ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Mentioning Menstruation: A Stereotype Threat
that Diminishes Cognition?
Joseph Albert Wister
&
Margaret L. Stubbs
&
Chaquica Shipman
Published online: 13 May 2012
#
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Abstract To investigate menstruation as a stereotype threat
that could have the effect of diminishing cognitive perfor-
mance, 92 undergraduate women from a small, urban uni-
versity in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States (US)
completed two cognitive tasks, a Stroop test, and an SAT-
based mathematics test, as well as a Menstrual History
Questionnaire (MH) and the Menstrual Attitudes Question-
naire (Brooks-Gunn and Ruble 1980). The MH served as the
menstruation stereotype threat. Some women were also
presented with positive information about menstruation,
which served as the positive prime. The order of materials
varied to yield four conditions: Menstruation Threat/No
Positive Prime—MH first, then cognitive tasks; Menstrua-
tion Threat/Positive Prime—MH first, then positive
information, then cognitive tests; Positive Prime/No Men-
struation Threat—positive information first, then cognitive
tasks, then MH; and No Positive Prime/No Menstruation
Threat—cognitive tests first, then MH. In all four condi-
tions, participants completed the Menstrual Attitudes Ques-
tionnaire last. Results indicated that participants receiving
the Menstruation Threat completed significantly fewer items
on the Stroop test. In addition, subjects in the No Positive
Prime/Menstruation Threat condition performed more poor-
ly on the Stroop the closer they were to their next period.
This effect was absent for the Positive Prime/Menstruation
Threat condition and reversed for participants in the Positive
Prime/No Menstruation Threat. This suggests that positive
priming moderates the relationship between closeness to men-
struation and cognitive performance. Implications of the
results for addressing stigma associated with menstruation
are discussed.
Keywords Stereotype threat
.
Positive priming
.
Menstruation
.
Stroop
.
Cognition
Introduction
The phenomenon of stereotype threat, first studied by Steele
and Aronson (1995), refers to being at risk of confirming a
negative stereotype about one’s group. This theory assumes
that when negative stereotypes are made salient, or primed,
this risk increases. Studies of stereotype threat have demon-
strated its negative impact on cognitive ability tests among
African Americans (e.g., Steele and Aronson 1995)and
women’s performance on mathematics tests (e.g., Spencer
et al. 1999) These findings, derived from samples of male
and female college students in the United States, have
prompted subsequent research into specific negative beliefs
that may serve as stereotype threats and diminish cognitive
performance among various populations. For example, feel-
ings of stereotype threat related to negative beliefs about the
association of poor memory and aging have been found to
negatively affect the memory performance of older adults
living in a community dwelling compared to younger,
college-aged adults in a Canadian sample (Chasteen et al.
2005). Similarly inspired, the research reported here was
designed to investigate the notion that the mention of men-
struation, long associated with debilitated function (see
Stubbs 2008), serves as a stereotype threat that diminishes
women’s cognitive performance.
At the same time, previous research indicates that posi-
tive priming about menstruation, that is, providing informa-
tion that focuses on positive aspects of menstruation, such as
J. A. Wister (*)
:
M. L. Stubbs
:
C. Shipman
Department of Psychology, Chatham University,
Woodland Road,
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
e-mail: wister@chatham.edu
Sex Roles (2013) 68:19–31
DOI 10.1007/s11199-012-0156-0
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