) showed that perceived limitations of one’s performance ability – such as negative expectations expressed by others – can instigate stereotype reactance, that is, a motivation to counteract the negative stereotype about Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):112–126

one’s own social group. Through the use of blatant cues emphasizing a group’s inferiority on a test – as with the public portrayal of boys as ‘‘scholastic failures’’ – negative stereotypes are conveyed explicitly and thus become salient to test takers via a conscious mechanism (Nguyen & Ryan, 2008), enabling them to intentionally engage in stereotypeinconsistent behaviors (cf. Kray et al., 2001). To investigate whether exposure to the ‘‘failing boys’’ media discourse triggers stereotype threat and/or stereotype reactance, in Studies 2–4 we measured two different dependent variables: (A) students’ performance scores in standardized tests that were either positively (mathematics test) or negatively (reading test) related to the gender stereotype about males’ capabilities; and (B) students’ motivational goal orientation toward mathematics and reading. More specifically, following the performance tests, we asked students about their motivation to work on additional mathematics and reading tasks. They could choose between response options describing a learning goal orientation or a performance goal orientation (Leggett, 1985; Dweck & Leggett, 1988): Learning goal orientation refers to the understanding of learning and performance situations as opportunities for the acquisition of new knowledge and skills. In contrast, performance goal orientation focuses on demonstrating the adequacy of one’s competence, in order to be judged positively and to avoid negative evaluations. The two types of goal orientation foster different kinds of behavior in achievement situations: Learning goal orientation is characterized by a persistence in labouring over tasks, that may be quite challenging, and by the selection of tasks of a marked degree of skill-building, even if these are potentially more difficult to solve. In contrast, performance goal orientation corresponds to an avoidance of difficult tasks and rapid abandonment of these tasks as soon as difficulties are encountered, in order to (a) demonstrate a confident mastery of the subject, leading to positive evaluations (performance approach goals), and (b) in order to disguise a lack of skills, thus preventing negative evaluations (performance avoidance goals) (e.g., Elliot & Church, 1997; Spinath, Stiensmeier-Pelster, Schçne, & Dickh user, 2002; Vandewalle, 1997).

Potential Stereotype Threat Effects on Performance Outcomes and Goal Orientation How should stereotype threat become evident in our two dependent measures: Performance scores and motivational goal orientation? Since the media portrayal of ‘‘failing boys’’ capitalizes on implicit and explicit comparisons between the genders, we predicted that it would render gender stereotypes about males’ weaker abilities in reading and stronger abilities in mathematics highly mentally accessible (e.g., Hannover, 2000; Keller & Dauenheimer, 2003; Kessels & Hannover, 2008; Neuburger, Jansen, Heil, & Quaiser-Pohl, 2012). Activation of a stereotype in a testing situation causes threat if and only if it prescribes the person’s social group as a liability to succeed in the tasks 2014 Hogrefe Publishing

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at hand. We therefore predicted that stereotype threat effects would appear only in boys’ performance on tasks on which – according to gender stereotypes – they are not expected to do well, that is, on female connoted tasks. Hence, male students exposed to the depiction of ‘‘failing boys’’ should be inclined to confirm the negative stereotype about their group by underperforming on the reading tasks, but not on the mathematics tasks. Stereotype threat may, however, not only impact boys’ potential to highly achieve but also affect the way in which they approach the testing situation. For example, male students exposed to the depiction of boys as failing at school may adopt a performance goal orientation (i.e., they may avoid challenging tasks so as to receive positive evaluations (a performance approach goal) and prevent negative evaluations (a performance avoidance goal)), toward the reading tasks (but not the mathematics tasks), at the cost of a learning goal orientation. This prediction is in line with previous research showing that individuals targeted by negative expectations, or at risk of confirming a negative stereotype, focus their attention on how well they perform compared to others, rather than on solving the tasks at hand (Smith, 2004, 2006; Smith, Sansone, & White, 2007). Hence, they adopt a performance goal orientation, regulating – in that threatened motivational state – their behaviors according to a potentially negative outcome (cf., Vick, Seery, Blascovich, & Weisbuch, 2008). For instance, Smith found that women threatened by gender stereotypes relating to mathematical capabilities endorse more performance goals (a) than men (2006, Study 2), (b) than women of a counterstereotype control condition (2006; Study 1), and (c) than women for whom the stereotype was later nullified (Smith, 2004). To summarize, male students exposed to the portrayal of boys as ‘‘scholastic failures’’ should be more likely to report a performance goal orientation toward the reading tasks (and less likely to report learning goals) than boys who are not threatened by the portrayal: Boys of the experimental group focus on easy tasks because (a) they can be sure to accomplish them and thus to be evaluated positively (performance approach goals), and (b) in order to disguise potential deficits they may have and thus avoid negative evaluations (performance avoidance goals).

Potential Stereotype Reactance Effects on Performance Outcomes and Goal Orientation Exposure to the ‘‘failing boys’’ discourse may not only instigate feelings of threat in male students, but may simultaneously lead to stereotype reactance if they feel unfairly treated by the undifferentiated and overly negative depiction of their group: Indeed, boys (and girls) may well have a more differentiated understanding of gender differences in academic achievements than that portrayed in the public discourse, as a result of exposure to gender-related strengths and weaknesses (and of course, gender stereotypes) in school on a daily basis. Stereotype reactance effects may 2014 Hogrefe Publishing

