J. S. Jenkins & J. J. Skowronski: The Effects of Invoking
Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999). Therefore, the women/ math stereotype excuse could be perceived as misleading and may motivate some perceivers to counterargue or react against these claims (e.g., Kray, Reb, Galinsky, & Thompson, 2004). When this clash occurs, perceivers will question an excuse-maker’s sincerity (Schlenker et al., 2001). Second, excuses should balance short-term disengagement from the current failure with the promise of future corrective action (or the target will be seen as low in effectualness). Gender stereotype excuses are incorporated excuses (Snyder & Higgins, 1988), in that they highlight an ongoing characteristic of the excuse-maker (his or her gender group). If a gender stereotype excuse is being cited as a cause for poor math performance, perceivers may suspect that poor performance will persist. Thus, perceivers would likely rate her as low in effectualness (see Ryan et al., 2002). Finally, excuses must suggest goodwill toward others (or the target will be perceived as selfabsorbed). A woman who invokes a gender stereotype to excuse poor math performance could be perceived as a ‘‘troublemaker’’ or ‘‘complainer’’ (Kaiser & Miller, 2001, 2003). Moreover, by highlighting harmful information in the form of an excuse, she would also violate the female gender role prescription of directing politeness and warmth toward others (Prentice & Carranza, 2002). When excuses are viewed as hostile or narcissistic, excuse-makers will be seen as self-absorbed (Pontari et al., 2002).
Stereotype Excuses and Performance Attributions Ideas about performance attributions (e.g., Weiner, 2005) and work that links attributions to excuses (e.g., Schlenker, Britt, Pennington, Murphy, & Doherty, 1994) prompted exploration of three performance attributions that might be affected by the use of a gender stereotype to excuse poor math performance. First, perceivers may view a woman who invokes the women/math excuse as attempting to avoid personal responsibility (Schlenker et al., 1994). Given that developmental opportunities in math have become increasingly accessible (e.g., Draugalis, Plaza, Taylor, & Meyer, 2014), perceivers may become upset with the excuse-maker for refusing to take personal responsibility for her poor math performance (Bell & Burkley, 2014). Thus, a woman who cites a stereotype to excuse poor math performance would likely be perceived as highly responsible for her poor math performance. Second, many perceivers may think that people can acquire math skills through sufficient effort (Good, Rattan, & Dweck, 2012). Perceivers may attribute women’s math success to high effort and believe that high effort is a more necessary component for women’s math success than it is for men’s math success (Parsons, Meece, Adler, & Kaczala, 1982; Yee & Eccles, 1988). Thus, in the face of these beliefs, many perceivers may perceive that a gender stereotype excuse for poor math performance has been invoked to mask low personal effort. Finally, perceptions of controllability over performance outcomes are high when information about a task’s characteristics, the excuse 2016 Hogrefe Publishing
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maker’s capabilities, and available resources suggest it is possible for the excuse-maker to succeed (Schlenker et al., 2001). Perceivers may feel that there is nothing unusual about the demands associated with a math task, especially in light of preparation time, available practice activities, and other tools available to bring about volitional change. Thus, despite poor performance, perceivers would likely view a woman who invokes a gender stereotype excuse for poor math performance as having had high control over the performance outcome.
Study 1 In a Pilot Study, judgments made about a woman who invoked a gender stereotype to excuse poor math performance were compared to those made when she eschewed excuses for her performance. For details on the Pilot Study, please review Electronic Supplementary Material 1. Results suggested that perceivers made negative character trait judgments about her when she invoked the gender stereotype excuse. However, the gender stereotype excuse did not influence performance attributions. This Pilot Study design could not be used to determine the locus of these effects. In Study 1, we modified the method developed in the Pilot Study to examine the locus of gender stereotype excuse effects. This examination compared two competing possibilities. One possibility is that additive effects could emerge, such that: (1) the act of excuse-making might have negative effects on target judgments; (2) activating the women/math stereotype might have negative effects on target judgments; and (3) when these two manipulations are used simultaneously, their effects on target judgments are simply additive (i.e., exposure to both manipulations causes more negative judgments than exposure to any single manipulation). A second possibility is that the effects of these two variables are interactive. This may occur, for example, if exposure to the women/math stereotype by itself does not have negative consequences for actor perceptions, but that using the stereotype in the context of an excuse does produce such consequences. In either case, if stereotype excuses do contribute to the interpersonal perception consequences of excuse-making, we would expect analyses to yield evidence (either via interactions or main effects) that invoking the women/math stereotype in an excuse had effects on judgments of excuse-making targets that go beyond the effects produced by the mere act of excuse-making or mentioning a stereotype.
Method Participants Two hundred forty participants from the United States were recruited via a survey link posted on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk; see Behrend, Sharek, Meade, & Wiebe, 2011; Social Psychology 2016; Vol. 47(1):4–14