According to a recent study published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, women in high-level math courses face a phenomenon called stereotype threat. Stereotype threat occurs when a behavior confirms an existing stereotype; in this case, the stereotype is that women do not perform as well as men on mathematical assessments.

The study, “Problems in the Pipeline: Stereotype Threat and Women’s Achievement in High-Level Math Courses,” was conducted by Catherine Good of Barnard College, Joshua Aronson of New York University and Jayne Ann Harder of the University of Texas, Austin.

The results show that although biological factors may play a role in why women do not perform as well as the opposite sex, the main reason is “vulnerability to negative stereotypes disseminated in the broader culture.”

The experiment consisted of a control and variable group of an equal number of men and women in a college-level mathematics class. The first group of men and women were given normal testing conditions and were told that an exam was to test their math abilities.

The second group of men and women were given the same conditions but also told that the exam “showed no gender differences.” The women in the control group outperformed not only the other women, but the men as well.

Jenna Rae ‘08 and Wanling Yih ‘08, co-presidents of the Society of Women Engineers, are concerned about gender biases affecting women. An unfortunate consequence of the stereotype threat is that women have a decreased interest in math and science by the time they reach college, leading to fewer women in careers related to those fields.

Roughly 30 percent of the current freshmen in the College of Engineering are women, well over the national average of 18 percent.