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therefore become visible in boys trying to disconfirm the overly simplistic negative portrayal of male students as failing at school in general. There are two means by which boys may potentially counteract the negative depiction of their group: (a) by succeeding on the mathematics tasks (but not on the reading tasks) and (b) by reporting a strong learning goal orientation toward the mathematics tasks (but not toward the reading tasks). With option (a) above, it is possible that, even with a strong motivation to counteract the negative stereotype about their social group, boys may not improve their performance on the mathematics tasks: They may lack the necessary skills and strategies to achieve this (cf., Seibt & Fçrster, 2004, p. 54). We therefore considered option (b) above to be a more promising means of unveiling possible stereotype reactance effects: Boys may use the self-report on their motivational goal orientation toward mathematics as a compensatory strategy to counteract the negative group stereotype. Hence, we predicted that if exposure to the media portrayal of boys as ‘‘scholastic failures’’ instigates stereotype reactance, this should lead to boys more frequently reporting a learning goal orientation toward mathematics, but not (necessarily) to boys improving their performance on the mathematics tasks. To summarize our hypotheses, exposure to the portrayal of boys as ‘‘scholastic failures’’ should render gender stereotypes highly cognitively accessible, such that boys’ reactions should differ depending on whether the social category ‘‘males’’ is considered a liability or an advantage for succeeding on the tasks at hand. More specifically, we anticipated that, upon being confronted with the public discourse on ‘‘failing boys,’’ the boys would experience threat while working on tasks that are negatively related to the gender stereotype about males’ capabilities, thus resulting in impaired performance scores on the reading task. As regards the students’ self-reports on their motivational goal orientation toward reading and mathematics, two different predictions were considered plausible. Firstly, stereotype threat stemming from exposure to the ‘‘failing boys’’ discourse may instigate a performance goal orientation in male students toward female connoted tasks (reading). Alternatively, boys may use the self-report task/ measure on their motivational goal orientation to counteract the undifferentiated negative depiction of their group, as it does not adequately reflect real-world gender differences in performances: Stereotype reactance effects should then appear in male students’ descriptions of themselves as particularly learning goal oriented toward male connoted tasks (mathematics).

Overview of Our Studies In four studies we investigated how secondary school students react to the current media portrayal of boys as ‘‘failures’’ in the educational system. In Study 1 we wanted to find out whether male and female students have acquired stereotypes about boys failing at school. To investigate whether they assume that people in general have Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):112–126

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stereotypical beliefs about boys doing less well than girls in school, we asked them to describe what they thought people think about boys and about girls, using both an open answer format and several semantic differentials. In the remaining studies we used experimental designs to investigate how exposure to typical pieces of evidence from the discourse on ‘‘failing boys’’ impacts students’ performance outcomes and motivational goal orientation in a subject domain with a male connotation (mathematics), and a subject domain with a female connotation (reading). In Study 2 we measured performance in mathematics and reading via standardized tests. We expected boys in the experimental group (but not boys in the control group) to suffer from stereotype threat and to therefore underperform (i.e., show a decrease in performance from pre-test to posttest) in the female connoted domain of reading, but not in the male connoted domain of mathematics. No directional hypotheses were specified for girls. In Studies 3 and 4 we looked at motivational goal orientation in mathematics and reading. Two possible outcomes were envisaged. Firstly, boys in the experimental group could show a stronger performance goal orientation/weaker learning goal orientation toward the reading tasks than boys in the control group (with no such effects expected for the mathematics tasks), that is, evidence of stereotype threat. Alternatively, boys in the experimental group could report a stronger learning goal orientation/ weaker performance goal orientation toward the mathematics tasks than boys in the control group (with no effects now expected for reading tasks), that is, evidence of stereotype reactance. Again, no directional hypotheses were specified for girls.

Study 1 Method Participants Two hundred six ninth grade students (117 girls, 89 boys) from a large, urban-district comprehensive secondary school offering all school tracks (Gesamtschule) volunteered for this study. Their mean age was M = 14.67 years (SD = 0.67; range = 14–17 years). Procedure and Measurement The questionnaire study was conducted during regular class hours. Students were asked to describe their stereotypes about (a) boys and (b) girls (order of which was balanced across participants). The instruction read: ‘‘Please write down what people in general (‘‘die Leute’’) think about boys/girls? (Irrespective of your personal opinion! Write down as many terms or descriptions as you like!’’). After-

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wards, in a separate questionnaire, students were provided with 28 semantic differentials listing opposites of behavioral traits (e.g., intelligent vs. dumb; fair vs. unfair; adapted from Knigge & Hannover, 2011) and asked to rate them according to how typical they were for boys in general and, in a second round, for boys in school (5 point-answer scales stretched between the opposing trait terms). Time allowance for completion of these tasks was about 15 min.

Results Two independent raters extracted all behavioral descriptions (e.g., ‘‘boys disrupt teachers’ instructions’’) and trait terms (e.g., ‘‘boys are intelligent’’) from students’ open descriptions of stereotypes about boys and girls. With the synonymous expressions of a participant counted as one, a total of N = 961 statements were collected. Each of the statements was then categorized by the two coders, in a first round according to whether they were positive or negative, and in a second round according to whether they were school-related (e.g., ‘‘intelligent,’’ ‘‘ambitious’’) or not (e.g., ‘‘humorous,’’ ‘‘cheerful’’) (Cohen’s j = 0.86, interrater agreement: 93.4%). An additional rating according to whether the school-related statements referred to a particular performance domain (e.g., ‘‘good at math’’) had to be dropped, due to extremely low frequencies of statements including such references. Of all statements, 426 negative and 87 positive ones referred to boys, and 211 negative and 237 positive ones referred to girls, v2(1, N = 961) = 138.24, p < .001. Of the 336 statements categorized as school-related, that is, describing students’ stereotypes about boys and girls in school, 165 negative and 21 positive ones referred to boys, whereas 14 negative and 136 positive ones referred to girls, v2(1, N = 336) = 185.91, p < .001. The same pattern of findings resulted from separate analyses of school-related statements generated by boys (73 negative and 6 positive statements describing boys; 3 negative and 55 positive statements describing girls, v2(1, N = 137) = 103.00, p < .001), or generated by girls (92 negative and 15 positive statements describing boys; 11 negative and 81 positive statements describing girls, v2(1, N = 199) = 108.56, p < .001). Students’ ratings on the semantic differentials were coded in such a manner that higher values expressed endorsement of negative trait terms. Mean ratings describing boys in general (a = 0.91) and in school in particular (a = 0.95) were subjected to a 2 (Gender of test person) · 2 (Context) mixed ANOVA with context (general vs. school) as a repeated measures factor. First, we found a significant main effect for gender, F(1, 200) = 11.67, p = .001, g2 = .06: Overall, female students rated boys more negatively, M = 3.43, than male students did, M = 3.18. Regardless of participants’ gender we found an influence of the rating context, F(1, 200) = 22.31, p < .001,

