Question

What did the O'Brien and Crandall experiment prove regarding motivation and manageable work?

Answer 1

The O'Brien and Crandall experiment proved that when the work is manageable, an extra motivation to disprove can raise performance levels higher than it would have otherwise reached. This was proven by giving a difficult test to women and men. Women under a stereotype threat did better than women under no threat and better than the men.

Theories of arousal suggest that arousal should decrease performance on difficult tasks and increase performance on easy tasks. An experiment tested the hypothesis that the effects of stereotype threat on performance are due to heightened arousal. The authors hypothesized that telling participants that a math test they are about to take is known to have gender differences would cause stereotype threat in women but not in men. In the experiment, each participant took two tests--a difficult math test and an easy math test. Compared to women in a "no differences" condition, women in the "gender differences" condition scored better on the easy math test and worse on the difficult math test. Men's performance was unaffected by the manipulation. These data are consistent with an arousal-based explanation of stereotype threat effects. Data were inconsistent with expectancy, evaluation apprehension, and persistence explanations of the stereotype threat phenomenon.