Two studies
examined the consequences of exposing women to
stereotype-confirming
television advertisements on pursuing leadership versus
subordinate roles. In Experiment 1, male
and female undergraduates highly-identified with math
viewed a set of television commercials that had
aired on national broadcasts. Half of the students
saw a set of four non-stereotypic commercials (control),
whereas the other half saw those four commercials and an
additional two commercials showing women in stereotypic
roles (one portraying a woman so excited about an
acne product that she bounced with joy on her bed and
another showing a female college student dreaming about
becoming homecoming queen) (stereotype threat for women). After
watching the commercials, the students were asked to
participate in a purported separate study on leadership. Students read a description of the study and were asked
to indicate the role they preferred to play in the
upcoming study. Women who viewed stereotypic
commercials were more likely to indicate a preference
for a subservient problem-solving role compared with a
leadership role. In contrast, both women who
watched the control commercials and men were equally
interested in occupying leadership versus subordinate
positions. Experiment 2 was a replication that also
included a condition in which students were assured of
no gender differences in problem-solving and leadership
ability and a measure of gender-stereotype activation.
When there were no assurances of gender equivalence, the
results were consistent with those obtained in
Experiment 1. Moreover, stereotype activation predicted
decrease leadership interest for women. When
students were assured of no gender differences in
leadership ability, however, commercials had no affect
on role preferences and stereotype activation did not
affect role preferences. These studies show that
stereotype threat imposed by mass media stereotypic
representations can affect leadership aspirations in
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