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g2 = .10: Boys at school were described in more negative terms, M = 3.42, than boys in general, M = 3.21.

Discussion In the public discourse boys are described as ‘‘scholastic failures’’ and as inferior to girls. The aim of Study 1 was to clarify whether male and female secondary school students, that is, those targeted by the negative (or positive) stereotypes, have acquired stereotypes according to which people in general view their social group as associated with poor (or respectively strong) capabilities, and negative (or respectively positive) behaviors in school. Students’ descriptions yielded clear evidence for such stereotypes: Male students were mainly characterized by negative trait terms or behavioral descriptions, whereas female students were predominantly described in a positive manner. Similar findings resulted from the analysis of students’ ratings on the semantic differentials. Here, both male and female students (a) ascribed more negative trait adjectives to boys than to girls, and (b) described boys at school – as compared to boys in general – in a particularly negative manner. These results show that male and female students agree in their view that people in general have negative expectations toward boys in school. Hence, negative school-related stereotypes about boys seem to have also arrived in the classroom. The potential effects that exposure to these stereotypes – via a typical piece of evidence from the media portrayal of ‘‘failing boys’’ – may have on students were investigated in Studies 2–4.

Study 2 Method Participants One hundred twenty-four ninth grade students (69 boys, 55 girls) from a large, urban-district intermediate secondary school (Realschule) volunteered in this study. Their mean age was M = 14.61 years (SD = 0.70; range = 14– 17 years). Half of the boys and girls were randomly assigned to the experimental group (38 boys and 26 girls) and half to the control group (31 boys and 29 girls). To increase task compliance and encourage students to finish the questionnaires in their entirety, we paid €10 to the cashbox of the class to reward each completed questionnaire. Procedure and Measurement The study was conducted during regular class hours in two consecutive lessons. To control for students’ initial performance level, irrespective of the experimental treatment, a

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pre-post test design was used. Students worked on a total of 54 tasks (reading: 30, mathematics: 24). Tasks had either a multiple-choice format or consisted of short open-ended questions. They were taken from standardized tests reflecting the curriculum in the school subjects of German and mathematics for ninth grade in German schools (VERA 8 Vergleichsaufgaben, IQB, 2008). Students first worked for 15 min on the 15 pre-test reading comprehension tasks, and then spent further 15 min on the12 pre-test mathematics tasks. The order in which students worked on both types of tasks was balanced across students. Following a 10 min break, students were then exposed to the experimental treatment. In the experimental condition they read an abbreviated half-page long version of a newspaper article taken from Der Spiegel (‘‘Schlaue M dchen, dumme Jungs’’; ‘‘Smart girls, dumb boys’’) from May 17th, 2004, regarding the educational success of boys and girls, masked as an interdisciplinary reading and mathematics task. It highlighted that boys gain less competence in general in school than girls, and that girls obtain better diplomas (from a higher scholastic track) compared to boys. Also, the relevance of these circumstances for the position of boys and young men in society and the impact of these findings for the future were addressed. No information about domain-specific, gender-related differences was given. Furthermore, one figure displayed the empirical data that was described (i.e., school diplomas of boys vs. girls in 2011) to substantiate the content of the text. Participants in the control group read an article of the same structure and length, describing (gender neutral) changes in the German school system. To obscure the purpose of our treatment and to ensure that students had extracted the relevant information from text and figure, they were asked four questions (two single choice tasks, two open-ended questions). Students were given 10 min to read the articles and answer the manipulation check questions. Following the experimental manipulation, students worked for 15 min on the 15 post-test reading comprehension tasks and for another 15 min on the 12 mathematics tasks, again with the sequence of the two blocks of tasks counterbalanced across students. Finally, students were asked to state their gender and were then carefully debriefed. Overall, the duration of the study was 90 (€10) min.

Results Initial Performance and Manipulation Check Twenty boys and 4 girls were excluded from further analysis as they did not take the experiment seriously: Despite a chance of getting 30% correct just by guessing in the performance pre-test and post-test, these students solved less than 10% of the reading and mathematics tasks. They also responded to two or more of the four (very easy to answer)

