Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 40 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 38-40).

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 53 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 42-43).

Stereotype threat and lift occur when a negative or positive group stereotype results in a shift in task performance for group members. Social identity theory (SIT) explains that the socio-structural variables influence the group members’ strategy to maintain a positive group identity and predicts that perceived intergroup conflict would interact with status to affect their experience of the stereotype and potentially impact on stereotype threat and lift on test performance. The experimental design manipulated the task-related group status of science students (assigning 122 students to high status, low status or control conditions) and their perceived intergroup conflict (high and low) with an out-group of humanities students whom they believed to be real but were actually simulated. The high and low status were manipulated using test instructions that activated the stereotype that the science group compared a humanities group either possessed an analytic cognitive ability that was required for test performance and post degree success (high status) or possessed an alternate flexible cognitive ability that was not required for post degree success (low status); whilst the status control condition excluded a diagnostic comparison of cognitive ability. The inter-group conflict and cooperation were experimentally manipulated by presenting hostile or cooperative feedback using intergroup matrices adapted from Tajfel (1981) in a computer simulated interaction with a virtual humanities out-group. The change in status (stereotype threat and lift) and conflict were measured using the Ravens Advanced Progressive matrices (APM) which was presented as the test of performance which measured post degree success. The APM was used as a dependent measure of the group level stereotype-related differences in performance for high conflict-threat, high conflict lift, high conflict control, low conflict threat, low conflict lift and low conflict control conditions. The results showed that status and conflict interact to impact on test performance outcomes of the science students. Specifically, the change in stereotype threat is reversed when science students receive cooperative feedback from the humanities out-group. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sci.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermartizburg, 2011.

This thesis considers the perceived athleticism of synchronized swimming by looking at the implications of representations of Esther Williams and "pretty swimming" in popular culture, the allocation of space for women's sport in a local public swimming pool, and an inaugural championship event. Focusing on the first British Columbia (BC) synchronized swimming championships, which were held on February 5, 1949 at Crystal Pool in Vancouver, it shows that images of synchronized swimming as "entertainment" facilitated the development of a new arena of competition for BC women, but that this was accompanied, in effect, by a trivialization of the accomplishments of organizers and athletes. Chapter One examines the construction of a "global" mermaid by analysing Esther Williams' first film, Bathing Beauty (1944), as a typical example of the Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer (MGM) aquamusical, a genre that produced images of synchronized swimming as frivolous entertainment. Chapter Two considers how these sorts of images affected the allocation of physical space at Crystal Pool, Vancouver's only indoor public swimming pool at the time, for women's sport. Chapter Three introduces two women who were involved in the 1949 BC synchronized swimming championships: May Brown, who at the time was a University of British Columbia (UBC) Physical Education instructor and synchronized swimming judge, and Maureen Bray (Hibberson), a UBC student who won the individual championship event. Their recollections provide an important corrective to the "pretty swimming" stereotype by demonstrating that these women used the cultural and physical space allotted to them to create a new sport for local women. The final chapter also includes episodes from my personal experiences as a synchronized swimmer in BC during the 1980s to underscore the complicated and conflicted heritage for synchronized swimmers in BC represented by the legacy of the 1949 championships and the MGM aquamusical.

Stereotype threat or boost (STB) is a situational modifier of task performance that occurs when a group stereotype becomes relevant to the performance of a stereotype-relevant task. This dissertation aimed to re-imagine STB in light of social identity theory. Ten studies were undertaken that each manipulated status and either identifiability, conflict or permeability and explored the effects on the performance of the Ravens Advanced Progressive Matrices. Additional identity and socio-structural constructs were also measured and explored, including stability, legitimacy and ingroup identification. The results showed that STB is not simply “activated” or “deactivated” when stereotypes become relevant to task performance. On the contrary, the specific features of identity, the contextual features of the social environment in which the identity performance takes place, and the performer’s strategic engagement with their identity resources and liabilities are important features of how STB impacts on performance, and how it is sometimes resisted and overturned by experimental subjects. Indeed, performance was generally not predictable on the basis of stereotype activation until resistance to the negative or positive status manipulations were also accounted for. Although the STB literature is tightly focused on the case of negative stereotypes undermining performance, incongruent effects in which negative stereotypes enhance performance and positive stereotypes undermine it have also been reported. In the present studies incongruent STB effects were frequently observed. Underperformance in boost conditions was most consistently predicted by perceived intergroup conflict, while enhanced performance under threat was consistently predicted by perceived group boundary permeability. Additionally, underperformance in boost conditions was often a result of ‘slipstreaming’ rather than ‘choking under pressure,’ since participants were evidently counting on their generally secure identity in the experimental context to buffer poor performance on the experimental task. Improved performance in threat conditions was most likely when participants perceived themselves to be representatives of their group and when they believed that their improved performance would make a difference for their own reputation or the reputation of their group. These findings challenge the common image of the passive subject in the STB literature and, instead, suggest that STB effects are an outcome of situated identity performance. This model of STB effects understands task-performance in a specific performance context as an active and strategic expression of situated identity oriented not only to the social features of the performance context (as argued by most SIT theorists), but also to the their own reading of that context, their total identity liabilities and resources (including individual ability and alternative identities) and their strategic motivations in the context. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

The current study examined the degree of role violation necessary to produce social rejection and whether penalties for gender role violations are applied equally to male and female violators. Specifically, it was hypothesized that targets described by equal numbers of male- and female-associated characteristics would be most liked and viewed as better adjusted compared to either stereotype congruent gender role targets and stereotype incongruent gender role targets. Presumed status and presumed sexual orientation were considered as explanations for the penalties gender-role violators incur. This effect was expected to be stronger for male targets than for female targets. Although the current results were unable to clarify why role deviance leads to social rejection, results confirmed prior findings indicating that not all role violations are met with equal derogation and that mixed gender roles can be perceived as psychologically healthy. Ratings of likeability and adjustment were not affected by either mediational variable. Finally, results suggested that male role violation is not regarded more harshly than female role violation when the role violation is based on traits. / Department of Psychological Science

Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 91 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 72-86).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2001. / Adviser: Julio Garcia. Submitted to the Dept. of psychology. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-94). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2003. / Adviser: Keith Maddox. Submitted to the Dept. of Psychology. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-117). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Baylor University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 90-93).