Showing papers on "Stereotype published in 2006"

Reducing the racial achievement gap: a social-psychological intervention.

Abstract: Two randomized field experiments tested a social-psychological intervention designed to improve minority student performance and increase our understanding of how psychological threat mediates performance in chronically evaluative real-world environments. We expected that the risk of confirming a negative stereotype aimed at one's group could undermine academic performance in minority students by elevating their level of psychological threat. We tested whether such psychological threat could be lessened by having students reaffirm their sense of personal adequacy or "self-integrity." The intervention, a brief in-class writing assignment, significantly improved the grades of African American students and reduced the racial achievement gap by 40%. These results suggest that the racial achievement gap, a major social concern in the United States, could be ameliorated by the use of timely and targeted social-psychological interventions.

Stereotyping and evaluation in implicit race bias: evidence for independent constructs and unique effects on behavior

Abstract: Implicit stereotyping and prejudice often appear as a single process in behavior, yet functional neuroanatomy suggests that they arise from fundamentally distinct substrates associated with semantic versus affective memory systems. On the basis of this research, the authors propose that implicit stereotyping reflects cognitive processes and should predict instrumental behaviors such as judgments and impression formation, whereas implicit evaluation reflects affective processes and should predict consummatory behaviors, such as interpersonal preferences and social distance. Study 1 showed the independence of participants' levels of implicit stereotyping and evaluation. Studies 2 and 3 showed the unique effects of implicit stereotyping and evaluation on self-reported and behavioral responses to African Americans using double-dissociation designs. Implications for construct validity, theory development, and research design are discussed.

The digital divide: the special case of gender

Abstract: This paper examines the evidence for the digital divide based on gender. An overview of research published in the last 20 years draws to the conclusion that females are at a disadvantage relative to men when learning about computers or learning other material with the aid of computer-assisted software. The evidence shows that the digital divide affects people of all ages and across international boundaries. We suggest that the digital divide is fundamentally a problem of computer anxiety whose roots are deep in socialization patterns of boys and girls and that interact with the stereotype of computers as toys for boys. A model of the digital divide is presented that examines gender stereotypes, attribution patterns, and stereotype threat as antecedents of computer anxiety. Computer anxiety in turn leads to differences in computer attitudes and computer performance. A number of suggestions are offered to reduce the impact of the digital divide.

A developmental intergroup theory of social stereotypes and prejudice.

Abstract: Developmental intergroup theory specifies the mechanisms and rules that govern the processes by which children single out groups as targets of stereotyping and prejudice, and by which children learn and construct both the characteristics (i.e., stereotypes) and affective responses (i.e., prejudices) that are associated with these groups in their culture. Specifically, we argue that children have a drive to understand their world, and that this drive is manifested in their tendency to classify natural and non-natural stimuli into categories, and to search the environment for cues about which of the great number of potential bases for categorization are important. The first step in the process of stereotype and prejudice formation is, therefore, the establishment of the psychological salience of some particular set of dimensions. Four factors are hypothesized to affect the establishment of the psychological salience of person attributes: (1) perceptual discriminability of social groups, (2) proportional group size, (3) explicit labeling and use of social groups, and (4) implicit use of social groups. We argue that person characteristics that are perceptually discriminable are more likely than other characteristics to become the basis of stereotyping, but that perceptual discriminability alone is insufficient to trigger psychological salience. Thus, for example, young children's ability to detect race or gender does not mean that these distinctions will inevitably become the bases of stereotypes and prejudice. Instead, for perceptually salient groups to become psychologically salient, one or more additional circumstances must hold, including being characterized by minority status, by adults' use of different labels for different groups, by adults using group divisions functionally, or by segregation. After a particular characteristic that may be used to differentiate among individuals becomes salient, we propose that children who have the ability to sort consistently will then categorize newly encountered individuals along this dimension. The act of categorization then triggers the process of social stereotyping and prejudice formation. Four factors are hypothesized to have an impact on the processes of forming stereotypes and prejudice. These include: (1) essentialism, (2) ingroup bias, (3) explicit attributions to social groups, and (4) group-attribute covariation. As noted throughout this chapter, there has been relatively little developmental work on many of the processes outlined here. Although findings from our own programs of research are consistent with the role of factors we have identified in the theory (e.g., the role of minority status, segregation, labeling and functional use of groups have all been shown to influence children's evaluations and beliefs about social groups), far more extensive research is needed. In addition to testing the reliability and generalizability of past findings to other samples, other research laboratories, and other experimentally manipulated groups, future work must move these theoretical models into the laboratory of the real world. If the tenets of developmental intergroup theory are correct, there would be many implications for social, educational, and legal policies related to social groups. We noted, for example, ways in which race and gender are made psychologically salient (e.g., the use of labels; segregated conditions). Importantly, factors such as these are largely under societal control. That is, institutions and individuals can choose to routinely label and use some particular category within children's environments or not. It is a violation of federal law, for example, for public school teachers to ask the children in their classrooms to line up at the door by race. In contrast, no federal or state law prohibits teachers from organizing their classrooms by sex. Should such laws be enacted? There can also be social controls on various forms of social segregation. Is it within individual children's rights to affiliate only with same-sex or same-race individuals? Is it acceptable for children and adolescents to exclude peers from their games, play, study groups, or other cliques on the basis of gender, race, age, or ethnicity? Finally, social institutions such as schools offer potential opportunities for intervention programs. What, if any, programs should be offered or required? Should curricula explicitly discuss social stereotyping and prejudice? Should children be taught negative information about people with whom they share some characteristic to reduce ingroup favoritism? Our hope is that developmental intergroup theory will ultimately prove valuable not only for understanding the development of social stereotypes and prejudices in children, but also for guiding social interventions that can ultimately prevent the development of stereotypes and prejudices in individuals and society.