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manipulation check questions (e.g., ‘‘Are there more girls or more boys attending a Gymnasium?’’) incorrectly, suggesting that they did not (want to) properly understand the texts used as experimental stimuli. Also, in many cases we found dismissive comments scribbled on the questionnaires or response patterns suggesting that the questionnaires had not been filled out in a sincere manner (e.g., only boxes in the middle had been checked). The remaining 100 valid data sets were distributed across experimental conditions as follows: experimental group: 27 boys and 23 girls, control group: 22 boys and 28 girls. Calculation of Performance Scores Separately for pre-test and post-test we calculated percentages of correct answers.With Cronbach’s a = 0.66 for the reading comprehension tasks and a = 0.67 for the mathematical tasks, a sufficient reliability score sensu Cohen (1988) was achieved. Pre-test performance scores did not differ between experimental conditions, for reading or for SD = 15.63, mathematics; reading: MEC = 57.47, MCC = 56.11, SD = 16.84; mathematics: MEC = 39.53, SD = 18.39, MCC = 37.54, SD = 17.28; all F < 1, n.s. Also, initial performance scores did not differ between boys and girls; reading: Mboys = 57.94, SD = 15.63; Mgirls = 55.69, SD = 16.77; mathematics: Mboys = 39.09, SD = 16.15; Mgirls = 38.01, SD = 19.36; all F < 1, n.s. (interactions for Experimental condition · Gender in reading and mathematics: F < 1, n.s.). Performance Outcomes2

Reading Mean reading performance scores are depicted in Figure 1. These were subjected to a 2 (Gender) · 2 (Experimental condition) · 2 (Measurement time) mixed ANOVA with measurement time (pre-test vs. post-test) as repeated measures factors. A statistical three-way-interaction between gender, experimental condition, and measurement time emerged, F(1, 96) = 10.43, p < .01, g2 = .10: As expected, in male students who had read the article about boys falling behind in school, reading performance scores declined to a greater extent from pre-test (M = 57.41) to post-test (M = 27.31) than in boys who had read the article about

Figure 1. Pre-test and post-test performance scores in reading comprehension separated by experimental and control groups and gender of test takers. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. Black error bars indicate standard deviations.

changes in the German school system (pre-test: M = 58.59, post-test: M = 40.91). Also, the decrease in their performance scores was stronger than that observed in girls in both the experimental group (pre-test: M = 57.53, post-test: M = 49.73) and the control condition (pre-test: M = 54.17, post-test: M = 37.28). Post hoc single comparisons revealed that, as expected, only the differences in the post-tests were significant. In particular, boys in the experimental group performed significantly more poorly than boys in the control condition, t(47) = 2.45, p < .05, than girls in the experimental condition, t(48) = 5.01, p < .001, while girls in the experimental group outperformed girls in the control group t(49 = 2.54, p = <.05. The three-way-interaction was accompanied by a significant main effect for measurement time revealing that, irrespective of gender or experimental condition, the performance in the pre-test was better, M = 56.79, than in the post-test, M = 38.25, F(1, 96) = 118.50, p < .001, g2 = .55. A significant statistical interaction between measurement time and gender was also found, F(1, 92) = 12.01. p = .001, g2 = .11: while boys, M = 57.94, and girls, M = 55.69, reached comparable scores in the pre-test, in the post-test boys’ performance scores were much lower, M = 33.41, than girls’ scores, M = 42.90. Difference scores for post-test – pre-test were: Mboys_EC = 30.09, Mboys_CC = 17.68, Mgirls_EC = 7.81, Mgirls_CC = 16.89.

The most comprehensive analysis of performance outcomes would have been a 2 (Experimental condition) · 2 (Gender of test person) · 2 (Measurement time) · 2 (Performance domain) mixed ANOVA with measurement time (pre-test vs. post-test) and performance domain (German vs. math) as repeated measures factors. Results showed, however, that due to mental fatigue performances generally declined from pre-test to post-test, irrespective of any of the other factors included in the mixed ANOVA. By implication, the four-way-interaction had no chance to prevail, F < 1. The same problem applied to an ANOVA we conducted on difference scores between pre-test and post-test (in order to save one repeated measures factor; F < 1; for the three-way-interaction). For that reason, analyses on performance outcomes were conducted separately for the two performance domains of reading and mathematics.

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Study 3 Method

Participants

Figure 2. Pre-test and post-test performance scores in mathematics separated by experimental and control group and gender of test takers. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. Black error bars indicate standard deviations.

Mathematics Mean performance scores for mathematics are depicted in Figure 2. A 2 (Gender) · 2 (Experimental condition) · 2 (Measurement time) mixed ANOVA with measurement time (pre-test vs. post-test) as repeated measures factors revealed a main effect for measurement time, F(1, 96) = 22.54, p < .001, g2 = .19, indicating lower percentages correct in the post-test, M = 28.20, than in the pre-test, M = 38.54. Neither the interaction between measurement time and gender, F < 1, the interaction between measurement time and experimental condition, F < 1, n.s., nor the three-way-interaction reached statistical significance, F(1, 96) = 2.34, p = .13 (difference scores post-test – pre-test: Mboys_EC = 13.65, Mboys_CC = 7.13, Mgirls_EC = 6.45, Mgirls_CC = 12.86).

Discussion As expected, following exposure to the media depiction of boys as failing at school, male students performed less well on the reading performance test than boys in the control group. No effects were observed for performance outcomes in mathematics. These findings are in line with our assumption that boys suffer from stereotype threat only in performance domains that are negatively related to their social group. Interestingly, and supportive of this interpretation, the pattern of results for girls exactly mirrored that found for boys: they profited in their reading performance but not their mathematics performance from having read the text implying negative expectations about the outgroup of boys, indicating a stereotype lift effect. In Study 3 we wanted to find out whether the negative expectations implied in the public portrayal of boys as failing at school also impact the way in which students approach achievement situations, that is, their motivational goal orientation. 2014 Hogrefe Publishing

