Keywords
self-affirmation; stereotypes; identity; academic performance; athletics
Abstract
An experiment was conducted to examine factors that moderate the experience of academic identity threat among college athletes who represent a stigmatized group on most college campuses (Yopyk & Prentice, 2005). It was hypothesized that because they are more engaged in academics, female college athletes would be especially threatened by the prospect of confirming the “dumb-jock” stereotype. As predicted, female college athletes performed more poorly when their athletic and academic identities were explicitly linked, but only on moderately difficult test items. The results also revealed that male college athletes performed significantly better (see stereotype reactance and self-affirmation) on more difficult test items when only their athletic identity was primed prior to the test. This is an important finding as there is little research on the impact of positive stereotypes on performance. The discussion focuses on the different motivational processes (i.e. self-affirmation) that impact the academic performance of male and female college athletes when aspects of their campus identity are primed within a classroom context.
Date Created
February 2009
STARS Citation
Harrison, Keith, "The Role of Gender Identities and Stereotype Salience With the Academic Performance of Male and Female College Athletes" (2009). EGS Content. 318.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/egs_content/318
https://works.bepress.com/keith_harrison/7/download/
Included in
African American Studies Commons, African History Commons, Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, Civic and Community Engagement Commons, Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Cultural History Commons, Curriculum and Instruction Commons, Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons, Ethnic Studies Commons, Feminist Philosophy Commons, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, History of Gender Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Inequality and Stratification Commons, Law and Gender Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, Sports Management Commons, Sports Sciences Commons, Sports Studies Commons, Women's History Commons, Women's Studies Commons