A world of lies

Abstract: This article reports two worldwide studies of stereotypes about liars. These studies are carried out in 75 different countries and 43 different languages. In Study 1, participants respond to the open-ended question “How can you tell when people are lying?” In Study 2, participants complete a questionnaire about lying. These two studies reveal a dominant pan-cultural stereotype: that liars avert gaze. The authors identify other common beliefs and offer a social control interpretation.

Exposure to Scientific Theories Affects Women's Math Performance

Abstract: Stereotype threat occurs when stereotyped groups perform worse as their group membership is highlighted. We investigated whether stereotype threat is affected by accounts for the origins of stereotypes. In two studies, women who read of genetic causes of sex differences performed worse on math tests than those who read of experiential causes.

An age apart: the effects of intergenerational contact and stereotype threat on performance and intergroup bias.

Abstract: An experimental study examined the effect of intergenerational contact and stereotype threat on older people’s cognitive performance, anxiety, intergroup bias, and identification. Participants completed a series of cognitive tasks under high or low stereotype threat (through comparison with younger people). In line with stereotype threat theory, threat resulted in worse performance. However, this did not occur if prior intergenerational contact had been more positive. This moderating effect of contact was mediated by test-related anxiety. In line with intergroup contact theory, more positive contact was associated with reduced prejudice and reduced ingroup identification. However this occurred in the high threat, but not low threat, condition. The findings suggest that positive intergenerational contact can reduce vulnerability to stereotype threat among older people.

Stereotype Directionality and Attractiveness Stereotyping: Is Beauty Good or is Ugly Bad?

Abstract: Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972), in their seminal article, labeled the attribution of positive characteristics to attractive people the “beauty—is—good” stereotype. The stereotyping literature since then provides extensive evidence for the differential judgment and treatment of attractive versus unattractive people, but does not indicate whether it is an advantage to be attractive or a disadvantage to be unattractive. Two studies investigated the direction of attractiveness stereotyping by comparing judgments of positive and negative attributes for medium vs. low and medium vs. high attractive faces. Taken together, results for adults (Experiment 1) and children (Experiment 2) suggest that most often, unattractiveness is a disadvantage, consistent with negativity bias (e.g., Rozin & Royzman, 2001), but contrary to the “beauty—is—good” aphorism.