One hundred ninth grade students (49 boys, 51 girls) from a large, urban-district, top track secondary school (Gymnasium) volunteered in the study. Their mean age was M = 14.45 years (SD = 0.54, range = 14–16 years). Half of the male and female students were randomly assigned to the experimental group (24 boys and 26 girls) and half to the control condition (25 boys and 25 girls). As a reward for participation, €10 were given to the class’s cashbox for each completed questionnaire. Procedure and Measurement The study was conducted during class hours, across two consecutive lessons. In order to check for possible performance differences and to justify the measurement of motivational goal orientation toward anticipated future tasks (our dependent measure), students were first asked to work on several achievement tasks (the same ones used in Study 2: 15 tasks pertaining to reading comprehension and 12 to mathematics, with the sequence of the two blocks of tasks balanced across students). Following this, the experimental treatment was administered. A different newspaper clipping than that used to highlight the media depiction of boys as failing in school in Study 2 was chosen for the current study; in this way we hoped to demonstrate that the effect of the experimental treatment was not dependent on the particular wording or content of the negative expectationinducing cue. In the experimental condition, students were provided with a table and two graphs illustrating that boys earn relatively fewer prestigious diplomas (in terms of school-track attended) than girls (taken from Mikrozensus, Statistisches Bundesamt, 2011). In the control condition, the same table and graphs were used, however, this time labeled as the distribution of students (irrespective of gender) across different school types. In both conditions, students then responded to six manipulation check questions (that were very easy to answer and similar to the ones used in Study 2). After this, additional tasks similar to those students had already worked on were announced. For each of the two subject domains (with sequence balanced across students), students were asked to respond to the 1-item measure Leggett (1985) had developed to measure learning goals and performance goals. ‘‘What kind of tasks would you prefer to work on?’’ The four response options read: ‘‘problems that aren’t too hard, so I don’t get many wrong’’ (performance avoidance goal), ‘‘problems that are pretty easy, so I’ll do well’’ (performance avoidance goal), ‘‘problems that I’m pretty good at, so I can show that I’m smart’’ (performance approach goal), ‘‘problems that I’ll learn a lot from, even if I won’t look so smart’’ (learning goal). Finally, students were asked to indicate their gender and were carefully debriefed. The duration of the whole study was 60 (€ 5) min. Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):112–126

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Results

Manipulation Check Again, several students had to be excluded from further analysis because it appears they did not want to cooperate with the study: Eight boys and five girls not only responded incorrectly to four or more out of the six manipulation check questions, but also produced conspicuous response patterns (e.g., boxes were ticked in a diagonal pattern or always in the middle) or had written ridiculing comments into the questionnaires. Of the remaining 87 students, n = 46 were in the experimental group (20 boys and 26 girls) and n = 41 in the control group (21 boys and 20 girls). Pre-Test Performance Outcomes No initial performance differences were observed in reading and mathematics between the experimental and control condition; reading: MEC = 63.40, SD = 20.23, MCC = 63.17, SD = 18.43; F < 1, n.s.; mathematics: MEC = 56.60, SD = 19.59, MCC = 54.50, SD = 19.34; all F < 1, n.s. Also, the initial performance of boys and girls did not differ; reading: Mboys = 62.50, SD = 21.06; Mgirls = 63.97, SD = 17.89; F < 1, n.s.; mathematics: Mboys = 58.00, SD = 19.11; Mgirls = 53.61, SD = 19.61; F < 1, n.s. (both interactions for Condition · Gender, F < 1). Motivational Goal Orientation The two items describing a performance avoidance goal were collapsed into one category in both the reading and mathematics, as suggested by Dweck and Leggett (1988). Distributions of the frequencies with which students chose one of the three different goal orientations are depicted in Table 1. Results showed that, with respect to reading, about half of the students (19 boys and 21 girls) had a learning goal orientation. The remaining 21 boys and 20 girls indicated a performance goal orientation, with about half of them choosing a performance avoidance goal (9 boys, 8 girls) and half choosing a performance approach goal (12 boys, 12 girls). In contrast, with respect to mathematics, most students (25 boys and 29 girls) pursued performance goals,

with the majority of them focused on performance avoidance goals (15 boys, 21 girls; performance approach goals: 10 boys, 8 girls). Only 15 boys and 12 girls pursued learning goals in mathematics. When comparing experimental and control groups, no differences appeared in the performance domain of reading: Irrespective of whether students had read the statistics on boys’ weaker scholastic achievements or the control group text on different school types, about half of the boys (v2(2, N = 40) = .50, p = .78) and girls (v2(2, N = 41) = 2.82, p = .24) pursued a learning goal when anticipating the additional reading tasks. A different pattern of findings was observed when comparing the experimental and control groups for mathematics: Having read the statistics about male students’ lower school success, many more boys now expressed a learning goal orientation while much fewer boys expressed performance avoidance goals or performance approach goals than boys having read the control group text, v2(2, N = 40) = 10.59, p < .01. This difference was also significant when performance approach goals and performance avoidance goals were collapsed into one category, v2(1, N = 40) = 10.17, p = .001, or when only performance avoidance goals (and no performance approach goals) were included into the analysis, v2(1, N = 30) = 6.65, p < .01. In contrast, for girls, no effect of the experimental treatment was observed, v2(2, N = 40) = 1.67, p = .43. To integrate findings for the two performance domains into a single analysis, and to control for a potential influence of performance outcomes, motivational goal orientations were dummy coded (0 = performance goal, 1 = learning goal) and subjected to a binary logistic regression, with the following predictors: gender (1 = male), experimental condition (1 = EC), performance domain (1 = math), interaction term Gender · Condition, threeway-interaction term Gender · Condition · Performance domain, and performance scores in the respective tests. Results were in line with the findings from the Chi-square tests. The only significant predictor was the threeway-interaction, B = 1.69, SE(B) = .766, Wald = 4.85, p < .05, R2 = .14 (and, concurrently, performance domain, B = 1.16, SE(B) = .404, Wald = 8.19, p < .01.). The three-way-interaction indicates that in boys, the experimental treatment instigated a learning goal orientation toward mathematics but not toward reading whereas it did not have any effect on girls’ motivational goal orientation.

