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‘‘Don’t Call Me a Student-Athlete’’: The Effect of Identity
Priming on Stereotype Threat for Academically Engaged
African American College Athletes
Stone, Jeff, et al. “‘Don’t Call Me a Student-Athlete’: The Effect of Identity Priming on Stereotype Threat for Academically Engaged African American College Athletes.” Basic & Applied Social Psychology, vol. 34, no. 2, Apr. 2012, pp. 99–106. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/01973533.2012.655624.
Summary+ Key Term- The key term in this paper that relates to the summary is the idea of the stereotype effect. Stereotype effect discusses how a negative image of a group of people will negatively impact their performance. There are two ways that this affects minority group student-athletes in that both terms have negative stereotypes when it comes to education. Athletes, to begin with, have a very common "dumb jock" stereotype, as people commonly comment on how they were only accepted into a school for their sheer athletic ability, which in some cases may be true. The problem with this is that it creates the image that now they do not NEED to perform in the classroom. A similar concept is seen with minority groups, in that it is much harder for them to succeed academically when the standards are lower than that of white people. Stone performed a study of white vs black student-athletes who were said to be "engaged in academics" and found that it was much harder for the Black students to perform in harder tests.
Stereotype effect is discussed in this article based on three nodes, it is defined as "stereotype threat is caused by a cognitive imbalance that occurs when cues in a social context activate three links: first, the salience of the stereotype that one’s social group typically underperforms in a domain; second, the salience of one’s positive membership in the target group; and third, the salience of one’s personal goals to perform well in the domain" (Stone 99) The idea of the imbalance is very important here. Step 1 is maintaining a positive relationship between a group of people and sharing the same goals (in this case, it's a sports team with the goal to win). Step 2 is a positive relationship with one's goals and the performance (working hard to win, and then performing well on the field/court). Step 3 a negative relationship between group membership and performance in a particular other field (being a football player MEANS the person is only good for football and not academics). This is the example of an imbalance, which leads to internal tension. It is hard for someone to overcome a stigma and takes immense internal motivation. In the case of the negative stigma around African Americans student-athletes in the classroom, it is seen to "diminish the motivation to succeed" (Stone 100).
Additional Quotes- "The results of the experiment support the predictions regarding the effect of stereotype threat on the test performance of academically engaged African American college athletes. Rather than activating a positive connection between their scholastic and athletic identities, priming the identity ‘‘scholar-athlete’’ induced stereotype threat among African American college athletes who place high value on their scholarship, which caused them to perform more poorly on the test of verbal reasoning, compared to academically engaged White college athletes" (Stone 104).
This quote explains the research performed and the negative results from the stereotype effect.
Author- Jeff Stone has a PhD in psychology and has performed copious amounts of research on athletic ability and work ethic on the field and then in other areas. He also has done research on the emotionality of sports.
Value- A common argument about student-athletes being properly compensated is that they are provided the opportunity of free or reduced-price education. What is not factored in is that it is very hard to juggle both. In addition to sports being very time consuming and emotionally and physically taxing, people do not always factor in the additional difficulty of the stereotype against them, even more, common in minority groups.
Stone, Jeff, et al. “‘Don’t Call Me a Student-Athlete’: The Effect of Identity Priming on Stereotype Threat for Academically Engaged African American College Athletes.” Basic & Applied Social Psychology, vol. 34, no. 2, Apr. 2012, pp. 99–106. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/01973533.2012.655624.
Summary+ Key Term- The key term in this paper that relates to the summary is the idea of the stereotype effect. Stereotype effect discusses how a negative image of a group of people will negatively impact their performance. There are two ways that this affects minority group student-athletes in that both terms have negative stereotypes when it comes to education. Athletes, to begin with, have a very common "dumb jock" stereotype, as people commonly comment on how they were only accepted into a school for their sheer athletic ability, which in some cases may be true. The problem with this is that it creates the image that now they do not NEED to perform in the classroom. A similar concept is seen with minority groups, in that it is much harder for them to succeed academically when the standards are lower than that of white people. Stone performed a study of white vs black student-athletes who were said to be "engaged in academics" and found that it was much harder for the Black students to perform in harder tests.
Stereotype effect is discussed in this article based on three nodes, it is defined as "stereotype threat is caused by a cognitive imbalance that occurs when cues in a social context activate three links: first, the salience of the stereotype that one’s social group typically underperforms in a domain; second, the salience of one’s positive membership in the target group; and third, the salience of one’s personal goals to perform well in the domain" (Stone 99) The idea of the imbalance is very important here. Step 1 is maintaining a positive relationship between a group of people and sharing the same goals (in this case, it's a sports team with the goal to win). Step 2 is a positive relationship with one's goals and the performance (working hard to win, and then performing well on the field/court). Step 3 a negative relationship between group membership and performance in a particular other field (being a football player MEANS the person is only good for football and not academics). This is the example of an imbalance, which leads to internal tension. It is hard for someone to overcome a stigma and takes immense internal motivation. In the case of the negative stigma around African Americans student-athletes in the classroom, it is seen to "diminish the motivation to succeed" (Stone 100).
Additional Quotes- "The results of the experiment support the predictions regarding the effect of stereotype threat on the test performance of academically engaged African American college athletes. Rather than activating a positive connection between their scholastic and athletic identities, priming the identity ‘‘scholar-athlete’’ induced stereotype threat among African American college athletes who place high value on their scholarship, which caused them to perform more poorly on the test of verbal reasoning, compared to academically engaged White college athletes" (Stone 104).
This quote explains the research performed and the negative results from the stereotype effect.
Author- Jeff Stone has a PhD in psychology and has performed copious amounts of research on athletic ability and work ethic on the field and then in other areas. He also has done research on the emotionality of sports.
Value- A common argument about student-athletes being properly compensated is that they are provided the opportunity of free or reduced-price education. What is not factored in is that it is very hard to juggle both. In addition to sports being very time consuming and emotionally and physically taxing, people do not always factor in the additional difficulty of the stereotype against them, even more, common in minority groups.
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