Situated Identity Performance (Copyright Michael Quayle 2011
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STEREOTYPE THREAT AS AN OUTCOME OF SITUATED IDENTITY PERFORMANCE i Situated identity performance: Understanding stereotype threat as a social identity phenomenon Michael Quayle University of KwaZulu-Natal © Michael Quayle 2011. All rights reserved. Research funded by the NRF under the Thuthuka/Researchers in Training programme and the UKZN research office under the competitive research grant programme. STEREOTYPE THREAT AS AN OUTCOME OF SITUATED IDENTITY PERFORMANCE ii Declaration Submitted in fulfilment / partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Human Sciences), in the Graduate Programme in Psychology, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. I declare that this dissertation/thesis is my own unaided work. All citations, references and borrowed ideas have been duly acknowledged. It is being submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities, Development and Social Sciences, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. None of the present work has been submitted previously for any degree or examination in any other University. _____________ M F Quayle _____________ Date _______________ Prof. K Durrheim _______________ Signature STEREOTYPE THREAT AS AN OUTCOME OF SITUATED IDENTITY PERFORMANCE iii Acknowledgements I wish to thank the two supervisors of this project: Prof. Steve Reicher while I was in St Andrews in 2005-2006 and Prof. Kevin Durrheim from 2006 until 2010. They have been instrumental in shaping this work. The following students have worked on this project and have each played a role in data collection, data processing and have each used portions of the data for student submissions: Jaqui Bowman Megan du Toit Jared Forbes Karmini Naidoo Tselisihang Motuba Tamaryn Nicholson Letitia Rambally Tamlyn Seunanden Luke Vurovecz The notion of “resistance,” the method for calculating resistance metrics, the notion of stereotype threat and boost effects as outcomes of situated identity performance, the detailed analyses of each study and the cross-study analyses are novel to this PhD dissertation. STEREOTYPE THREAT AS AN OUTCOME OF SITUATED IDENTITY PERFORMANCE iv STEREOTYPE THREAT AS AN OUTCOME OF SITUATED IDENTITY PERFORMANCE v Many thanks to my wife, Kelly, for her constant support and encouragement. Is there life after PhD? We’re about to find out. STEREOTYPE THREAT AS AN OUTCOME OF SITUATED IDENTITY PERFORMANCE vi STEREOTYPE THREAT AS AN OUTCOME OF SITUATED IDENTITY PERFORMANCE vii Abstract Stereotype threat or boost (STB) is a situational modifier of task performance that occurs when a group stereotype becomes relevant to the performance of a stereotype-relevant task. This dissertation aimed to re-imagine STB in light of social identity theory. Ten studies were undertaken that each manipulated status and either identifiability, conflict or permeability and explored the effects on the performance of the Ravens Advanced Progressive Matrices. Additional identity and socio-structural constructs were also measured and explored, including stability, legitimacy and ingroup identification. The results showed that STB is not simply “activated” or “deactivated” when stereotypes become relevant to task performance. On the contrary, the specific features of identity, the contextual features of the social environment in which the identity performance takes place, and the performer’s strategic engagement with their identity resources and liabilities are important features of how STB impacts on performance, and how it is sometimes resisted and overturned by experimental subjects. Indeed, performance was generally not predictable on the basis of stereotype activation until resistance to the negative or positive status manipulations were also accounted for. Although the STB literature is tightly focused on the case of negative stereotypes undermining performance, incongruent effects in which negative stereotypes enhance performance and positive stereotypes undermine it have also been reported. In the present studies incongruent STB effects were frequently observed. Underperformance in boost conditions was most consistently predicted by perceived intergroup conflict, while enhanced performance under threat was consistently predicted by perceived group boundary permeability. Additionally, underperformance in boost conditions was often a result of ‘slipstreaming’ rather than ‘choking under pressure,’ since participants were evidently counting on their generally secure identity in the experimental context to buffer poor performance on the experimental task. Improved performance in threat conditions was most likely when participants perceived themselves to be representatives of their group and when they believed that their improved performance would make a