Table 1. Frequencies of motivational goal orientations in reading and mathematics for boys and girls in Study 3 Boys Performance avoidance goal Experimental group Control group Experimental group Control group

5 4

Performance approach goal

5 7 v2(2, N = 40) = 0.50, p = .78 5 2 10 8 v2(2, N = 40) = 10.59, p < .01

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Girls Learning goal

Performance avoidance goal

10 9

5 3

12 3

Performance approach goal

4 8 v2(2, N = 41) = 2.82, p = .24 11 3 10 5 v2(2, N = 41) = 1.67, p = .43

Learning goal 13 8 8 4

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Discussion

Procedure and Measurement

Results show that, following exposure to the media portrayal of boys failing in school, male students indicated a stronger learning goal orientation in mathematics than following exposure to a gender neutral piece of information on the school system. No effects were observed for boys in the reading domain, or for girls. These findings are inconsistent with the assumption that stereotype threat diminished boys’ motivational goal orientation toward reading. Instead, results are compatible with our alternative prediction according to which boys should use the self-report on their motivational goal orientation as a compensatory strategy, to counteract the overgeneralized negative description of their social group which did not give an adequate account of boys’ strong competences in mathematics. Accordingly, boys’ motivation to disconfirm the negative portrayal of their group became apparent in their motivational goal orientation toward mathematics. Further supporting this interpretation, girls’ motivational goal orientation was unaffected by having read the text since it did not instigate stereotype reactance in female students. As we had specified two alternative predictions about how exposure to the ‘‘failing boys’’ issue might impact male students in their motivational goal orientation, our finding that boys reacted against the negative portrayal of their group by reporting strong learning goals toward mathematics warranted replication.

The same procedure and measures as in Study 3 were applied, the only difference being that no performance tests were administered. Students were given an example of a typical reading task and of a mathematics task (taken from the pre-test of Study 3, with order balanced across participants). Each task was followed by the question ‘‘What kind of tasks would you prefer to work on?’’ together with the four response options measuring different motivational goal orientations (see above).

Study 4: Replication of Study 3 Method Participants Eighty eight ninth grade students (46 girls, 42 boys, Mage = 14.60, SD = 0.71, range 14–17 years) from a Berlin middle school (integrated secondary school) volunteered in the study. Half of the male and female students were randomly assigned to the experimental group (21 boys and 23 girls) or control condition (21 boys and 23 girls). As a reward for participation, €10 were given to the class’s cashbox for each completed questionnaire.

Results Manipulation Check Applying the same criteria as in Study 3, 4 boys and 4 girls were excluded from further analysis. Of the remaining 38 boys and 42 girls, 20 boys and 21 girls were in the experimental group and 18 boys and 21 girls were in the control condition. Motivational Goal Orientation Frequency distributions for the three motivational goal orientations are depicted in Table 2. As in Study 3, boys were unaffected by the experimental treatment in their motivational goal orientation toward reading tasks, v2(2, N = 38) = 0.40, p = .82. As for the mathematics tasks, boys who read the media portrayal of male students as failing at school expressed a learning goal orientation significantly more frequently than boys of the control group, v2(2, N = 38) = 10.44, p < .01. This difference was also significant when performance approach goals and performance avoidance goals were collapsed into one category, v2(1, N = 38) = 9.73, p < .01, or when only performance avoidance goals (and no performance approach goals) were included into the analysis, v2(1, N = 29) = 10.20, p < .001. Girls’ motivational goal orientation was the same across experimental conditions, irrespective of whether the tasks related to reading, v2(2, N = 40) = 1.06, p = .59, or mathematics, v2(2, N = 42) = 0.87, p = .70. As in Study 3, a binary regression analysis with the predictors: gender (1 = male), experimental condition

Table 2. Frequencies of motivational goal orientations in reading and mathematics for boys and girls in Study 4 Boys Performance avoidance goal Experimental group Control group Experimental group Control group

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8 9

Performance approach goal

7 5 v2(2, N = 38) = 0.40, p = .82 4 4 11 5 v2(2, N = 38) = 10.44, p < .01

Girls Learning goal

Performance avoidance goal

5 4

6 7

12 2

Performance approach goal

8 5 v2(2, N = 40) = 1.06, p = .59 10 4 13 3 v2(2, N = 42) = 0.87, p = .70

Learning goal 6 8 7 5

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(1 = EC), performance domain (1 = math), interaction term Gender · Condition, and three-way-interaction term Gender · Condition · Performance domain, revealed a significant three-way-interaction, B = 1.91, SE(B) = .808, Wald = 5.60, p < .05. R2 = .11 (no other predictors became significant (B <˙ 853¸ p > .13): Compared to boys from the control group, boys in the experimental condition were more likely to indicate a learning goal orientation in mathematics while no differences between the groups were observed with respect to reading.

Discussion Replicating the findings from Study 3, after reading the media portrayal of boys as failing academically, male students expressed a stronger learning goal orientation toward a performance domain that, according to gender stereotypes, is associated with higher ability in males than females (i.e., mathematics), while their motivation toward a female connoted task, reading, remained unchanged. Hence, results from both Study 3 and Study 4 are in line with our assumption that the experimental treatment instigated stereotype reactance: With the media portrayal of boys’ academic performance inadequately reflecting boys’ strengths in male connoted domains, boys tried to disconfirm the negative depiction of their group by describing themselves as highly learning goal oriented toward mathematics.

