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This research was conducted as part of SAGES: Study for the Advancement of Graduate Education and Scholarship. SAGES is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant #1661214.

Louisa G. Soohoo¹, Peter M. Ruberton¹, Jackson O. Harper¹, Geoffrey L. Cohen², Valerie Purdie Greenaway³, Joshua M. Smyth¹, & Jonathan E. Cook¹

The Associations between Gender-Based Stereotype Threat, Negative Affect, and Belonging Among Ph.D. Students

¹The Pennsylvania State University; ²Stanford University; ³Columbia University

Introduction

• Half or more of Ph.D. students in STEM fields leave graduate school before completing their degrees, a problem particularly pronounced among women (Council of Graduate Schools, 2008)
• Little research has examined the unique challenges that women face in graduate school that might contribute to their elevated rates of attrition
• Stereotype threat is fear of being judged according to a negative stereotype (Aronson, 2004), which can lead to worse performance in academic settings (e.g., Aronson et al., 1998)
• Threats that women in Ph.D. programs face based on their gender may create an affectively negative experience, contributing to gender discrepancies in feelings of belonging
• We examined the extent to which gender-based stereotype threat predicts negative affect and lower feelings of belonging in graduate school and whether negative affect mediates the role of stereotype threat in belonging

Methods

Participants

293 first-year Ph.D. students (51.2% female) from three US research universities with complete data on all variables

Procedures (see Figure 1)

• Gender-based stereotype threat was assessed at the beginning of the academic year
• Negative affect was reported using smartphone-based surveys during seven week-long assessment bursts spread through the academic year
• 4 assessments per day
• Scores were averaged within each day, then across all 7 survey weeks
• Feelings of belonging in graduate school were assessed in a web-based survey following the final smartphone survey burst

Results

• Women (M = 3.30) experienced greater gender-based stereotype threat at the beginning of the academic year than men (M = 2.18), t(291) = 7.76, p < .001, d = 0.85
• Gender-based stereotype threat was correlated with increased negative affect (r = .11, p = .068) and decreased feelings of belonging in graduate school (r = -.22, p < .001)
• Controlling for stereotype threat, average daily negative affect predicted decreased feelings of belonging at the end of the academic year, b = -0.033, t(290) = 8.15, p < .001

Mediation models

• We examined path models predicting end-of-year belonging from gender-based stereotype threat via negative affect
• The indirect effect of gender-based stereotype threat on belonging via negative affect approached significance, indirect effect b = -0.037, bootstrapped 95% CI [-0.085, .009]
• In an exploratory model controlling for expected gender differences in negative affect, the indirect effect of gender-based stereotype threat and belonging via negative affect was significant, conditional indirect effect b = -0.059, bootstrapped 95% CI [-0.11, -0.12]. (See Figure 2)

Discussion

• Our findings show that gender-based threats are prospectively associated with adverse psychological outcomes for Ph.D. students, such as increased negative affect and decreased belonging in graduate school
• Women reported significantly greater levels of gender-based stereotype threat than men, suggesting that consequences of gender-based threats may disproportionately affect women
• There was promising evidence that the relationship between gender-based stereotype threat and belonging was mediated by negative affect
• The indirect effect of threat on belonging via affect was in the hypothesized direction in both models, although it did not reach significance except when gender was included in the model as a covariate
• Further research is needed to interpret the distinct roles of gender, stereotype threat, and emotional experiences in students’ feelings of belonging in graduate school
• The relationship between gender-based stereotype threat, negative affect and belonging suggests that strategies to reduce gender-based threats may bolster feelings of belonging among female graduate students, possibly by improving their psychological well-being
• These findings provide a clue as to how women can experience stereotypically masculine academic domains as affectively corrosive, which over time could provide an explanation for their higher rates of attrition from doctoral education
• Our results show paths for future experimental research into how stereotype threat, negative emotions, and belonging are linked
• Future studies should also examine a broader range of emotional experiences of graduate school

Figure 2. Path diagram of mediation model, controlling for gender. Gender was dummy-coded (female = 1). All paths shown were significant (bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals did not contain zero).

Start of academic year

End of academic year

Measures

• Gender-based stereotype threat (Cohen & Garcia, 2005)
• 6 items; scale from 1 (“Strongly disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly agree”)
• Higher scores indicate more threat
• Example item: “I worry that people in my graduate program will judge me by my gender, based on the behavior or performance of other people of my gender”
• Negative Affect
• Sliding scale from 0 (“Very slightly or not at all”) to 100 (“Extremely”)
• Emotions were anxious/worried; ashamed/guilty; bored; angry/frustrated; depressed/blue
• Extent to which participants felt this way right before they completed the survey
• Belonging in graduate school (Walton & Cohen, 2007; Cook et al., 2012)
• 8 items; scale from 1 (“Strongly disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly agree”)
• Higher scores indicate more belonging
• Example item: e.g., “I feel like I belong in graduate school”

References: (1) Aronson, J. (2004) The threat of stereotype. Educational Leadership. (2) Aronson, J., Quinn, D. M., & Spencer, S. J. (1998). Stereotype threat and the academic underperformance of minorities and women. In Prejudice: The Target’s Perspective (Swim, J. K., & Stangor, C., Eds.). (3) Cohen, G. L., & Garcia, J. (2005). “I am us”: Negative stereotypes as collective threats. JPSP. (4) Cook, J. E., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Garcia, J., & Cohen, G. L. (2012). Chronic threat and contingent belonging: Protective benefits of values affirmation on identity development. JPSP. (5) Council of Graduate Schools. (2008). Ph.D. Completion and Attrition: Analysis of Baseline Demographics Data from the Ph.D. completion project. (6) Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2007). A question of belonging: Race, social fit, and achievement. JPSP.