Consuming Images: How Television Commercials that Elicit Stereotype Threat Can Restrain Women Academically and Professionally

Abstract

Women in quantitative fields risk being personally reduced to negative stereotypes that allege a sex-based math inability. This situational predicament, termed stereotype threat, can undermine women's performance and aspirations in all quantitative domains. Gender-stereotypic television commercials were employed in three studies to elicit the female stereotype among both men and women. Study 1 revealed that only women for whom the activated stereotype was self-relevant underperformed on a subsequent math test. Exposure to the stereotypic commercials led women taking an aptitude test in Study 2 to avoid math items in favor of verbal items. In Study 3, women who viewed the stereotypic commercials indicated less interest in educational/ vocational options in which they were susceptible to stereotype threat (i.e., quantitative domains) and more interest in fields in which they were immune to stereotype threat (i.e., verbal domains).Do you know of anything that is practiced by human beings in which the class of men doesn't excel that of women? Or shall we draw it out at length by speaking of weaving and the care of baked and boiled dishes-just those activities on which the reputation of the female sex is based and where its defeat is most ridiculous of all?-Socrates (cited in Bloom, 1968)

Stereotype Threat in the Marketplace: Consumer Anxiety and Purchase Intentions

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How Feelings of Stereotype Threat Influence Older Adults' Memory Performance

“…Because both the memorize and impression groups were told they would be asked questions about the items they would be exposed to, we thought it possible that the general testing situation might have had features that triggered older adults' negative views about their performance ability. This seemed plausible because very subtle manipulations can trigger negative stereotypes (e.g., Davies, Spencer, Quinn, & Gerhardstein, 2002;Steele & Aronson, 1995). To explore this possibility, we conducted a second study to directly examine participants' cognitive and affective experiences during the testing situation.…”

Is it funny because it's not true? Chinese people's perceptions of aggressive female characters in Asian comedies

“…Based on earlier studies (i.e., Davies, et al, 2002), the media's failure to represent women's diverse roles in real life reinforces audience members' stereotypical expectations of women. Researchers (Siu & Au,1997;Kang & Xu, 2009) have observed that media tended to portray females as sexually attractive, and, indeed, most of the participants seemed to enjoy the fact that these actresses met conventional standards of beauty.…”

“…The authors thus concluded that television commercials presenting women as independent, confident, dominant, and active have positive effects on women's self-perception. Davies, et al (2002) found that women who viewed genderstereotyped television commercials tended to underperform on a math test or even avoid quantitative work. The researchers concluded that "experiencing stereotype threat repeatedly in a given domain may eventually lead from action to chronic adaption strategies" (p. 1627).…”