The intervening task method: implications for measuring mediation.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Stereotype Threat

Background:

• Researchers often use filler tasks to study mediation.
• This assumes filler tasks engage the same psychological processes as the focal task.
• The validity of this assumption is questioned, especially in stereotype threat research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To test if intervening task relevance to gender-math stereotype threat affects psychological processes.
• To determine if performance on irrelevant filler tasks accurately reflects mediating mechanisms.

Main Methods:

• Experiment 1: Manipulated relevance of an intervening Stroop task to gender-math stereotype threat.
• Experiment 2: Assessed effort withdrawal on an irrelevant intervening task under stereotype threat.

Main Results:

• Females performed better on a stereotype-relevant Stroop task.
• Performance did not differ when the Stroop task was stereotype-irrelevant.
• Under threat, females reduced effort on irrelevant intervening tasks.

Conclusions:

• Intervening task relevance significantly impacts psychological processes.
• Performance on irrelevant filler tasks may not indicate mediating mechanisms in stereotype threat.
• Different processes drive performance on relevant versus irrelevant intervening tasks.