Steven J Spencer
Biographic Data
| ID | 3620488 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Steven J Spencer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Steven J |
| FAMILY NAME | Spencer |
| SIGNATURE | SPENCER S J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Waterloo |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1722 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 17 |
The Recursive Cycle of Perceived Mindset and Psychological Distress in College
College students are experiencing a significant mental health crisis, with rising rates of psychological distress. To help understand this trend, this study examines recursive relationships in the classroom between perceived mindset beliefs—that is, whether students perceive others in their classroom to view intelligence as malleable or fixed—and psychological distress. Across three time points, 288 undergraduates taking a physics course complete…
Friendship networks predict girls’ STEM fit and interest through subjective belonging
Girls report lower belonging in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) than boys, which may carry costs for girls’ later STEM participation. We hypothesized that being socially included within a STEM context supports feelings of belonging—which then contributes to stronger intentions to pursue STEM, especially for girls. To investigate, we recruited girls and boys (N = 1,330; Mdn age = 12; 41% White, 35% East Asian) attending week-l…
Seeing women who fit: Girls’ forecasted fit in STEM fosters career interest
Girls often express less interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education and careers than boys, despite having comparable aptitude. We randomly assigned 242 girls (Mdnage = 12 years; 38% East Asian; 37% White) at Canadian STEM camps to control conversations about generic camp experiences, or intervention conversations where STEM role models discussed how STEM education and careers align with each girl’s most important v…
Girls are good at STEM: Opening minds and providing evidence reduces boys' stereotyping of girls' STEM ability
Girls and women face persistent negative stereotyping within STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). This field intervention was designed to improve boys' perceptions of girls' STEM ability. Boys (N = 667; mostly White and East Asian) aged 9–15 years in Canadian STEM summer camps (2017–2019) had an intervention or control conversation with trained camp staff. The intervention was a multi-stage persuasive appeal: a values affirmation…
Examining Beliefs About the Benefits of Self-Affirmation for Mitigating Self-Threat
Self-affirmation—reflecting on a source of global self-integrity outside of the threatened domain—can mitigate self-threat in education, health, relationships, and more. Whether people recognize these benefits is unknown. Inspired by the metamotivational approach, we examined people’s beliefs about the benefits of self-affirmation and whether individual differences in these beliefs predict how people cope with self-threat. The current research re…
When seeing stigma creates paternalism: Learning about disadvantage leads to perceptions of incompetence
The present research examines the conditions under which educating non-stigmatized individuals about the experiences of members of stigmatized groups leads to paternalistic or more respectful views of the target. We propose that when these efforts ask members of non-stigmatized groups to focus only on the difficulties experienced by stigmatized targets, they will lead to more paternalistic views of targets because they portray targets as being in…
Stereotype Threat
When members of a stigmatized group find themselves in a situation where negative stereotypes provide a possible framework for interpreting their behavior, the risk of being judged in light of those stereotypes can elicit a disruptive state that undermines performance and aspirations in that domain. This situational predicament, termed stereotype threat, continues to be an intensely debated and researched topic in educational, social, and organiz…
Two brief interventions to mitigate a “chilly climate” transform women’s experience, relationships, and achievement in engineering.
