POSITIVE STEREOTYPE THREAT IN SOCIAL GROUPS

This work examined stereotype threat within social
groups and whether stereotype threat would be seen
with a positive stereotype. Stereotype threat is
usually seen as a decrease in performance induced by
an anxiety within individuals fearing they will
confirm a pre-existing and culturally-known negative
stereotype. Science fiction fans were compared to a
matched sample of college students. Both groups were
given a 50-item problem-solving task described as an
intelligence test. Individuals were randomly
assigned to one of three conditions (1) no threat
condition, (2) general threat condition,
participants were told that people are
underperforming, or (3) specific threat condition
where participants were told that science fiction
fans were underperforming. It was hypothesized that
members of the social group science fiction fans
would be affected by a stereotype threat effect and,
therefore, underperform compared to non-members on
the task in the specific threat condition. This work
aimed to generalize stereotype threat to non-
academic situations within socially-constructed
groups and to positive stereotypes. The results did
not support the hypotheses.

Autorentext

Joel T. Nadler is a Ph.D. Candidate in Applied Experimental
Psychology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC).
Joel works as a Senior Research Associate at Applied Research
Consultants and a lecturer at SIUC. He researches workplace
gender bias and has taught statistics, research methods, I/O
and organizational psychology.

Klappentext

This work examined stereotype threat within social
groups and whether stereotype threat would be seen
with a positive stereotype. Stereotype threat is
usually seen as a decrease in performance induced by
an anxiety within individuals fearing they will
confirm a pre-existing and culturally-known negative
stereotype. Science fiction fans were compared to a
matched sample of college students. Both groups were
given a 50-item problem-solving task described as an
intelligence test. Individuals were randomly
assigned to one of three conditions (1) no threat
condition, (2) general threat condition,
participants were told that people are
underperforming, or (3) specific threat condition
where participants were told that science fiction
fans were underperforming. It was hypothesized that
members of the social group science fiction fans
would be affected by a stereotype threat effect and,
therefore, underperform compared to non-members on
the task in the specific threat condition. This work
aimed to generalize stereotype threat to non-
academic situations within socially-constructed
groups and to positive stereotypes. The results did
not support the hypotheses.