The stereotyped task engagement process: The role of interest and achievement motivation.

Abstract

Competence-based stereotypes can negatively affect women's performance in math and science (referred to as stereotype threat), presumably leading to lower motivation.The authors examined the effects of stereotype threat on interest, a motivational path not necessarily mediated by performance.They predicted that working on a computer science task in the context of math-gender stereotypes would negatively affect undergraduate women's task interest, particularly for those higher in achievement motivation who were hypothesized to hold performance-avoidance goals in response to the threat.Compared with when the stereotype was nullified, while under stereotype threat an assigned performance-avoidance (vs.-approach) goal was associated with lower interest for women higher in achievement motivation (Study 1), and women higher (vs.lower) in achievement motivation were more likely to spontaneously adopt performance-avoidance goals (Study 2).The motivational influence of performance-avoidance goals under stereotype threat was primarily mediated by task absorption (Study 3).Implications for the stereotyped task engagement process (Smith, 2004) are discussed.