In a randomized-controlled trial, we tested 2 brief interventions designed to mitigate the effects of a “chilly climate” women may experience in engineering, especially in male-dominated fields. Participants were students entering a selective university engineering program. The social-belonging intervention aimed to protect students’ sense of belonging in engineering by providing a nonthreatening narrative with which to interpret instances of adv…
Mere belonging: The power of social connections
Four experiments examined the effect on achievement motivation of mere belonging, a minimal social connection to another person or group in a performance domain. Mere belonging was expected to increase motivation by creating socially shared goals around a performance task. Participants were led to believe that an endeavor provided opportunities for positive social interactions (Experiment 1), that they shared a birthday with a student majoring in…
Your heart makes my heart move: Cues of social connectedness cause shared emotions and physiological states among strangers
Not all automatic associations are created equal: How implicit normative evaluations are distinct from implicit attitudes and uniquely predict meaningful behavior
Recognizing discrimination explicitly while denying it implicitly: Implicit social identity protection
Latent Ability: Grades and Test Scores Systematically Underestimate the Intellectual Ability of Negatively Stereotyped Students
Past research has assumed that group differences in academic performance entirely reflect genuine differences in ability. In contrast, extending research on stereotype threat, we suggest that standard measures of academic performance are biased against non-Asian ethnic minorities and against women in quantitative fields. This bias results not from the content of performance measures, but from the context in which they are assessed—from psychologi…
Inequality, discrimination, and the power of the status quo: Direct evidence for a motivation to see the way things are as the way they should be
How powerful is the status quo in determining people's social ideals? The authors propose (a) that people engage in injunctification, that is, a motivated tendency to construe the current status quo as the most desirable and reasonable state of affairs (i.e., as the most representative of how things should be); (b) that this tendency is driven, at least in part, by people's desire to justify their sociopolitical systems; and (c) that injunctifica…
Interacting with sexist men triggers social identity threat among female engineers
Social identity threat is the notion that one of a person's many social identities may be at risk of being devalued in a particular context (C. M. Steele, S. J. Spencer, & J. Aronson, 2002). The authors suggest that in domains in which women are already negatively stereotyped, interacting with a sexist man can trigger social identity threat, undermining women's performance. In Study 1, male engineering students who scored highly on a subtle measu…
Loving Those Who Justify Inequality: The Effects of System Threat on Attraction to Women Who Embody Benevolent Sexist Ideals
The perils of double consciousness: The role of thought suppression in stereotype threat
The cost of lower self-esteem: Testing a self- and social-bonds model of health
The authors draw upon social, personality, and health psychology to propose and test a self-and-social-bonds model of health. The model contends that lower self-esteem predicts health problems and that poor-quality social bonds explain this association. In Study 1, lower self-esteem prospectively predicted reports of health problems 2 months later, and this association was explained by subjective reports of poor social bonds. Study 2 replicated t…
On the cultural guises of cognitive dissonance: The case of Easterners and Westerners
Cognitive dissonance and effects of self-affirmation on dissonance arousal were examined cross-culturally. In Studies 1 and 2, European Canadians justified their choices more when they made them for themselves, whereas Asian Canadians (Study 1) or Japanese (Study 2) justified their choices more when they made them for a friend. In Study 3, an interdependent self-affirmation reduced dissonance for Asian Canadians but not for European Canadians. In…
Clearing the Air: Identity Safety Moderates the Effects of Stereotype Threat on Women's Leadership Aspirations
Exposing participants to gender-stereotypic TV commercials designed to elicit the female stereotype, the present research explored whether vulnerability to stereotype threat could persuade women to avoid leadership roles in favor of nonthreatening subordinate roles. Study 1 confirmed that exposure to the stereotypic commercials undermined women's aspirations on a subsequent leadership task. Study 2 established that varying the identity safety of …
Establishing a causal chain: Why experiments are often more effective than mediational analyses in examining psychological processes
The authors propose that experiments that utilize mediational analyses as suggested by R. M. Baron and D. A. Kenny (1986) are overused and sometimes improperly held up as necessary for a good social psychological paper. The authors argue that when it is easy to manipulate and measure a proposed psychological process that a series of experiments that demonstrates the proposed causal chain is superior. They further argue that when it is easy to man…
