The Impact Of Stereotype Threat On Mathematical Calculation And Memory Ability Of Art Students

Stereotype threat refers to the existence of negative stereotypes around certain groups in certain cultural backgrounds.In certain situations,members of the group are worried that others will treat him with this negative stereotypes,while worrying its own performance will confirm this stereotype to create a sense of stereotype threat and affect its performance in testing tasks(Steele et al,1995).Current researchers have found stereotype threat in groups such as gender,race,and age.Art students learn artistic skills at the junior or senior high school and join the art college entrance examination with a lower score.The public often thinks that art students choose art programs because they are difficult to enter the university with the results of ordinary college entrance examinations.Our study firstly collected the negative stereotypes of art students in the cultural background of China,and secondly verified the negative effects of stereotypes threat on the art students in the middle school.Third,the experiment was repeated in the university semester to verify the stereotype threat existing in the university art students.Study 1 collect the stereotypes of the masses about the learning ability of art students.It turns out that for the art student,society has some positive stereotypes about them,such as versatility.There are also negative stereotypes,such as poor mathematical calculations ability and poor memory.Study 2 respectively discuss the two negative stereotype threats(poor mathematical calculations ability of art students,poor memory ability of art students)in middle school students.The results show that the performance of art students in the threat group is significantly worse than that in the ordinary group.It proves that the two negative stereotypes in the middle school period have the stereotype threat effect on the art students,which leads to their poor performance in the test task.Study 3 also focused on the threatening effects of the two negative stereotypes on art students,and conducted experiments in the same paradigm among college students.It was found that the art students in the threat group performed significantly worse in mathematical calculations tasks or memory tasks than the art students in the ordinary group and also worse than the ordinary students in the threat group.The above results indicate that there are stereotype threats in the quizzes of artstudents: when the stereotype that "general students are better in memory than art students" is activated,art students perform worse than ordinary students and art students who are not activated;when the stereotype that "general students are better at math than art students" is activated,art students perform worse than ordinary students and art students who are not activated.In other words,in terms of mathematical calculations and memory,the art students obviously become a stigma.Individuals in the art student group are worried about themselves in the context of activating these two negative stereotypes.Of behavior testifies to stigma and performed poorly on test tasks.Because these stereotypes exist in the art student group rather than the ordinary student group,the test performance of ordinary students is not affected by stereotypes.This study paid attention to the special group of art students and proved the stereotype threat existing in them.Finding and paying attention to these effects has important significance for the art students’ learning performance and physical and mental health.