General Discussion In four studies, we examined the psychological consequences of portraying boys in the mass media as ‘‘scholastic failures.’’ While in the public discourse male students are described as failing at school in general, evidence-based scientific studies reveal a more differentiated picture: Boys obtain poorer grades and earn lower school leaving certificates than girls, however, studies measuring competencies with standardized tests (rather than grades) found that, on average (and in Germany, where our studies were conducted), boys underperform only in female connoted subjects domains (e.g., reading) but actually outperform girls in male connoted domains (e.g., mathematics). In our first study we aimed to elucidate whether secondary school students have acquired stereotypes that are consistent with the public discourse, that is, whether they believe that people in general see boys as failing at school. Analyses of students’ open descriptions and ratings on semantic differentials revealed that both girls and boys described boys (a) in much more negative terms than girls, and (b) particularly when the descriptions pertained to the school context. These findings suggest that while the media portrayal of boys does not adequately cover gender-specific strengths and weaknesses in specific academic domains, this media coverage is in fact in line with the stereotypes held by male and female school students themselves. Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):112–126

Our findings are in line with those reported by Hartley and Sutton (2013) who found negative academic-related gender stereotypes in children as young as 4 to 7 years old. In their study, using a forced-choice design, children had to assign preset behavioral descriptions to either a male or a female person. In our own study, we used a less reactive method: Students described their perceptions of what people think about boys in an open-response format. We can therefore rule out that our findings were produced by demand characteristics or priming of gender stereotypes. While the children studied by Hartley and Sutton (2013) were in a developmental phase during which gender stereotypes are known to be particularly rigidly applied (e.g., Trautner et al., 2007), our findings show that more mature school students also hold negative stereotypes about boys at school. In three additional studies, we investigated how exposure to a typical piece of evidence from the public discourse on boys as failing at school impacts secondary school students in their ability to perform and their motivational goal orientation. We had expected that the negative media depiction of boys would strengthen gender-stereotyping via stereotype threat and stereotype reactance: Boys were predicted to (a) suffer from stereotype threat while working on reading tasks but not mathematics tasks (stereotype confirmation), and (b) at the same time counteract the negative portrayal of their group by describing their learning goal orientation toward mathematics, but not reading, as particularly strong (stereotype reactance). For girls, no directional hypotheses were proposed. We examined two different dependent variables: Performance outcomes and self-reports of motivation goal orientation. While boys’ ability to perform should be particularly sensitive to stereotype threat, self-descriptions of motivation can be used as a compensatory strategy to disconfirm the negative description of one’s group as ‘‘scholastic failures’’ (stereotype reactance). In our second study we investigated performance outcomes. As expected, after reading a newspaper clip about boys’ academic struggles, male students performed significantly worse on reading tasks compared to those who read a gender neutral text about the German school system. In contrast, no decrease in performance was observed in boys with respect to the mathematics tasks. It seems, exposure to the negative portrayal of boys increased the salience of gender stereotypes about both ‘‘typically male’’ weaknesses (in reading) and ‘‘typically male’’ strengths (in mathematics). As a result, boys suffered from stereotype threat and underperformed while working on the reading tasks but not while working on the mathematics tasks connoted as ‘‘for boys.’’ Substantiating our interpretation of the findings for boys, female students profited from stereotype lift in their reading performance but not their mathematics performance: Having read the text about boys as ‘‘scholastic failures’’ girls obtained significantly higher scores in the reading test than both, boys having read the text and girls not having read the text. While the negative media portrayal described boys as failing at school in general, stereotype threat effects in boys and stereotype lift effects in girls appeared only with respect to the reading tasks. It seems, exposure to the ‘‘failing boys’’ text increased the accessibil 2014 Hogrefe Publishing

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ity of gender stereotypes such that threat and lift effects were only observed for the performance domain in which – on average – boys in fact perform less well than girls. With gender stereotypes more accurately reflecting realworld gender differences in subject-specific competencies than the generally negative stereotype about boys as ‘‘scholastic failures,’’ the mass media portrayal contributes to an amplification of gender-stereotyping: Boys and girls exposed to the overly negative depiction of male students produced a pattern of performance in reading versus mathematics that was more gender-typed than that of students unthreatened by that depiction. Hence, exposure to the negative portrayal of boys contributed to the maintenance of performancerelated gender stereotypes, in a self-fulfilling manner. To our knowledge no study has ever shown that stereotype lift can be induced in females by – subtly or blatantly – activating their membership in the group of girls or women. Research on stereotype lift has typically investigated individuals from non-stereotyped groups, showing that they may profit from exposure to a negative stereotype about an outgroup (see Shih, Pittinsky, & Ho, 2012, for a review). For instance, in a meta-analytic review Walton and Cohen (2003) found an effect size of d = .24 for members of non-stereotyped groups performing better when negative expectations about an outgroup were activated, compared to when they were not. The piece of evidence from the media discourse on ‘‘failing boys’’ described male students in a very negative manner, and implicitly addressed female students as the relatively superior group. As a result, girls participating in our study profited from stereotype lift. It seems, the vulnerability caused by an individual being a member of a stigmatized group can be flipped into that of an individual profiting from positive expectations stemming from that very group membership in a given academic situation. Our second study adds to previous research on stereotype threat in two respects. Firstly, studies investigating stereotype confirmation effects have typically looked at the consequences that exposure to a negative group stereotype has on test takers’ performance in the achievement domain in which – according to the stereotype – they are not expected to do well. In our study, since we were – more broadly – interested in finding out how the negative public portrayal of boys may impact school students, we included tasks that were both negatively and positively related to the stereotype about males. Our results illustrate that threat emanating from the negative portrayal of boys did not operate like a general negative self-fulfilling prophecy (i.e., it did not impair boys’ performances across different subject domains), but rather impaired male students’ performance only on tasks for which their social group membership is considered a liability. Also, the stereotype lift effect we found in girls proved to be domain-specific: they profited from the negative depiction of the outgroup of boys only in the performance domain that is positively related to their social group. Secondly, our experiment adds to previous research on stereotype threat in that most past studies investigated and found adverse effects of group-related expectations on performance outcomes in members of stigmatized groups, such as women, or members of ethnic minorities. For 2014 Hogrefe Publishing