Stereotype Threat, Identification with Academics, and Withdrawal from School: Why the most successful students of colour might be most likely to withdraw

Abstract: Claude Steele’s stereotype threat hypothesis posits that when there are negative stereotypes about the intellectual capacity of certain (stigmatised) groups, members of that group suffer aversive consequences; group members who are most strongly identified with the stigmatised domain in question (e.g., intellectual or academic ability) are those most likely to suffer the effects of stereotype threat. In education, it is widely held that personal investment in schooling should lead to more positive outcomes. However, highly‐invested individuals will most keenly experience the negative effects of stigma. Thus those most at risk for withdrawing from school among students of colour (who suffer a stigma of intellectual inferiority) could be those most invested in schooling. This hypothesis was tested by measuring identification with academics among a group of incoming students at a racially diverse inner‐city high school in the Midwest USA. Regardless of race, the students who most strongly identified with aca...

Self-Reported Differences in Creativity by Ethnicity and Gender

Abstract: Creativity assessment has been proposed as a supplement to intellectual testing, in part because of reduced differences by ethnicity; creativity testing might also specifically help reduce stereotype threat. Recent trends in creativity research point to a domain-specific view challenging the more traditional generalist view. With these trends in mind, the current study assessed creative self-perceptions of 3553 students and community members in 56 different possible domains distributed across five factors (as determined by principal components analysis). African Americans were less likely to fall prone to gender stereotypes in creativity. In addition, African Americans and Native Americans tended to rate themselves as more creative than other ethnicities. Specific trends in the factors and implications for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Psychological reactions to crime news portrayals of Black criminals: Understanding the moderating roles of prior news viewing and stereotype endorsement

Abstract: An experiment examined the extent to which viewers’ death penalty application, perceptions of crime danger, and culpability assessments could be influenced by exposure to a majority of Black suspects in the news or having the race of suspects go unidentified in a newscast. The current study also investigated the extent to which prior news viewing and African American stereotype endorsement might moderate the effects of this racialized crime news exposure. After exposure to a majority of Black suspects or unidentified suspects in a newscast, African American stereotype endorsers were more likely than stereotype rejecters to support the death penalty. Furthermore, heavy television news viewers exposed to a majority of Black suspects were more likely than light news viewers to perceive the world as dangerous and view a race-unidentified suspect as culpable for his offense. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed in light of social cognition theories of priming, cognitive accessibility, s...

Will opposites attract? Similarities and differences in students' perceptions of the stereotype profiles of other health and social care professional groups.

Abstract: The extent to which health and social care (HSC) students hold stereotypical views of other HSC professional groups is of great potential importance to team working in health care. This paper explo...

Asian Americans in Class: Charting the Achievement Gap Among Korean American Youth

Abstract: This book challenges the "model minority" stereotype of Asian American students as a critical step toward educating all children well. Focusing on Korean American youth in New York City schools, Jamie Lew compares high-achieving students attending a competitive magnet high school with students who have dropped out of a neighborhood high school. She finds that class, race, social networks, parental strategies, and schooling resources all affect the aspirations and academic achievement of Asian American youth. This in-depth examination: debunks the simplistic "culture of poverty" argument that is often used to explain the success of Asian Americans and the failure of other minorities; illustrates how Asian Americans, in different social and economic contexts, negotiate ties to their families and ethnic communities, construct ethnic and racial identities, and gain access to good schooling and institutional support; offers specific recommendations on how to involve first-generation immigrant parents and ethnic community members in schools to foster academic success; and looks at implications for developing educational policies that more fully address the needs of second-generation children.

The difference isn't black and white: stereotype threat and the race gap on Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices.

Abstract: This study addresses recent criticisms aimed at the interpretation of stereotype threat research and methodological weaknesses of previous studies that have examined race differences on Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM) African American and White undergraduates completed the APM under three conditions In two threat conditions, participants received either standard APM instructions (standard threat) or were told that the APM was an IQ test (high threat) In a low threat condition, participants were told that the APM was a set of puzzles and that the researchers wanted their opinions of them Results supported the stereotype threat interpretation of race differences in cognitive ability test scores Although African American participants underperformed Whites under both standard and high threat instructions, they performed just as well as Whites did under low threat instructions

Shades of Threat: Racial Identity as a Moderator of Stereotype Threat

Abstract: This study investigated Black racial identity attitudes as a moderator of intellectual performance in potentially stereotype threatening situations. Ninety-eight African American students were randomly assigned to one of three stereotype threatening conditions: low threat, medium threat, or high threat. Analyses confirmed a stereotype threat effect with participants performing significantly better on the task in the low threat condition. Additional analyses of the test takers’ racial identity profiles under high and low threat conditions revealed a significant interaction between Internalization status attitudes and the type of threat condition. In the low stereotype threat condition, Internalization status attitudes moderated performance on the intellectual task (i.e., items from the verbal section of the GRE). In this condition, after controlling for SAT verbal score, students who strongly endorsed Internalization racial identity attitudes correctly solved more items than students who did not identify a...

