The summary presented below arises from a research work realized in the third year of my Bachelor Degree at the University of Nanterre and deals with the phenomenon of stereotype threat.
The stereotype is a frequent subject in social psychology. According to Leyen (1996), a stereotype defines a shared faith concerning the personal characteristics, generally personality traits, but also behavior of a group or of an individual. To make a reference to a stereotype means to attribute the generalized faiths to the whole group. For cognitivists, this is a cognitive economy allowing to relieve the data processing.
Stereotypes are not without consequence on the behavior (Snyder, Stukas, on 1999). According to C. M Steele (1995), knowing that one is associated to a negative stereotype can have an unfavorable impact on the performances in a situation where the individual thinks that a bad result would be interpreted as a typical deficiency of his membership group. The effects are such as the stereotype is finally confirmed. This is called the stereotype threat in social psychology.
Interested in this topic, we asked ourselves the following question: by activating the stereotype which says that men are less successful than women in spelling, can we observe a fall of the performances and intense emotional reactions?
To answer this issue, we questioned eighty literature students of the university of Nanterre. We submitted them a dictation and an anxiety scale by varying the gender (men vs women) and the instruction (diagnostic condition vs no diagnostic condition). In the diagnostic condition, the dictation is presented to the participants as an exercise to verify the following stereotype: “men are less successful in spelling than women”. In the no diagnostic condition, she is presented as a research on the calligraphy. The evaluation of the performances in spelling and the level of anxiety allow to highlight an effect of the stereotype threat.
As we had hypothesized, the results show that men have a less good spelling performance than women when they are in diagnostic condition while men in not diagnostic condition obtain on average an equal performance that women. Therefore, the effects of the stereotype threat are clearly visible.
Indeed, the results reveal that the activation of the negative stereotype is stressful for the people concerned. It is this stress which explains the fall of performances for men in diagnostic condition. On the contrary, women in diagnostic condition have the lowest level of anxiety, probably because the stereotype reinforces their self-esteem. It is important to note that there isn’t significant difference between the spelling performances according to the sex when we don’t speak of stereotype. Thus, when an evaluation is presented as a diagnostic of the features considered typical and negative of a group, the pressure increases and causes a number of psychological reactions coming to perturb the intellectual abilities. The irrelevance of the task (Easterbook, on 1959), the self-awareness (Baumeister, on 1984), the anxiety (Sarason, on 1972), and the reduction of motivation (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, 1983) directly interfere with the working memory and prevent individuals from doing their best at problem solving. In other word, the negative feelings play a leading role in the decline of the performances.
Really interested in social and work psychology, I go back to university to get the title of psychologist and to advance in my carrer. Indeed, I have already a rich professional experience in the field of social and professional integration, especially with young people. Later, I want to continue to work with vulnérable people such as youngs or seniors job seeker , handicapped person …
Moreover, I’m new resident in the Nantes region and discover every days with pleasure this area.