Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1980. / "A research report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ..."--T.p.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1980. / "A research report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ..."--T.p.

This paper proposes a study that investigates whether manipulating pitch and tempo in children’s toy advertisement music has an effect on gender identity and sex stereotyping in preschool-aged girls. This particular intersection between advertisement, persuasion, gender identity, and sex stereotyping scholarship has not yet been explored. However, past research does suggest that high pitch and fast tempo have a significant positive impact on mood and arousal, two factors associated with more susceptibility to persuasive messages. The 3- to 4-year-old female participants will be randomly assigned to one of the nine advertisement conditions. The music in the ads for each condition will contain a combination of pitch variation (high, medium, or low pitch) as well as a tempo variation (fast, medium, or slow tempo) to create a fully-crossed design. The dependent variables, gender identity and sex stereotyping, will be measured in the lab before and after a 2-week period in which the the advertisement stimuli will be presented in the children’s homes. Based on previous research, higher pitch and faster tempo are expected to be associated with more stereotypical gender identity and more sex stereotyping in participants.

abstract: An emerging body of literature suggests that humans likely have multiple threat avoidance systems that enable us to detect and avoid threats in our environment, such as disease threats and physical safety threats. These systems are presumed to be domain-specific, each handling one class of potential threats, and previous research generally supports this assumption. Previous research has not, however, directly tested the domain-specificity of disease avoidance and self-protection by showing that activating one threat management system does not lead to responses consistent only with a different threat management system. Here, the domain- specificity of the disease avoidance and self-protection systems is directly tested using the lexical decision task, a measure of stereotype accessibility, and the implicit association test. Results, although inconclusive, more strongly support a series of domain-specific threat management systems than a single, domain- general system / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Psychology 2011

This diploma thesis focuses on matters of stereotyping of documentary portraits depicting pop music icons. The theoretical part of the thesis deals with issues such as stereotyping as part of media representation of reality, and the definition of term "celebrity" and its specifics in the context of music industry. The term "documentary portrait" is also grasped theoretically. The practical part of the thesis introduces the documentary films which were examined. The methodology of the research and its design are described as well. The final part of the thesis consists of a research report, which includes results acquired by a qualitative survey on the basis of a grounded theory method.

xvi, 191 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / A growing body of research has focused on how perspective taking leads people to perceive themselves as "merging" with the target of perspective taking, in terms of how they cognitively represent themselves and the target. In turn, this merging has been shown to facilitate social coordination between perceivers and targets and results in reduced stereotyping of the target's group. Using this past research as a starting point, this dissertation asks a related but new question: Does perspective taking lead perceivers to take on the attitudes of the target of perspective taking, even when these attitudes are socially reprehensible? Specifically, this dissertation tested whether taking the perspective of a racist target leads perspective takers to show greater racism and stereotyping. In Study I, 102 participants took the perspective of racist male target (or wrote about a day in his life without taking his perspective or about a day in their own lives), learning about his attitudes from visual information alone. No main effect for perspective taking was found. However, for perspective takers only, greater self-target merging predicted higher explicit racism scores. Also among perspective takers, greater internal motivation to respond without prejudice also ironically led to greater implicit stereotyping. In Study 2, 101 participants took the perspective of a female target who was generally likable but had subtly racist attitudes. Once again, no main effect of perspective taking was found, but for perspective takers, greater external motivation to respond without prejudice led to higher explicit racism scores. In Study 3, 101 participants took the perspective of the same target used in Study 1, but were given information about the genesis of the target's attitudes. The combination of perspective taking and information led to higher explicit racism scores, and this effect was mediated by self-target merging (and not by greater positive regard for the target). Under many circumstances, perspective takers appear to reject taking on a racist target's socially undesirable attitudes, adopting them only when they have been given some reason for why the target holds those attitudes. In addition, motivation to respond without prejudice may lead ironically to greater prejudiced responses. / Committee in charge: Sara Hodges, Chairperson, Psychology; Bertram Malle, Member, Psychology; Ulrich Mayr, Member, Psychology; Mia Tuan, Outside Member, Education Studies

