Being Stereotyped Flashcards
Stress and Health
Awareness of: Stereotypes and Prejudices —> Stress —> Negative health consequences
Stress and health Study
Experimental manipulation: Information indicating a person either is or isn’t prejudiced against ethnic minority groups
Results: Anticipating interactions with a prejudiced person led to increased emotional stress, heart rate, and blood pressure
Social Safety
- reliable social connection, inclusion, and protection
- provides an important buffer against stressful and health-imperilling effects of prejudice and stigmatization
- insufficeint social safety = primary cause of stigma-related health disparities and key target for intervention
Social identity and fitting in
Awareness of: Stereotypes and prejudices —> Concern about being perceived as one of “them” —> Changes in attitudes and actions to “fit in”
You are what you eat experiment
- In-person survey on food preferences
- Initial inquiry of “Do you speak english”
- “I AM from here” “I DO belong here”
- causing them to say an American food in order to fit in
Similar experiment (Asian-Americans)
- gave participants opportunity to choose food to rate
- then told them they had to be American to participate
- “I AM American, actually”
- more likely to order American food and ingested more calories
Stereotype threat and academic acheivement
- awareness of stereotypes of own group and concern about how own actions might reinforce that stereotypes —> disruption in performance
- e.g. African-Americans underachieve
- Women don’t do well in math as guys
Opportunities for intervention can be integrated:
- self-conscious attention to own behaviour (I’m a woman, taking this math test)
- negative thoughts and emotions (What if I reinforce these negative stereotypes?)
- physiological stress response
- ALL lead to consumption of working memory (more likely to make mistakes, take longer)
Disruption in performance is less likely to happen when
- academic task presented as non-diagnostic of ability (not a “hardcore test” that depends on math abilities)
- membership in stereotypes group is less salient (when have to record gender during math test)
- the stereotype itself is less salient
- awareness of “stereotype threat” phenomenon
The stereotype itself is less salient
- when presented as a math test: men performed better
- when presented as problem solving test: men and women equal performance
Awareness of stereotype threat phenomenon
- brief lesson on stereotype threat and then do math test: men and women equal performance
Why might learning about stereotype threat affect women’s performance?
- equipped to anticipate stereotype
- provides a way of finding the whole experience less threatening
- provides an excuse if women screw up
- opportunities for intervention
If situation primes a sense of uncertainty, they become motivated to not conform to stereotype
BUT this increased vigilance and control hijacks the same central executive processor needed to excel on complex cognitive tasks —> poorer performance
Why poorer performance when trying to avoid stereotype?
- Losing oneself in the moment
- Searching for signs of failure
- The view through threat-coloured glasses
- Never let them see you sweat
- Losing oneself in the moment
- math-identified woman become uncertain about who they are when under stereotype threat
- Searching for signs of failure
makes one vigilant for any evidence that they could be confirming the stereotype
stereotype threat increases sensitivity to mistakes BUT ALSO to one’s internal states
- people assume they feel anxious when things aren’t going well, and so anxiety itself during performance can be interpreted as evidence of failure
- women under stereotype threat were more likely to have their attention drawn toward anxiety-related stimuli
- The view through threat-coloured glasses
stereotype threat activates negative thoughts that can bias the interpretation of what one is thinking, feeling, and doing
- ex. anxiety during a test might be fine if one is confident BUT when experienced with thought of doubt, becomes a distraction
predicted lower working memory
- Never let them see you sweat
individuals under threat are motivated to push negative thoughts out of mind
ex. women exerted most effort to avoid appearing anxious had lowest working memory scores
Reconstructing success but reappraising the situation
- when women and minorities are first told that anxiety will not harm their performance, suppression efforts of avoiding anxiety are eliminated