Stereotype or success? Prime-time television's portrayals of gay male, lesbian, and bisexual characters.

Abstract: The current content analysis of prime-time network television during the fall of 2001 seeks to identify the representation of Gay male, Lesbian, and Bisexual characters in shows known to have one reoccurring homosexual character based on the theories of Clark and Berry. Clark (1969) established four stages of media representation for minority groups: non-representation, ridicule, regulation, and respect. The findings of the study support the premise that Gay males and Lesbians have passed Clark's stage of non-representation and have progressed into the stage of ridicule and some are moving into the stages of regulation and respect. Berry (1980) devised three periods based on the television portrayal of Blacks: The Stereotypic Age, The New Awareness, and Stabilization. Results were mixed, with only a partial support of the hypothesis that Gay males and Lesbians had advanced beyond The Stereotypic Age.

Gender role violations and identity misclassification: The roles of audience and actor variables.

Abstract: When people violate certain social role norms, they risk false categorization into a stigmatized group. For example, heterosexual men who perform female stereotypic behaviors are often misclassified as gay. This identity misclassification is aversive because it threatens fundamental psychological needs. Findings presented here reveal that expectations of identity misclassification fuel heterosexual actors’ (N = 216) discomfort during imagined gender role violations and that audience variables that increase the likelihood of misclassification also increase role violators’ discomfort. Moreover, expectations of misclassification strongly predict people’s discomfort during gender role violations regardless of their standing along relevant actor dimensions (e.g., attitudes and self-views). These findings suggest that people’s—and particularly heterosexual men’s—expectations of identity misclassification are powerful mechanisms that underlie adherence to traditional gender role norms.

Muslims in the European Union: discrimination and Islamophobia

Abstract: The available data on victims of discrimination show that European Muslims are often disproportionately represented in areas with poorer housing conditions, while their educational achievement falls below average and their unemployment rates are higher than average. Muslims are often employed in jobs that require lower qualifications. As a group they are over-represented in low-paying sectors of the economy.

Memory Performance of Late Middle–Aged Adults: Contrasting Self–Stereotyping and Stereotype Threat Accounts of Assimilation to Age Stereotypes

Abstract: The goals of this study were to contrast stereotype threat and self–stereotyping accounts of behavioral assimilation to age stereotypes and to investigate the role of identity in that process. Based on random assignment, 89 adults in late middle–age (48–62 years; M= 54) were told that their memory performance would be compared to that of people over 70 (low threat condition), people under 25 (high threat condition), or they received no comparison information (control). Results showed that participants primed with the presumably non–threatening category “older adults” performed significantly worse on a word recall test than participants primed with the category “younger adults” and participants in the control condition. The results were moderated by implicit age identity—only participants who had begun making the identity transition into older adulthood were affected by the manipulation. These findings offer evidence that self–stereotyping and stereotype threat are distinct explanations for stereotype

Challenging the Politics of the “Model Minority” Stereotype: A Case for Educational Equality

Abstract: This article examines the political rationale of the “model minority” stereotype about Asian Americans and its ramifications on education. Created by white elites in the 1960s as a device of political control, the model minority stereotype continues to serve the larger conservative restoration in American society today. By over-emphasizing Asian American success and misrepresenting it as proof of the perceived equal opportunity in American society, proponents of the stereotype downplay racism and other structural problems Asians and other minority groups continue to suffer. The theory that Asians succeed by merit (strong family, hard work, and high regard for education) is used by power elites to silence the protesting voices of racial minorities and even disadvantaged Whites and to maintain the status quo in race and power relations. In education, the model minority thesis has always supported conservative agendas in school reform. Now it goes hand in hand with the meritocracy myth and promotes education...

