Consuming images, how television commercials that elicit stereotype threat can restrain women academically and professionally

Abstract

Women in traditionally masculine domains must deal with the shadow of doubt hat accompanies stereotypes alleging a sex-based inability. The threat of being personally reduced to one of these negative gender stereotypes can evoke a disruptive apprehension among women - a situational predicament we call "stereotype threat." The risk of experiencing stereotype threat in traditionally masculine fields may lead women to avoid those stereotype-relevant domains in an attempt to cope with the self-evaluative threat they impose. Employing gender-stereotypic commercials to elicit the female stereotype, the represent research examined the insidious effects that stereotype threat can have on women's achievement-related choices. A series of five studies demonstrated that exposure to stereotype threat, and seek domains in which they are immune to stereotype threat. Study 1 revealed that only those women exposed to the gender-stereotypic commercials avoided math items in favor of verbal items on a subsequent aptitude test. Viewing those commercials also led women in Study 2 to indicate diminished educational and vocational aspirations in quantitative domains, while indicating increased aspirations in verbal domains. Study 3 demonstrated the stifling effect that stereotype threat has on women's leadership aspiration - only women who viewed the gender-stereotypic commercials avoided leadership positions on an impending task. By making the leadership-inability stereotype irrelevant to the impending task, which eliminated stereotype threat from the situation, Study 4 verified that women's interest in leadership could be restored even after they had viewed the stereotypic commercials. Finally, Study 5 established that varying the stereotype relevance of the leadership task moderated whether activation of the female stereotype mediated the noxious effects of those commercials on women's leadership aspirations.