Deflecting negative self-relevant stereotype activation: The effects of individuation

“…Aronson et al, 2002;Good, Aronson, & Inzlicht, 2003). Our finding is consistent with the research of Ambady, Paik, Steele, Owen-Smith, & Mitchell (2004), who found that an individuation task requiring female participants to answer questions about themselves allowed themselves to disassociate themselves with female stereotypes after activation.…”

“…Moreover, there were no differences between the Diagnostic (M = 9.06) condition and the We Prime (M = 9.00) condition, F < 1.00, but there was a slight difference between the Gender (M = 8.13) and Diagnostic (M = 9.06) conditions, F(1, 174) = 2.35, p < .13, η = .12, showing that our direct manipulation of the social self did somewhat enhance the threat effect. Interestingly, and unlike past research on stereotype-based performance and individuation (e.g., Ambady, Paik, Steele, Owen-Smith, & Mitchell, 2004), female participants did not show a boost in performance when their personal self was activated relative to the Diagnostic condition, F < 1.00. We believe that this "null" effect arose because our manipulation of the personal self (circle personal pronouns) may have been less direct than having participants write down self-descriptions as well as indicate a number of personal qualities (Ambady et al, 2004).…”

“…Interestingly, and unlike past research on stereotype-based performance and individuation (e.g., Ambady, Paik, Steele, Owen-Smith, & Mitchell, 2004), female participants did not show a boost in performance when their personal self was activated relative to the Diagnostic condition, F < 1.00. We believe that this "null" effect arose because our manipulation of the personal self (circle personal pronouns) may have been less direct than having participants write down self-descriptions as well as indicate a number of personal qualities (Ambady et al, 2004).…”

“…This way, compared to their social identity, their individual identity is less relevant to memory performance, less threatening and, therefore, has less of a negative effect on performance. In other words, part of memory impairment resulting from ST effect has probably been removed, or at least been weakened, by individuation induction (Ambady et al, 2004). This interpretation is in line with the conception of stereotype threat in terms of self-concept for OA (Barber, 2017); that is, OA worry that the agestereotype could be true for themselves, personally.…”