Discounting the difficult : How high math-identified women respond to stereotype threat

Abstract: In this study, we examined how math identity moderates women's response to gender-related stereotypes in the domain of mathematics. Male and female college students with varying degrees of math identification took a challenging math test with a gender-related stereotype either activated (i.e., stereotype threat) or nullified. Consistent with previous research, women performed worse than men in the stereotype threat condition, but equal to men in the stereotype nullification condition when performance was adjusted for math SAT scores. Moreover, when faced with stereotype threat, high math-identified women discounted the validity of the test more than did less math-identified women or men in general. We discuss potential benefits and drawbacks of a discounting strategy for women who are highly identified with math.

The criminal stereotype

Abstract: The current research was designed to assess the content of the criminal stereotype from a Hispanic population. In Study 1 participants were asked to provide general information about the concepts associated with criminals. Study 2 used this information to develop a questionnaire that assessed specific perceptions of criminals, criminal behavior, and criminal activities. In addition, stereotypes for Hispanic, White, Black, and Asian criminals were assessed. Results present a picture of the typical criminal, as well as uncovering differences in people's stereotypes of criminals of varying ethnicities. A brief review of the criminal stereotype literature is provided along with a discussion on the potential impact criminal stereotypes may have on eyewitness memory and identification. Stereotypes can be thought of as the mental representations that people have for members of a group (e.g. racial or ethnic groups, gender, etc.). These mental representations typically exaggerate the differences between groups and minimize the differences of people within the same group (Schneider, 2004; Stangor & Ford, 1992). In addition, the group being stereotyped (the out-group) tends to be viewed more negatively and as more homogeneous than the in-group, which is perceived more positively and as more heterogeneous (Kunda, 1999). Research has shown that people have well-defined stereotypes for racial/ethnic groups, males/females, and for youth/elderly (Schneider, 2004). The content of these stereotypes is often in the form of trait ascriptions as well as personality and social category information (e.g., loud, lazy, poor). Stereotypes impact information processing (Kunda, 1999), and previous research has supported the notion that when stereotypes are elicited, individuals are likely to interpret others' actions in ways that are consistent with the predetermined labels (Cantor & Mischel, 1977; Schneider, 2004; Yarmey, 1993). Criminal stereotypes may thus introduce a bias into the legal system that negatively affects people's lives and the course of law enforcement activities. An understanding of the composition of people's criminal stereotypes is important, and this paper focuses on uncovering people's stereotypes about criminals in general, and criminals of specific ethnicities. A criminal can be defined as a person having been convicted of a crime or who engages in criminal activity. When thinking about a criminal, concepts, images, and experiences come to mind that enable one to form a mental representation of a criminal. While there is a great deal of literature on stereotypes in general, the research on criminal stereotypes is not as extensive (for a review see Bull & Rumsey, 1988). The literature has supported the assertion that individuals hold well-formed ideas about what types of people commit crime and who looks like a criminal, and some studies have demonstrated that there is consensus regarding criminal and non-criminal appearances as well as matching faces to crimes (Bull & Green, 1980; Chapman, 1973; Goldstein, Chance, & Gilbert, 1984; Gordon, Michels, & Nelson, 1996; Jones & Kaplan, 2003; Mueller, Thompson, & Vogel, 1988; Shoemaker & South, 1978; Shoemaker, South, & Lowe, 1973; Sunnafrank & Fontes, 1983; Thornton, 1939). However, unlike research on ethnic and racial stereotypes (e.g., Devine & Baker, 1991; Niemann, Jennings, Rozelle, Baxter, & Sullivan, 1994), there is much less information about the traits associated with a criminal. The existing research on the content of criminal stereotypes shows that they are comprised of physical, trait and social category information, much as are stereotypes of other groups. Reed and Reed (1973) sought to determine whether three particular occupational groups had a general image of a criminal and whether the existence of this image affected the punishment of the criminal, and lastly whether having this image affected the degree to which individuals were willing to have personal relationships with the criminal. …

