Intra- Departmental
Collaborations
Dr. Mark Geisler and I have worked with students Cristina Carrasquillo, Chad Forbes, and Seth Duncan, Valerie Green, and Margarette Burd on the neuro-cognitive correlates of stereotype threat, as part of a larger framework of studies devoted to examining the role of increased arousal in deficits following stereotype threat. Our working hypothesis was that stereotype threat may lead to situational underperformance, in part, by lowering alpha brain waves in the frontal cortex to detrimental levels. In one of our joint studies presented at the 2004 Cognitive Neuroscience conference (with students as first authors), we measured Electroencephalographic activity from right and left frontal lobes in females taking a spatial test (Trail Making Test; TMT). In the threat condition, females were told that the TMT was an intelligence test and their performance would be compared to a male confederate’s. In the control condition, there was no mention of intelligence and the comparison confederate was a female. Ten seconds of raw EEG activity were quantified during the TMT and baseline, using Fast Fourier Transformation analysis yielding global (1 – 60 Hz), alpha (8-13 Hz), and beta (13 – 30 Hz) power. Consistent with a social facilitation paradigm, behavioral results showed that females who found the TMT difficult performed worse in the threat than in the control condition. The reverse was true for females who found the TMT to be easy. Activity in the alpha bands mirrored the behavioral data, with reduced alpha activity in females in the threat condition who found the task difficult. Our overarching goal is to synthesize research on social cognition and physiological reactivity. Ben-Zeev and Morsella Lab Collaborations Dr. Ezequiel Morsella and I are currently working with student Meredith Lanska, on the nature of spontaneous thought. The focus of this work is on how intrusive cognition might inform future action. We have recently completed a manuscript, which is now under review, in collaboration with Dr. John Bargh at Yale University. Ben-Zeev and Wright Lab Collaborations Dr. Christian Wright and I are currently working with students Rachel Sackman and Sandra Vergara (and have previously worked with students Rochelle Burnaford, Patricia Garcia, and Stacy Mckenzie), on females’ coping behaviors in response to stereotype threat. In particular we ask whether women who are threatened intellectually resort to flirtation as a coping mechanism.
Collaborations with colleagues at other institutions
Dr. Steven Fein at Williams College and Dr. Elissa Epel at UCSF Medical School and I have worked on the effects of arousal on stereotype threat, from a cognitive-social-health perspective. We have shown that women under threat secreted higher elevations of corticosteroids during a math test, as compared to females who were told that males and females had shown similar levels of success on that test (threat-removed condition). The big picture that emerges from these studies is that the social context contributes to creating and perpetuating underperformance that has hindered stigmatized groups from realizing their intellectual potential, in part, by elevating physiological arousal to exceed an optimal level. This work was enabled by an NSF-ROLE grant. |
