This experiment examined the impact of proactive
personality — the tendency to take
action to change one's circumstances — and stereotype
threat on women's aspirations in entrepreneurial fields.
Given that characteristics stereotypically assumed to
produce entrepreneurial success are masculine in nature,
it was hypothesized that exposing women to these
stereotypes might reduce their expressed interest in
pursuing a career in business. To test this hypothesis,
women enrolled in a university business program read an
article about entrepreneurship. For half of the women,
the article emphasized the importance of masculine
attributes in producing business success (e.g.,
aggressive, autonomous, risk-taking) (stereotype
threat), and the other half read an article emphasizing
gender-neutral characteristics (e.g., creative,
well-informed, steady) (control). After reading the
article, all women completed a measure designed to
assess their interest in pursuing an entrepreneurial
career. Results showed that for women high in proactive
personality, stereotype threat reduced their intentions
to enter the business field. For women low in proactive
personality, stereotype threat also appeared somewhat to
reduce intentions to enter business but not to a
statistically significant degree. These results show
that stereotype threat can reduce engagement and can
lower the intention to pursue a career in a threatened
domain, particularly (and perhaps ironically) for women
who are most likely to act in response to their
circumstances.
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