Women and Political Violence: Female Combatants in Ethno-National Conflict

Abstract: This book directly challenges the stereotype that women are inherently peaceable by examining female combatants’ involvement in ethno-national conflicts. Drawing upon empirical case studies of Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland, this study explores the ways in which women have traditionally been depicted. Whereas women have predominantly been seen as victims of conflict, this book acknowledges the reality of women as active combatants. Indeed, female soldiers/irregulars are features of most modern conflicts, and particularly in ethno-nationalist violence – until now largely ignored by mainstream scholarship. Original interview material from the author’s extensive fieldwork addresses why, and how, some women choose to become violently engaged in nationalist conflicts. It also highlights the personal / political costs and benefits incurred by such women. This book provides a valuable insight into female combatants, and is a significant contribution to the literature.

The emergence of a syndrome-specific personality profile in young children with Down syndrome

Abstract: For decades, researchers and practitioners have attempted to find evidence for a personality stereotype in individuals with Down syndrome that includes a pleasant, affectionate, and passive behaviour style. However, a more nuanced exploration of personality-motivation in Down syndrome reveals complexity beyond this pleasant stereotype, including reports of a less persistent motivational orientation and an over-reliance on social behaviours during cognitively-challenging tasks. It is hypothesised that the personality-motivation profile observed in individuals with Down syndrome emerges as a result of the cross-domain relations between more primary (cognitive, social-emotional) aspects of the Down syndrome behavioural phenotype. Young children with Down syndrome show a general profile of delays in the development of instrumental thinking coupled with emerging relative strengths in social-emotional functioning. If it is true that a less persistent motivational orientation emerges as a secondary phenotypic result of more primary strengths in social functioning and deficits in instrumental (means-end) thinking, it may be possible to alter the developmental trajectory of this personality-motivation profile with targeted and time-sensitive intervention. Implications for intervention planning are discussed.

When fiends become friends: the need to belong and perceptions of personal and group discrimination.

Abstract: The present article examines the role that the need to belong (NTB) plays in people's judgments of personal and group discrimination and in the attributions people make for potentially discriminatory evaluations. The authors hypothesized that the NTB motivates people to conclude that (a) whereas they rarely experience personal discrimination, (b) their fellow in-group members do experience discrimination. In Study 1, people high in the NTB reported experiencing lower than average levels of personal and higher than average levels of group discrimination. In Study 2, an experimental manipulation of the NTB yielded similar results. In Study 3, women who were motivated to be accepted by a bogus male participant were less likely to attribute his negative evaluations of their work to prejudice.

On Construing Others: Category and Stereotype Activation from Facial Cues

Abstract: Although the face is unquestionably the most valuable source of information available to social perceivers, quite how humans exploit physiognomic cues to make sense of unfamiliar social targets has yet to be fully elucidated. The present investigation explores the possibility that bottom-up visual processing of faces (e.g., the detection of diagnostic social category features) increases the accessibility of social group knowledge structures in memory. Two experiments were undertaken in which the inevitability and strength of category and stereotype activation were assessed by having participants make judgments on centrally presented words that were flanked by a varying number of congruent or incongruent distracter faces. Results showed that despite perceivers' intentions to ignore them, the mere presence of faces increased the accessibility of sex categories (Experiment 1) and gender stereotypes (Experiment 2). However, whereas category-based responding was modulated by the number of faces present, no suc...

Stereotype threat: the moderating role of Locus of Control beliefs

Abstract: The goal of the present study was to test the moderating role of Locus of Control beliefs on performance deficits typically associated with stereotype threat. The results from Experiment 1 were consistent with predictions. First, consistent with the Stereotype Threat model, participants showed a decrease in performance when the task was perceived as a potential test of the in-group's negative stereotype (lacking logical mathematical intelligence in the case of women and lacking social intelligence in the case of men). Most important, participants' Locus of Control beliefs were found to moderate participants' vulnerability to stereotype threat: individuals with an Internal Locus of Control, although generally performing better, showed a sharper decrease in the stereotype threat condition compared to individuals with External Locus of Control beliefs. Experiment 2 replicated the results from Experiment 1. Findings are discussed in relation to the psychological characteristics of Internal Locus of Control that may render individuals more vulnerable to the negative effects of stereotype threat. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.