Courtney von Hippel, a psychologist at the University of Queensland (AUS), studies "intergroup relations and stereotyping in the workplace." Her most recent paper (Yeung & von Hippel, 2007) tested women in a driving simulator after priming them with gender stereotypes. The women in the experimental group were more than twice as likely to hit a simulated jaywalker. This was equivalent to the impact of a distraction task (a grammatical quiz), leading the researchers to suggest that stereotype threat functions by increasing cognitive load. Previous studies on stereotype threat have focused on pen-and-paper tests.
I've mentioned it before, although not in over a year, but I worry a lot about the possibility that Difference Blog contributes to the stereotype threat environment in which most of us operate. I don't know how much more strongly I can stress the point that just because men and women test differently on various skill sets, that doesn't mean there is an innate difference in ability or that it's immutably "the way things are."
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6 comments:
I never follow the links, so I know this would probably be explained if I did...but what does it mean to "prime them with stereotypes"
As a bike/ped advocate, I find the fact that they hit jaywalkers really disturbing...and I wonder if they also had more rear end fender benders. It is seriously messed up that people don't see pedestrians as part of traffic or something to watch out for.
No, it's probably unclear. I should explain "priming". Priming, in this context, is sort of like the power of suggestion. In paper and pencil tests of stereotype threat, they'll usually prime the participants by having them read an essay about differences in math ability (but they'll tell them that it's for a test of reading comprehension).
In this experiment, here's how they set up the participants to think about the stereotypes: "Participants in the stereotype threat condition were told that the study's purpose was to investigate the reason why men are better drivers than women, and that the driving task was designed to ascertain why there is a gender difference in driving capabilities. Participants in the control condition were told that the purpose was to investigate the mental processes involved in driving, and that the driving task was designed to uncover these processes."
also, the jaywalker collision is a situation in which they were set up to fail. It was very hard to avoid hitting the jaywalker. That was the primary way that the experimenters were able to tell if the participants "passed" or "failed" the driving test.
Other measures of driving differences, such as speed, or position in the lane, weren't affected by the stereotype threat.
It is seriously messed up that people don't see pedestrians as part of traffic or something to watch out for.
a) this was *simulated* driving, and as dan4th points out, the point was to make it *hard* to not hit the jaywalker
b) Jaywalkers are breaking the laws. I've had jaywalkers walk out in front of fast-moving traffic *without even looking* where I barely had time to slam on my brakes, endangering not only themselves, but me, the people driving behind me, and if an accident had occurred, probably other pedestrians who were standing on the sidewalk. And I am a *very* attentive driver.
I'm also an advocate for pedestrians and cyclists, but when they break the traffic rules in dangerous ways, it pisses me off. As a cyclist I've often been shouted at by other cyclists for *obeying* the laws and that pisses me off too, especially in situations where it would be dangerous to disobey them.
Thanks for the personal comment on this one -- it's a really good reminder of the general caveats to keep in mind when trying to interpret results.
The good thing about primed effects like stereotype threat and other things that temporarily increase associations and/or cognitive load is that they don't last all that long. So I don't think you should be worried about DBlog having much of an effect that way.
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