difference for their own reputation or the reputation of their group. These findings challenge the common image of the passive subject in the STB literature and, instead, suggest that STB effects are an outcome of situated identity performance. This STEREOTYPE THREAT AS AN OUTCOME OF SITUATED IDENTITY PERFORMANCE viii model of STB effects understands task-performance in a specific performance context as an active and strategic expression of situated identity oriented not only to the social features of the performance context (as argued by most SIT theorists), but also to the their own reading of that context, their total identity liabilities and resources (including individual ability and alternative identities) and their strategic motivations in the context. STEREOTYPE THREAT AS AN OUTCOME OF SITUATED IDENTITY PERFORMANCE ix Table of Contents CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 2. STEREOTYPE THREAT 4 CHAPTER 3. PROBLEMS WITH CONVENTIONAL STEREOTYPE THREAT THEORY AND THE PROMISE OF SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY FOR ADDRESSING THEM 71 CHAPTER 4. AIMS, METHOD AND DESIGN 106 CHAPTER 5. RESULTS I: STATUS, PERFORMANCE AND RESISTANCE 147 CHAPTER 6. RESULTS II: IDENTIFIABILITY 173 CHAPTER 7. RESULTS III: CONFLICT 211 CHAPTER 8. RESULTS IV: PERMEABILITY 238 CHAPTER 9. RESULTS V: PREDICTING INCONGRUENT STEREOTYPE-PERFORMANCE EFFECTS 275 CHAPTER 10. GENERAL DISCUSSION 311 CHAPTER 11. CONCLUSION 345 STEREOTYPE THREAT AS AN OUTCOME OF SITUATED IDENTITY PERFORMANCE x Table of study abbreviations Topic Detail N Abbreviation Social Identity Inventory Pilot Pilot of measures for the Social 23 SII Pilot 1 (Pietermaritzburg, 2008) Identity Inventory Social Identity Inventory Pilot Pilot of measures for the Social 36 SII Pilot 2 (Pietermaritzburg, 2009) Identity Inventory Testing the effect of identifiability Identifiability (St Andrews, 2006) on STB and a pilot of the general 54 Identifiability Study 1 method Identifiability (Pietermaritzburg, Replication of Leyens (eg. Leyens, 218 Identifiability Study 2 2007) Desert, Croizet, & Darcis, 2000) Testing the effect of identifiability Identifiability (Pietermaritzburg, on STB with a repeated measures 51 Identifiability Study 3 2008) design Testing the effect of identifiability Identifiability (Pietermaritzburg, on STB while manipulating 300 Identifiability Study 4 2010) individual reward Testing the effects of conflict on Conflict (Pietermaritzburg, 2008) 102 Conflict Study 1 STB with Science students Testing the effects of conflict on Conflict (Pietermaritzburg, 2009) 122 Conflict Study 2 STB with Science students Testing the effects of conflict on Conflict (Pietermaritzburg, 2010) 138 Conflict Study 3 STB with Humanities students Permeability (Pietermaritzburg, Testing the effect of permeability on 100 Permeability Study 1 2009) STB with Varsity College students Permeability (Durban & Testing the effect of permeability on 177 Permeability Study 2 Pietermaritzburg, 2010) STB with Varsity College students Permeability (Pietermaritzburg, Testing the effect of permeability on 151 Permeability Study 3 2010) STB in a minimal groups paradigm Testing the relationship between Achievement motivation achievement motivation and STB; Achievement 93 (Pietermaritzburg, 2009) piloting the Shipley as a pretest Motivation Study 1 measure of ability STEREOTYPE THREAT AS AN OUTCOME OF SITUATED IDENTITY PERFORMANCE 1 Chapter 1. Introduction Stereotype threat or boost (STB) is a shift in task performance that occurs when a negative or positive group stereotype becomes relevant to the performance of a stereotype- relevant task (Steele, 1997; Walton & Cohen, 2003). Stereotype threat is based on the finding that negative stereotypes undermine task performance (Steele, 1997, 2010; Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002) and there is clear evidence that positive stereotypes can improve it (Walton & Cohen, 2003). STB can affect any individual who is a member of a relevant group that is stereotyped with respect to a task or task-relevant domain. It has been empirically shown to apply to a wide variety of groups in varied settings. For example, it impacts on children as young as five years old (Ambady, Shih, Kim, & Pittinsky, 2001), women in math (eg. Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999), men in psychology (eg. Leyens et al., 2000), whites in sports (eg. Stone, Lynch, Sjomeling, & Darley, 1999), people from low socioeconomic backgrounds in standardized tests (eg. Croizet & Claire, 1998), the memory performance of the elderly (eg. Hess, Auman, Colcombe, & Rahhal, 2003), white men in math compared to Asian men (eg. Aronson, Lustina, Good, Keough, & Steele, 1999), the academic performance of black students and many others (see Walton & Cohen, 2003 for a more comprehensive review). When STB was first formulated, there was a great deal