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instance, the most frequently investigated stereotype is likely to be that pertaining to mathematics abilities (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 2002): 72 of the 116 studies included in Nguyen and Ryan’s (2008) meta-analysis on stereotype threat effects investigated performance impairment suffered by female test takers when being exposed to the negative mathematics stereotype about girls or women. The very rare studies that have reported stereotype threat effects in males have typically investigated noncognitive abilities, such as social sensitivity (Koenig & Eagly, 2005), social intelligence (Cadinu, Maass, Lombardo, & Frigerio, 2006), or affective processing (i.e., making judgments on the affective meaning of words; Leyens, Desert, Croizet, & Darcis, 2000). For female connoted cognitive domains, we are aware of only three studies (Hirnstein, Freund, & Hausmann, 2012; Keller, 2007; Seibt & Fçrster, 2004) that have investigated potential stereotype threat effects for males. All three of these studies examined the gender-stereotype relating to females’ stronger verbal abilities than males. Adding to their findings, in our second study we found males to be vulnerable to negative performance-related expectations in the female connoted cognitive domain of reading. Combined with the results of our first study, it seems that male school students should now be considered members of a stigmatized group, that is, as individuals belonging to a social category about which others hold negative beliefs or stereotypes (Crocker & Major, 1989). Results of our third and fourth study substantiated the assumption that exposure to the ‘‘failing boys’’ text not only triggered stereotype threat but, at the same time, instigated a motivation in boys to counter the overly negative description of their social group. With the media portrayal of boys inadequately referring to their advantage in mathematics, many boys reacted by describing their motivation toward mathematics, but not toward reading, as learning goal oriented. Consistent with this interpretation, the experimental treatment did not affect female students’ selfreports of their motivational goal orientation towards mathematics: as they were described as the superior group in the media text, no stereotype reactance was triggered in girls. The difference in motivational goal orientation towards mathematics between boys in the experimental and the control group was also found if performance approach goals and performance avoidance goals were collapsed into one category, or when only performance avoidance goals (and no performance approach goals) were included in the analysis: While we adopted Dweck and Leggett’s (1988) approach according to which performance goal orientation comprises both, seeking to establish the adequacy of one’s ability (performance approach goal), and hiding one’s inability (performance avoidance goals), one might argue that other researchers investigating the effects of stereotype threat on motivational goal orientations only included performance avoidance goals (Smith et al., 2007). It is possible that our male students’ self-reports of their motivational goal orientation not only reflect their endeavor to disconfirm the negative depiction of their group, but also indicate that in fact stereotype reactance instigated a heightened state of eagerness toward the mathematics tasks. Seibt and Fçrster (2004) showed that negative and positive perSocial Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):112–126

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formance-related stereotypes trigger prevention or promotion-focused modes of self-regulation, respectively. Our results are compatible with the view that a promotion-focused state of eagerness can also be induced by stereotype reactance, that is, the motivation to counteract a negative stereotype about one’s social group: Male students who read the article describing boys as failing in school were more likely to report a learning goal (i.e., to choose further mathematics tasks as an opportunity to expand their skills, and to consider difficult mathematics tasks as particularly attractive) than boys of the control group. Hence, their motivational state resembled a promotion focus of eagerness, characterized by approach strategies and a willingness to take risks. By the same token, following exposure to the negative portrayal of their group, fewer boys pursued performance goals than boys from the control group. Specifically, they were less likely to focus on easy mathematics tasks (which are preferable if test takers aim to either boost confidence by excelling at them (performance approach goals), or to disguise deficits they may have (performance avoidance goals)), that is, they were less likely to report a motivational state resembling a prevention focus of vigilance, characterized by risk and error avoidance. Future studies may investigate whether a promotion self-regulatory focus cannot only be induced by positive stereotypes (Seibt & Fçrster, 2004) but also via stereotype reactance. Such studies should certainly complement self-reports with nonreactive measures, like cardiovascular data (Vick et al., 2008), in order to disentangle the different explanations that we cannot distinguish between when interpreting our threatened participants’ self-descriptions of their motivational goal orientation.

Conclusions Have male and female secondary school students acquired stereotypes about boys as failing at school? Are boys at risk of underachieving in performance domains that – according to gender stereotypes – are ‘‘for girls?’’ Do boys react against the negative depiction of their group by aligning their learning goals to the gender connotation of the performance domains? The findings of this research suggest that male students, who are directly exposed to negative expectations from the portrayal of ‘‘failing boys’’ in the media, underperform on tasks that are connoted as female and focus their learning goals on tasks that are connoted as male. It seems that the public discourse on boys as ‘‘scholastic failures,’’ and oversimplifying the domain-specific performance-related strengths and weaknesses of both genders, forces boys into gender-stereotypic behaviors that contribute to both the maintenance and strengthening of academic-related gender stereotypes.

Acknowledgments This research was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [DFG, Grant No. HA-2381/11-2], allocated to the second author. Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):112–126

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Martin Latsch Department of Educational Science and Psychology Freie Universit t Berlin Habelschwerdter Allee 45 14195 Berlin Germany Tel. +49 30 8385-6954 Fax +49 30 8385-6959 E-mail martin.latsch@fu-berlin.de

Received May 16, 2013 Revision received August 12, 2013 Accepted September 10, 2013 Published online March 25, 2014

Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):112â&#x20AC;&#x201C;126

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