An affirmed self and an open mind: Self-affirmation and sensitivity to argument strength
Secure and Defensive High Self-Esteem
Long-standing theories have suggested high self-esteem (SE) can assume qualitatively different forms that are related to defensiveness. The authors explored whether some high-SE individuals are particularly defensive because they harbor negative self-feelings at less conscious levels, indicated by low implicit SE. In Study 1, participants high in explicit SE but low in implicit SE showed the highest levels of narcissism--an indicator of defensive…
When do stereotypes come to mind and when do they color judgment? A goal-based theoretical framework for stereotype activation and application
The authors describe a theoretical framework for understanding when people interacting with a member of a stereotyped group activate that group's stereotype and apply it to that person. It is proposed that both stereotype activation and stereotype application during interaction depend on the strength of comprehension and self-enhancement goals that can be satisfied by stereotyping one's interaction partner and on the strength of one's motivation …
Contending with group image: The psychology of stereotype and social identity threat
Stereotype Threat and Women's Math Performance
Establishing a causal chain: Why experiments are often more effective than mediational analyses in examining psychological processes
The authors propose that experiments that utilize mediational analyses as suggested by R. M. Baron and D. A. Kenny (1986) are overused and sometimes improperly held up as necessary for a good social psychological paper. The authors argue that when it is easy to manipulate and measure a proposed psychological process that a series of experiments that demonstrates the proposed causal chain is superior. They further argue that when it is easy to man…
Prejudice as self-image maintenance: Affirming the self through derogating others
The authors argue that self-image maintenance processes play an important role in stereotyping and prejudice. Three studies demonstrated that when individuals evaluated a member of a stereotyped group, they were less likely to evaluate that person negatively if their self-images had been bolstered through a self-affirmation procedure, and they were more likely to evaluate that person stereotypically if their self-images had been threatened by neg…
Inequality, discrimination, and the power of the status quo: Direct evidence for a motivation to see the way things are as the way they should be
How powerful is the status quo in determining people's social ideals? The authors propose (a) that people engage in injunctification, that is, a motivated tendency to construe the current status quo as the most desirable and reasonable state of affairs (i.e., as the most representative of how things should be); (b) that this tendency is driven, at least in part, by people's desire to justify their sociopolitical systems; and (c) that injunctifica…
Compensatory conviction in the face of personal uncertainty: Going to extremes and being oneself
Study 1 participants' self-integrity (C. M. Steele. 1988) was threatened by deliberative mind-set (S. E. Taylor & P. M. Gollwitzer, 1995) induced uncertainty. They masked the uncertainty with more extreme conviction about social issues. An integrity-repair exercise after the threat, however, eliminated uncertainty and the conviction response. In Study 2, the same threat caused clarified values and more self-consistent personal goals. Two other un…
When do stereotypes come to mind and when do they color judgment? A goal-based theoretical framework for stereotype activation and application
The authors describe a theoretical framework for understanding when people interacting with a member of a stereotyped group activate that group's stereotype and apply it to that person. It is proposed that both stereotype activation and stereotype application during interaction depend on the strength of comprehension and self-enhancement goals that can be satisfied by stereotyping one's interaction partner and on the strength of one's motivation …
Self-image resilience and dissonance: The role of affirmational resources
Clearing the Air: Identity Safety Moderates the Effects of Stereotype Threat on Women's Leadership Aspirations
Exposing participants to gender-stereotypic TV commercials designed to elicit the female stereotype, the present research explored whether vulnerability to stereotype threat could persuade women to avoid leadership roles in favor of nonthreatening subordinate roles. Study 1 confirmed that exposure to the stereotypic commercials undermined women's aspirations on a subsequent leadership task. Study 2 established that varying the identity safety of …
Secure and Defensive High Self-Esteem
Long-standing theories have suggested high self-esteem (SE) can assume qualitatively different forms that are related to defensiveness. The authors explored whether some high-SE individuals are particularly defensive because they harbor negative self-feelings at less conscious levels, indicated by low implicit SE. In Study 1, participants high in explicit SE but low in implicit SE showed the highest levels of narcissism--an indicator of defensive…
