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Stereotype Performance Boosts: the Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of Stereotype Activation Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Copyright 2002 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 2002, Vol. 83, No. 3, 638–647 0022-3514/02/$5.00 DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.83.3.638 Stereotype Performance Boosts: The Impact of Self-Relevance and the Manner of Stereotype Activation Margaret Shih Nalini Ambady University of Michigan Harvard University Jennifer A. Richeson Kentaro Fujita Dartmouth College New York University Heather M. Gray Harvard University The activation of positive stereotypes has been shown to produce academic performance boosts. Evidence regarding the role of self-relevance in producing such effects has been mixed. The authors propose that the subtlety of stereotype activation plays a key role in creating performance boosts among targets and nontargets of stereotypes. Study 1 found that subtle stereotype activation boosted performance in targets, but blatant activation did not. Study 2 was conducted on both targets and nontargets using different methods of stereotype activation. Again, targets showed performance boosts when stereotypes were subtly activated but not when they were blatantly activated. Nontargets, however, showed boosts in performance only when stereotypes were blatantly activated. The role of self-relevance in mediating sensitivity to stimuli is discussed. Stereotypes, the categories people use to organize their social asking African American college students to indicate their race world, have recently been found to exert powerful effects on prior to the presentation of a standardized test was enough to cognition and behavior (Banaji & Greenwald, 1994; Bargh, Chen, decrease their score by almost half. The race item presumably & Burrows, 1996; Brewer, 1996; Devine, 1989). The heightened activated negative stereotypes about race, which then activated salience of social stereotypes has been shown to have striking self-confirming mental representations for poor academic perfor- effects on outcomes such as behavior (e.g. Bargh et al., 1996; mance. With these representations guiding their behavior, partic- Steele & Aronson, 1995), perceptions of others (e.g., Devine, ipants who had indicated their race unwittingly confirmed stereo- 1989), and perceptions of the self (e.g., Levy, 1996; Pittinsky, types that African Americans are intellectually inferior. Similar Shih, & Ambady, 1999). In each of these studies, across a variety results have emerged regarding other stereotyped groups, includ- of domains, nonconsciously priming stereotypes has been found to ing Latino students (Aronson, Quinn, & Spencer, 1998), Caucasian cause individuals to think and act in stereotype-consistent ways. students of low socioeconomic background (Croizet & Claire, Stereotypes can be particularly harmful when they predict infe- 1998), and women, who are stereotyped to have inferior math rior academic performance. In one of the most well-known and abilities (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999). startling examples of stereotype priming effects, Steele and Aron- Recently, however, researchers have found that stereotype acti- son (1995, Experiment 4) found that the mere presence of an item vation can not only hurt performance; it can also boost perfor- mance. In other words, stereotype activation can serve to both enhance and deflate test performance, depending on the valence of Margaret Shih, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan; the stereotype. For instance, Levy (1996) showed that activation of Nalini Ambady and Heather M. Gray, Department of Psychology, Harvard negative terms associated with the elderly (e.g., senile, dementia) University; Jennifer A. Richeson, Department of Psychology, Dartmouth produced deficits in the memory abilities of elderly participants. College; Kentaro Fujita, Department of Psychology, New York University. Meanwhile, the activation of positive terms associated with the Studies 1 and 2 were part of Margaret Shih’s dissertation. This research elderly (e.g., wise, experienced) produced an enhancement of the was supported in part by a doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences elderly participants’ memory abilities. In both cases, participants’ and Humanities Research Council of Canada and by National Science performance after being exposed to a subtle priming manipulation Foundation Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers fell in line with group-based expectations of the elderly. Shih, Award BCS-9733706. We gratefully acknowledge Amy Trahan, Andrew Pittinsky, and Ambady (1999) also demonstrated that activated Kim, Ana Cenanovic, Damien Yambo, Elsie Wang, and Marisol Segundo for their help with the project. We also thank James Jackson for his helpful stereotypes can have beneficial or destructive effects. Shih et al. comments and feedback. (1999) found that Asian American women performed better on a Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Margaret mathematics test when their Asian identity was cued, but worse Shih, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 525 East Uni- when their gender identity was cued, compared with a control versity, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109. E-mail: [email protected] group. This evidence suggests that individuals are not only “threat- 638 SELF-RELEVANCE AND STEREOTYPE PERFORMANCE BOOSTS 639 ened” by stereotypes, they are more generally “susceptible” to cesses hypothesized to underlie stereotype susceptibility in gen- stereotypes. In this article, we examine the conditions under which eral. Then, we discuss the role played by self-relevance in the activation of positive stereotypes can boost the performance of mediating these cognitive pathways. individuals who are and who are not the targets of the stereotype. Most generally, we propose that stereotype activation influences performance through a process consistent with the “perception- The Assumption of Self-Relevance in Stereotype behavior expressway” model of social perception (Dijksterhuis & Susceptibility Studies Bargh, 2001). This model posits that perceptual and behavioral representations for a single action form overlapping connections, In the aforementioned studies, members of the particular stereo- such that the perception of a behavior automatically sets up action typed gender or ethnic or social group were found to exhibit tendencies to produce the same behavior. Support for this hypoth- dramatic behavioral shifts corresponding to the activation of esis has come from studies investigating behavioral outcomes such group-based expectations. Indeed, many have assumed that stereo- as mimicry behavior (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999). For instance, types must be self-relevant (applicable to one of the individual’s Fadiga, Fogassi, Pavesi, and Rizzolatti (1995) demonstrated that many identities) to exert such effects as performance boosts. For watching an experimenter grasp an object leads to muscular re- instance, Levy’s (1996) findings support the assumption of self- sponses that are similar to those used when participants are asked relevance, in that positive stereotypes of the elderly improved the to grasp the object themselves, suggesting that perceptual and memory of elderly participants but had no such effects on young behavioral processes are tightly and inextricably linked. participants. Stereotype primes of the elderly were thought not to Important for our understanding of stereotype priming effects, it be self-relevant to the young participants, and the absence of appears that the perception of a specific behavior such as object stereotype priming effects suggested that stereotypes must indeed grasping is not necessary in the production of corresponding be self-relevant to enhance memory performance. behavioral tendencies within the perceiver. After being exposed to The assumption of self-relevance however, has recently been more general trait concepts, individuals will automatically infer challenged by findings reported by Bargh and Dijksterhuis and and perform trait-consistent behavioral tendencies. For instance, their colleagues (Bargh et al., 1996; Chen & Bargh, 1997; Dijk- participants in a study conducted by Bargh et al. (1996) found that sterhuis, Bargh, & Miedema, 2000; Dijksterhuis & van Knippen- participants were more likely to interrupt a conversation if they berg, 1998). Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998), for in- had been primed with the trait rude, than those participants primed stance, asked college students to think about traits typically with polite. Similarly, Carver, Gannellen, Froming, and Chambers associated with either professors or soccer hooligans. Of interest, (1983) found that priming individuals with the concept hostility led those in the professor condition performed better on an ostensibly them to act in a more hostile manner. unrelated task composed of items taken from the game “Trivial Because stereotypes are well-defined collections of trait con- Pursuit,” whereas those asked to think about traits of soccer cepts, it is believed that stereotype priming likewise elicits corre- hooligans performed worse. Thus, the students performed in a sponding behavioral tendencies, regardless of group membership. stereotype-consistent fashion after being exposed to self-irrelevant For instance, priming the concept Asian likely activates the ste- concepts. By demonstrating stereotype priming effects among reotypic trait “talented at math,” which then sets up the behavioral individuals who do not ascribe to the relevant social groups, these studies have suggested that stereotypes need not be self-relevant to tendencies related
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