Experience-Taking And The Possibility To Buffer Against Stereotype Threat

Rappaport, Roxanne

Experience-Taking And The Possibility To Buffer Against Stereotype Threat

Abstract

Research on stereotype threat has shown that making an individual vulnerable to a stereotype of his or her ingroup can hinder performance of a related task, yet there have been interventions that have been shown to help individuals' performance in a stereotype threat situation. Additionally, experience-taking, a measure to identify an individuals' involvement in literature, has been shown to modify behavior, but has not yet been looked at in regards to stereotype threat. In the proposed study, African American and Caucasian university students will either be randomly assigned to control groups or stereotype threat groups, where they will either be given a neutral narrative or an intervention narrative to read. Experience-taking levels and performance levels will be assessed. It is hypothesized that African Americans who are primed with stereotype threat will perform better after reading the intervention narrative than African Americans who read a neutral narrative and that African Americans who read the intervention narrative will respond higher on experience-taking measures than African American participants who read a neutral narrative and than Caucasian participants who read a neutral narrative or the intervention narrative.

Date Issued

2016-02-01

Committee Chair

Wang,Qi

Committee Member

Ong,Anthony D.

Degree Discipline

Developmental Psychology

Degree Name

M.A., Developmental Psychology

Degree Level

Master of Arts

Types

dissertation or thesis