Debunking The Little Woman: How Media Stereotypes Impact a Womans Self Perception of Leadership A St

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Debunking The Little Woman How Media
Stereotypes Impact a Womans Self Perception of
LeadershipA Stereotype Threat Study by Jessica
Buletti, Charlotte Johnson, Tiffany Hill, Wini
McMichael, Lindsley Pence, andShelley VolzSan
Francisco State University2003
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Claude Steele (1997) demonstrated that
individuals are vulnerable to under performing
when they are reminded of a negative stereotype
about a group they belong to. Is the reverse
possible? Do positive images have a positive
role model effect to members of a stereotyped
group? In our study our question of specific
interest is Does viewing anti-stereotypical
images lead to performance boosts or assimilation
effects, while viewing subtle stereotypical
images lead to threat effects, which are
demonstrated by females choices of leadership
vs. non-leadership roles? This study uses a
randomized, between-subjects design. The primary
dependent variables include self-reported
leadership styles, self-reported major/career
choices and self-reported leadership choices.
The independent variables are three video clips
from prime-time television shows, two depicting a
female actress engaging in one of two behaviors
subtle stereotypic behavior and anti-stereotypic
behavior. A video clip featuring benign animal
behavior was used as a control. Results showed
females exposed to the anti-stereotypical video
chose the leader role over the role of
problem-solver as compared to both the subtle
stereotype and control groups. Unexpectedly,
males exposed to both the subtle and
anti-stereotypical female videos also chose the
role of problem-solver over leader as compared to
the control group.
Abstract
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Stereotype ThreatA state in which a member of
a stereotyped group is vulnerable to
underperforming when reminded of the stereotype
assigned to that group.Members of group must be
high achieving and strongly identified with a
particular domain, i.e. women and strong
leadership roles.
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Stereotype Activation
Assimilation vs. Contrast EffectsWheeler Petty
(2001), refer to behavior that is consistent with
the stereotype (walking slowly if primed with a
stereotype about the elderly) as assimilation.
Behavior that is opposite to or otherwise
inconsistent with the primed stereotype they call
a contrast effect.
Blatant vs. SubtleShih, Ambady, Richeson,
Fugita, Gray (2002) demonstrated that
stereotype activation is further impacted by the
blatancy of the stereotype prime. Where
stereotype activation is self-relevant, subtle
stereotype activation shows performance boosts as
compared to blatant forms of stereotype
activation. In individuals where stereotype
activation was not self-relevant, the opposite
was observed, boosts in performance were only
associated with blatant stereotype activation.
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Women, Media, and LeadershipWill exposure to
anti-stereotypical vs. subtly- stereotypical
media images have an impact on womens choices of
either leader or problem solver roles?Media
can activate stereotype threat (Davies
2000)What effect does anti-stereotypical and
subtlety stereotypical women represented in a
video clip have on leadership choices of women?
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We presented video clips to participants featuring
female performers who had been judged by an
independent panel to be either
Subtly-Stereotypical or Anti-Stereotypical, or a
Neutral control video.
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Pilot Study Determining Stereotype Levels

• The pilots aim was to determine which of a
  series of television clips were rated by a
  judging panel to be subtly stereotypical,
  blatantly stereotypical, or anti-stereotypical.
  The 13 video clips showing women in various
  stereotypical situations were from
• Sex in the City
• The X-files
• The West Wing
• JAG
• Six participants (sample of convenience)
  viewed clips and rated female characters on their
  perception of the stereotype level of the
  behavior.

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Design/Method Determining Stereotype Levels

• Eleven point Likert scale with 5 indicating
  Anti-Stereotypical and -5 indicating
  Blatantly-Stereotypical.
• Participants asked to judge videos based on both
  traits and behavior.
• Results evaluated using Friedman Chi-Square.
• Significant difference between video clips
  determined using Wilcoxin t-test.
• Clips judged Anti- and Subtly-Stereotypical were
  used for as priming agent in next phase of study.
• Both clips showed female on screen for 30 seconds
  with male voice in background but no physical
  male presence on screen.

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Main Study
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Design / Method

• Random sample of convenience composed mostly of
  psychology students
• Participants were led to believe this was a long
  term memory study
• Participants shown one of the video clips two
  times in succession
• Participants given leadership questionnaire
  participants were told this was to prevent
  rehearsal for the memory study. Participants
  were debriefed
• Utilized a 7 point Likert scale to assess
  participant interest in either leadership or
  problem solver roles after watching video clips.
• Evaluated data with Kruskal Wallace h-test

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ResultsDid not have enough participants for
true significance, but we saw a clear
trend.Women chose leadership over problem
solver roles when viewing a video clip of a
strong, anti-stereotypical woman.When viewing a
subtly stereotyped portrayal of a female
character women showed a trend toward the problem
solver role.
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Discussion

• Possible confounds
• Women were outnumbered by men in the
  anti-stereotypical condition according to
  Sekaquaptewa and Thompson (2003) a woman will
  under perform when she is outnumbered by men.
• Due to space restraints, the experimental
  environment was different for some clips
• The atmosphere of the clips were different,
  possibly influencing leader or problem solver
  choice.
• The participants were mostly Asian/Pacific
  Islander, which is not representative of the
  population
• Some participants did not rank preference for
  leader or problem solver when creating a
  difference score participants who marked both
  leader and problem solver highly received a
  difference score of zero.

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• Suggestions for further study
• Participants should be screened to represent
  fields within which they are domain identified,
  our participants were not screened as to their
  domain identification with leadership.
• Our literature review on stereotypes, stereotype
  activation and stereotype threat revealed a
  considerable amount of research on the impacts of
  subtle and blatant stereotype activation, but our
  work was unique in looking at the impact of the
  Anti-Stereotype.
• Further research is needed to explore the
  Anti-Stereotype in the area of the positive role
  model and other possible performance boosting
  strategies

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References

• Davies, P.G. (2000). Consuming images How
  television commercials that elicit stereotype
  threat can restrain women academically and
  professionally. Unpublished doctoral
  dissertation, University of Waterloo, Ontario,
  Canada
• Davies, P., Spencer, S., Quinn, D.,
  Gerhardstein, R. (2002). Consuming images How
  television commercials that elicit stereotype
  threat can restrain women academically and
  professionally. Personality and Social
  Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1615-1628
• Eagly, A.H., Johannesen-Schmidt, M.C. (2001).
  The leadership styles of women and men. Journal
  of Social Issues, 57, 781-797
• Eagly, A.H. Karu, S.J. (2202). Role congruity
  theory of prejudice toward female leaders.
  Psychological Review, 109(3), 573-598.
• Grebner, G., Gross. L., Morgan, M., Signorielli,
  N., Shanahan, J. (2002). Growing up with
  television Cultivation processes. In J. Bryant
  D. Zillman (Eds), Media effects Advances in
  theory and research (2nd ed.), 43-67
• Inzlicht, M. Ben-Zeev, T. (2000). A threatening
  intellectual environment Why females are
  susceptible to experiencing problem-solving
  deficits in the presence of males. Psychological
  Science, 11, 365-371.

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References

• Oswald, D., Harvey, R.D. (2000). Hostile
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• Shih, M., Ambady, N., Richeson, J.A., Fugita, K.,
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• Spencer, S.J. Steele, C.M. Quinn, D. (1999).
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• Steele, C.M. (1997). A threat in the air How
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• Wheeler, S.C., Petty, R.E. (2001.) The effects
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