STEREOTYPE THREAT: THE EFFECT OF MINDFULNESS ON GENDER DIFFERENCES IN SPATIAL REASONING Leon, Adeline Stereotype threat is a phenomenon in which performance is inhibited due to the psychological threat of an individual’s association with a group believed to underperform on the task at hand (Steele, 1997). Though stereotype threat is typically attributed to race and ethnicity, there is a gender stereotype effect as well, caused by the notion that women are underperformers in spatial reasoning. Mindfulness, with its focus on acceptance and taking a non-judgmental stance, has been associated with broad physical, emotional, and cognitive benefits (Malinowski, 2013) that could counter these negative psychological effects and improve performance during a stereotype threat task. This study explores the relationship between mindfulness and women’s performance on a spatial reasoning task. A total of 256 women were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a stereotype threat primed group or a stereotype threat non-primed group. The study found no statistically significant relationship between mindfulness, spatial reasoning, and priming. However, future studies based on these findings may still contribute to the literature by including a mindfulness intervention, conducting a similar study in person, or assessing potential benefits of mindfulness in ethnic minorities. These studies may lead to more valuable interventions to overcome the effects of stereotype threat. M.S. in Psychology, December 2014 Corrigan, Patrick W. 2014 2014-12 Thesis application/pdf islandora:7308 http://hdl.handle.net/10560/3454 PSYCH / Institute of Psychology Illinois Institute of Technology en In Copyright http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/ Restricted Access