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Telling girls that boys are better than they are at mathematics can irritate them so much that it negatively affects their performance, according to a U.S. study.

Researchers from three U.S. universities found that the threat of stereotypes can create worries that undermine women's short-term memory system, needed for problem-solving.

"The women start worrying about screwing up, which uses up important short-term or working memory [that] could otherwise be used performing the task," said Sian Beilock, assistant professor in psychology at the University of Chicago and lead investigator in the study.

But the study also found that reminding girls of popular stereotypes, such as boys being better at math, undermines performance in other areas too. "Our work suggests that if a girl has a mathematics class ... and experiences math-related worries in this class, these worries may carry implications for her performance in the class she attends next."

Researchers have been aware that stereotypes can undermine achievement in schools, but little research had focused on the specific mental processes that prompt this response.

The research by Ms. Beilock and her colleagues from the University of Miami and the University of California was based on five studies involving about 200 college women who did well in mathematics.

The women were randomly assigned to two groups, with one set told they were being tested to see why men generally do better than women in math, and the other group simply told they were part of an experiment on math performance.

The accuracy of test subjects exposed to the stereotype was reduced from nearly 90 per cent in a pretest to about 80 per cent, the researchers found.

The women reported being distracted by thoughts such as: "I thought about how boys are usually better than girls at math, so I was trying harder not to make mistakes."

Among women not given the stereotype message, performanceimproved slightly.After the math test, the women were also given a standard memory test, and it was found that women exposed to the stereotyping also did less well there.

Ms. Beilock said reminding any social or cultural group of a stereotype can negatively affect performance.

The results of the study appear in the paper Stereotype Threat and Working Memory: Mechanisms, Alleviation and Spill Over, in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.