Numerous psychological studies have examined effects of stereotype threat in areas such as standardized tests, and athletic performance. For example, the commonly held assumption that women are less skilled in mathematics than men has been shown to affect the performance of women on standardized math tests. When female participants were primed beforehand of this negative stereotype, scores were significantly lower than if the women were led to believe the tests did not reflect these stereotypes (Spencer & Steele, 1997).
6 comments:
Writerfella here --
Um, did that say, 'Bad Stereotypes Can Harm You'? Now, that's worth looking into, because it means that there are GOOD stereotypes which must be GOOD for you!
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
I'm sure people haven't done a lot of research into "good" stereotypes, but such stereotypes probably don't cause much harm. Nevertheless, consider a Jewish child who's supposed to become a doctor or lawyer, or an Asian child who's supposed to earn top grades. Or an Indian who's supposed to live up to his "warrior heritage."
Thunderbird of the X-Men basically committed suicide because he thought he was supposed to go down fighting. I bet things like this happen in the real world too. An Indian believes he's supposed to punch his way out of problems, and when he can't, he gives up.
Writerfella here --
Um, er, uh, well, writerfella knows of the very thing of which you speak. The Kiowa Tonh-Kon-Gaw (Black Leggins) Warrior Society's traditions included that a warrior in battle sometimes would dismount, pin his red cape to the ground with a spear, and then battle any and all enemies who rode his way. That is, until he either was killed or he was rescued by another Black Leggins warrior, at which time the two of them would battle all comers. If they both survived, then they became devoted to each other in the rite of 'Brothers Of The Blood'. As tests of bravery and manhood and spiritual strengths, it was not suicide or giving up, as suicide held no honor for Kiowas. The 'giving up' more or less was what now is 'suicide by cop', as Kickingbird and Big Tree and Sate-Ahn-Gya did, in that you forced your captor to kill you and then you died an honorable death.
Actual Native rituals were not stranger than one imagines, they were stranger than one CAN imagine.
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Well, Thunderbird wasn't a traditional Kiowa, he was a modern Apache. And he wasn't involved in a test or rite, he was battling a super-villain. If he had wanted to test himself against all comers, he could've done it while fighting the Viet Cong in Vietnam.
not all natives think the same as other natives so i came to throw in my two sense. I could care less what you're blogging about until you said "An Indian believes he's supposed to punch his way out of problems, and when he can't, he gives up." Indian is a term that most Natives don't use anymore because we are not from India. Indian is just what Christopher Columbus called us because he was lost. Honestly i don't care what i'm called... i've been called wagon burner, dirty indian, scalper, drunkass, and some other names. all of those names came from stereotypes. Yes we may have burned wagons, but we didn't want those people on our land. We may have scalped a lot of people, but white people did that first and showed us how to do it. We may have been drunk in all those movies and in the newspapers, but who brought that shit to us?...settlers. I honestly don't know why people feel the need to call us Natives those mindless names because they can't move on from the past. I know that there are natives out there calling white people names too but hey can you blame us?
Not a single one of the Indians I know has ever objected to the term "Indian." In fact, they use it far more often than alternatives such as "Native American."
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