Mere belonging: The power of social connections
Four experiments examined the effect on achievement motivation of mere belonging, a minimal social connection to another person or group in a performance domain. Mere belonging was expected to increase motivation by creating socially shared goals around a performance task. Participants were led to believe that an endeavor provided opportunities for positive social interactions (Experiment 1), that they shared a birthday with a student majoring in…
An affirmed self and an open mind: Self-affirmation and sensitivity to argument strength
The Interference of Stereotype Threat With Women's Generation of Mathematical Problem‐Solving Strategies
At the highest levels of math achievement, gender differences in favor of men persist on standardized math tests. We hypothesize that stereotype threat depresses women's math performance through interfering with their ability to formulate problem‐solving strategies. In Study 1, women underperformed in comparison to men on a word problemm test, however, women and me performed equally when the word problems were converted into their numerical equiv…
Subliminal priming and persuasion: Striking while the iron is hot
On the cultural guises of cognitive dissonance: The case of Easterners and Westerners
Cognitive dissonance and effects of self-affirmation on dissonance arousal were examined cross-culturally. In Studies 1 and 2, European Canadians justified their choices more when they made them for themselves, whereas Asian Canadians (Study 1) or Japanese (Study 2) justified their choices more when they made them for a friend. In Study 3, an interdependent self-affirmation reduced dissonance for Asian Canadians but not for European Canadians. In…
The cost of lower self-esteem: Testing a self- and social-bonds model of health
The authors draw upon social, personality, and health psychology to propose and test a self-and-social-bonds model of health. The model contends that lower self-esteem predicts health problems and that poor-quality social bonds explain this association. In Study 1, lower self-esteem prospectively predicted reports of health problems 2 months later, and this association was explained by subjective reports of poor social bonds. Study 2 replicated t…
The dynamic time course of stereotype activation: Activation, dissipation, and resurrection
Stereotypes activated upon initial exposure to a stereotyped individual may dissipate as the exposure continues. Participants observing a videotaped interview with a Black person showed activation of the stereotype of Black people following 15 s of observation but not following 12 min of observation. However, the discovery of a disagreement with the stereotyped individual may bring the dissipated stereotype back to mind. Participants who discover…
Interacting with sexist men triggers social identity threat among female engineers
Social identity threat is the notion that one of a person's many social identities may be at risk of being devalued in a particular context (C. M. Steele, S. J. Spencer, & J. Aronson, 2002). The authors suggest that in domains in which women are already negatively stereotyped, interacting with a sexist man can trigger social identity threat, undermining women's performance. In Study 1, male engineering students who scored highly on a subtle measu…
The perils of double consciousness: The role of thought suppression in stereotype threat
Your heart makes my heart move: Cues of social connectedness cause shared emotions and physiological states among strangers
Not all automatic associations are created equal: How implicit normative evaluations are distinct from implicit attitudes and uniquely predict meaningful behavior
Stereotypes and Prejudice: Their Overt and Subtle Influence in the Classroom
The authors examine overt and subtle forms of stereotyping and prejudice. Two theories that explain overt prejudice are reviewed: realistic conflict theory and social identity theory. Although overt prejudice seems to have declined, subtle stereotyping is still pervasive. The authors review one theory, aversive racism theory, that explains this phenomenon. They also discuss two perspectives, attributional ambiguity and stereotype threat, which pr…
Seeing women who fit: Girls’ forecasted fit in STEM fosters career interest
Girls often express less interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education and careers than boys, despite having comparable aptitude. We randomly assigned 242 girls (Mdnage = 12 years; 38% East Asian; 37% White) at Canadian STEM camps to control conversations about generic camp experiences, or intervention conversations where STEM role models discussed how STEM education and careers align with each girl’s most important v…
When seeing stigma creates paternalism: Learning about disadvantage leads to perceptions of incompetence
The present research examines the conditions under which educating non-stigmatized individuals about the experiences of members of stigmatized groups leads to paternalistic or more respectful views of the target. We propose that when these efforts ask members of non-stigmatized groups to focus only on the difficulties experienced by stigmatized targets, they will lead to more paternalistic views of targets because they portray targets as being in…
