Gender Identification Moderates Social Identity Threat Effects on Working Memory

Abstract

This investigation examined whether gender identification moderates women’s working memory following exposure to situations that threaten the integrity of their gender group. Young adults read sentences that either threatened women’s gender identity (in the social identity threat condition) or did not threaten this identity (in the control condition). During this sentence-reading task, participants were also asked to remember numerous neutral words. Women who were more strongly gender-identified recalled fewer of the neutral words when these words were presented in conjunction with sentences that threatened women’s gender identity compared to when the words were presented with non-identity threatening sentences. More weakly gender-identified women, as well as men, did not show working memory impairments when exposed to threatening as compared to nonthreatening sentences. This study provides insight into who is most vulnerable to experiencing working memory impairments following a threat to their social identity. It also has practical implications for promoting environments that increase the likelihood that members of devalued groups can more optimally draw on their reserves of memory. For instance, workplaces that permit the expression of sexism may find that this behavior actually decreases the performance of female employees who identify with their gender group.