The Influence Of The Threat Of Mathematical Gender Stereotypes On College Students’ Math Test Results Impact: The Role Of Achievement Goals And Task Reward Structure

Stereotype threat is an identity threat.How to reduce the impact of stereotype threat on task performance is an important field of social psychology research.A large number of studies have discussed methods to alleviate the threat of stereotype,but there are few studies on the role of regulatory matching theory in alleviating the threat of stereotype.The only research only involves the threat of stereotype in the elderly population,and there is a lack of research on the relevance of regulatory matching in disciplinary stereotype threats.The impact of mathematical gender stereotyping threats on girls cannot be ignored,not only affecting girls’ interest in learning mathematics,but also affecting their future career choices.For boys,the positive impact of mathematical gender stereotyping threats on boys has also been ignored in previous studies.Based on this,this study discusses the impact of stereotype threat on math test performance of male and female college students,and explores the mechanism of achievement goal matching and task reward structure matching in mathematical gender stereotype threat and task performance from both personal and task perspectives based on the regulatory matching theory.The subjects of this study were freshmen,and included three studies.Study 1 examined the impact of mathematical gender stereotyping threats on math test scores of male and female college students;The second study examined the effects of mathematical gender stereotyping threats and achievement goal matching on mathematical test scores of male and female college students;Study 3 examined the impact of mathematical gender stereotyping threats and task reward structure matching on math test scores of male and female college students.Based on the research results,the main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)The threat of mathematical gender stereotyping can affect students’ mathematical performance,with girls in the threat group having significantly lower math test scores than girls in the control group.However,there is no significant difference in math test scores between boys in the threat group and boys in the control group.(2)The threat of mathematical gender stereotypes interacts with achievement goal matching in math test performance.Under threat conditions,there is no significant difference in math test scores between students whose performance approaches goal orientation and students whose performance avoids goal orientation;However,under controlled conditions,the math test scores of students with performance approaching goal orientation were significantly higher than those of students with performance avoiding goal orientation.(3)Matching mathematical gender stereotype threats with task reward structures can have an interactive effect on mathematical task performance.Under controlled conditions,the math test scores of students in the income group were significantly higher than those of students in the loss group;Under threat conditions,there is no significant difference between the math test scores of students in the income group and those in the loss group.(4)Girls’ math test scores in the "regulated matching state" were significantly higher than those in the "mismatched state",while boys’ math test scores in the "regulated matching state" or "mismatched state" did not differ significantly.