Recognizing discrimination explicitly while denying it implicitly: Implicit social identity protection
Self-image resilience and dissonance: The role of affirmational resources
Stereotypes and Prejudice: Their Overt and Subtle Influence in the Classroom
The authors examine overt and subtle forms of stereotyping and prejudice. Two theories that explain overt prejudice are reviewed: realistic conflict theory and social identity theory. Although overt prejudice seems to have declined, subtle stereotyping is still pervasive. The authors review one theory, aversive racism theory, that explains this phenomenon. They also discuss two perspectives, attributional ambiguity and stereotype threat, which pr…
Prejudice as self-image maintenance: Affirming the self through derogating others
The authors argue that self-image maintenance processes play an important role in stereotyping and prejudice. Three studies demonstrated that when individuals evaluated a member of a stereotyped group, they were less likely to evaluate that person negatively if their self-images had been bolstered through a self-affirmation procedure, and they were more likely to evaluate that person stereotypically if their self-images had been threatened by neg…
Automatic Activation of Stereotypes: The Role of Self-Image Threat
Does self-image threatening feedback make perceivers more likely to activate stereotypes when confronted by members of a minority group? Participants in Study 1 saw an Asian American or European American woman for several minutes, and participants in Studies 2 and 3 were exposed to drawings of an African American or European American male face for fractions of a second. These experiments found no evidence of automatic stereotype activation when p…
Stereotype Threat and the Academic Underperformance of Minorities and Women
Stereotype Threat and Women's Math Performance
African Americans and High Blood Pressure: The Role of Stereotype Threat
We examined the effect of stereotype threat on blood pressure reactivity. Compared with European Americans, and African Americans under little or no stereotype threat, African Americans under stereotype threat exhibited larger increases in mean arterial blood pressure during an academic test, and performed more poorly on difficult test items. We discuss the significance of these findings for understanding the incidence of hypertension among Afric…
The Interference of Stereotype Threat With Women's Generation of Mathematical Problem‐Solving Strategies
At the highest levels of math achievement, gender differences in favor of men persist on standardized math tests. We hypothesize that stereotype threat depresses women's math performance through interfering with their ability to formulate problem‐solving strategies. In Study 1, women underperformed in comparison to men on a word problemm test, however, women and me performed equally when the word problems were converted into their numerical equiv…
Compensatory conviction in the face of personal uncertainty: Going to extremes and being oneself
Study 1 participants' self-integrity (C. M. Steele. 1988) was threatened by deliberative mind-set (S. E. Taylor & P. M. Gollwitzer, 1995) induced uncertainty. They masked the uncertainty with more extreme conviction about social issues. An integrity-repair exercise after the threat, however, eliminated uncertainty and the conviction response. In Study 2, the same threat caused clarified values and more self-consistent personal goals. Two other un…
Contending with group image: The psychology of stereotype and social identity threat
Consuming Images: How Television Commercials that Elicit Stereotype Threat Can Restrain Women Academically and Professionally
Women in quantitative fields risk being personally reduced to negative stereotypes that allege a sex-based math inability. This situational predicament, termed stereotype threat, can undermine women’s performance and aspirations in all quantitative domains. Gender-stereotypic television commercials were employed in three studies to elicit the female stereotype among both men and women. Study 1 revealed that only women for whom the activated stere…
Subliminal priming and persuasion: Striking while the iron is hot
The dynamic time course of stereotype activation: Activation, dissipation, and resurrection
Stereotypes activated upon initial exposure to a stereotyped individual may dissipate as the exposure continues. Participants observing a videotaped interview with a Black person showed activation of the stereotype of Black people following 15 s of observation but not following 12 min of observation. However, the discovery of a disagreement with the stereotyped individual may bring the dissipated stereotype back to mind. Participants who discover…
An affirmed self and an open mind: Self-affirmation and sensitivity to argument strength
Secure and Defensive High Self-Esteem
Long-standing theories have suggested high self-esteem (SE) can assume qualitatively different forms that are related to defensiveness. The authors explored whether some high-SE individuals are particularly defensive because they harbor negative self-feelings at less conscious levels, indicated by low implicit SE. In Study 1, participants high in explicit SE but low in implicit SE showed the highest levels of narcissism--an indicator of defensive…
