creator Leon, Adeline advisor Corrigan, Patrick W. 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. Submitted by Erma Thomas (thomase@iit.edu) on 2015-07-13T22:12:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Leon, Adeline Thesis Final Signed 11-24-14.pdf: 1577258 bytes, checksum: c7651664da5e94f8a02e7ed8d955fdd1 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2015-07-13T22:12:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Leon, Adeline Thesis Final Signed 11-24-14.pdf: 1577258 bytes, checksum: c7651664da5e94f8a02e7ed8d955fdd1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-12 M.S. in Psychology, December 2014 2014 2014-12 http://hdl.handle.net/10560/3454 en Thesis born digital application/pdf In Copyright http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/ Restricted Access PSYCH / Institute of Psychology Illinois Institute of Technology Affiliated department