When do stereotypes come to mind and when do they color judgment? A goal-based theoretical framework for stereotype activation and application
The authors describe a theoretical framework for understanding when people interacting with a member of a stereotyped group activate that group's stereotype and apply it to that person. It is proposed that both stereotype activation and stereotype application during interaction depend on the strength of comprehension and self-enhancement goals that can be satisfied by stereotyping one's interaction partner and on the strength of one's motivation …
On the cultural guises of cognitive dissonance: The case of Easterners and Westerners
Cognitive dissonance and effects of self-affirmation on dissonance arousal were examined cross-culturally. In Studies 1 and 2, European Canadians justified their choices more when they made them for themselves, whereas Asian Canadians (Study 1) or Japanese (Study 2) justified their choices more when they made them for a friend. In Study 3, an interdependent self-affirmation reduced dissonance for Asian Canadians but not for European Canadians. In…
Clearing the Air: Identity Safety Moderates the Effects of Stereotype Threat on Women's Leadership Aspirations
Exposing participants to gender-stereotypic TV commercials designed to elicit the female stereotype, the present research explored whether vulnerability to stereotype threat could persuade women to avoid leadership roles in favor of nonthreatening subordinate roles. Study 1 confirmed that exposure to the stereotypic commercials undermined women's aspirations on a subsequent leadership task. Study 2 established that varying the identity safety of …
Establishing a causal chain: Why experiments are often more effective than mediational analyses in examining psychological processes
The authors propose that experiments that utilize mediational analyses as suggested by R. M. Baron and D. A. Kenny (1986) are overused and sometimes improperly held up as necessary for a good social psychological paper. The authors argue that when it is easy to manipulate and measure a proposed psychological process that a series of experiments that demonstrates the proposed causal chain is superior. They further argue that when it is easy to man…
Loving Those Who Justify Inequality: The Effects of System Threat on Attraction to Women Who Embody Benevolent Sexist Ideals
The perils of double consciousness: The role of thought suppression in stereotype threat
The cost of lower self-esteem: Testing a self- and social-bonds model of health
The authors draw upon social, personality, and health psychology to propose and test a self-and-social-bonds model of health. The model contends that lower self-esteem predicts health problems and that poor-quality social bonds explain this association. In Study 1, lower self-esteem prospectively predicted reports of health problems 2 months later, and this association was explained by subjective reports of poor social bonds. Study 2 replicated t…
Latent Ability: Grades and Test Scores Systematically Underestimate the Intellectual Ability of Negatively Stereotyped Students
Past research has assumed that group differences in academic performance entirely reflect genuine differences in ability. In contrast, extending research on stereotype threat, we suggest that standard measures of academic performance are biased against non-Asian ethnic minorities and against women in quantitative fields. This bias results not from the content of performance measures, but from the context in which they are assessed—from psychologi…
Inequality, discrimination, and the power of the status quo: Direct evidence for a motivation to see the way things are as the way they should be
How powerful is the status quo in determining people's social ideals? The authors propose (a) that people engage in injunctification, that is, a motivated tendency to construe the current status quo as the most desirable and reasonable state of affairs (i.e., as the most representative of how things should be); (b) that this tendency is driven, at least in part, by people's desire to justify their sociopolitical systems; and (c) that injunctifica…
Interacting with sexist men triggers social identity threat among female engineers
Social identity threat is the notion that one of a person's many social identities may be at risk of being devalued in a particular context (C. M. Steele, S. J. Spencer, & J. Aronson, 2002). The authors suggest that in domains in which women are already negatively stereotyped, interacting with a sexist man can trigger social identity threat, undermining women's performance. In Study 1, male engineering students who scored highly on a subtle measu…
Psychology (36 works) · Social Psychology (35 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (30 works) · Developmental psychology (17 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (15 works) · Social Psychology (14 works) · Stereotype threat (13 works) · Cognitive psychology (8 works) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (7 works) · Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion (7 works)