This study sets out to investigate the extent to which slasher movies can be said to carry out linguistic female stereotyping in their portrayal of female characters. It has been proposed (cf. Coates 1993)that female speech is often associated with politeness, tentativeness, talkativeness and weaker expressions in comparison with men, descending from a female subculture (Graddol & Swann 1989: 90). Considering this, a stereotypical profile was created, consisting of linguistic features such as hedges, questions, expletives, empty adjectives and verbosity, through which the former characteristics may be manifested. The stereotypical profile was then applied to the corpus consisting of the transcripts of the two slasher movies "Halloween" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer". Evidence of all linguistic features mentioned above was found in the corpus, and the female characters' use of these features did match, to a considerable extent, the stereotypical profile. Keywords: linguistics, female stereotyping, gender, horror

This investigation examines how knowledge of a researcher's intent, as well as gender, influences the clinical judgments of mental health professionals in sex role research. Conscious awareness of the study's aim was manipulated by varying experimental instructions to minimize (not salient) or maximize (salient) sex role awareness. Subjects were mental health professionals who rated a protocol of a female or male pseudopatient exhibiting masculine, and lacking feminine, stereotyped behaviors. It was hypothesized that if sex biases affect judgments, more negative ratings should be assigned to a female with cross sex role behavior than to male-appropriate role behavior. Differences should be greater when subjects were unaware of the nature of the study.

This thesis studied the nature and consequences of close intergroup contact in Nigeria. Chapter 1 provides a background to intergroup relations between the ethno-religious groups in Nigeria. Chapter 2 provides an introduction to the theoretical framework, which is the intergroup contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954), with special emphasis on the role of friendship in intergroup contact research. The chapter addresses the possibility that negative intergroup contact exacerbates prejudice and outlines the role of indirect forms of intergroup contact, namely extended contact (Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe, & Ropp, 1997), vicarious contact (Mazziotta, Mummendey, & Wright, 2011), and imagined contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009) in prejudice reduction. Indirect forms of contact have been suggested as alternatives to direct contact, if no or only limited direct contact opportunities are available. All empirical studies in this thesis were conducted in south-west Nigeria with respondents who belong to the Yoruba majority group. The target groups were Hausas, Edos, and Igbos (minority groups in the area). Chapter 3 consists of two repeated measure studies (Studies 1 and 2) which compare the quality of in-group (Yoruba and Yoruba) and cross-group (Yoruba and Igbo) friendships. The findings showed that, provided the duration of friendship is controlled for, cross-group friendships are rated as largely similar in quality and closeness to in-group friendships, fulfilling key functions of friendship. Chapter 4 consists of two cross-sectional studies (Studies 3 and 4) which tested the secondary transfer effects from direct and extended cross-group friendships. The findings showed that direct and extended cross-group friendship with Igbos was associated with more favourable attitudes towards Hausas. The studies showed for the first time that extended cross-group friendship yields secondary transfer effects. Chapter 5 focuses on the effects of positive and negative intergroup contact with Igbos on out-group attitudes (Study 5). It was shown that negative intergroup contact had an effect on attitudes over and above the effect of positive contact. As expected, positive contact with Igbos was associated with more favourable attitudes towards Igbos, and negative contact with Igbos was associated with less favourable attitudes towards Igbos. Additionally, Study 5 showed secondary transfer effects of negative intergroup contact. Chapter 6 contains a multilevel-study (Study 6) which explores the effects of roommate diversity (i.e., having at least one Igbo roommate) on out-group attitudes. Roommate diversity was linked to more positive attitudes towards Igbos, the roommate’s ethnic group. Moreover, it was shown that contact with Igbos was associated with more positive attitudes towards Edos and Hausas on the within-level. On the between-level roommate diversity was associated with more positive attitudes towards Egos. Chapter 7 summarizes the key findings of the studies and discusses theoretical and practical implications of the research.

Promoting gender equality and equity remain an important goal for schools in South Africa, and strides have been made in many areas to reduce inequalities. Local and international legislative and policy frameworks create a context within which unfair discrimination can be curtailed, but these, albeit important, are not entirely sufficient, and inequities persist based on perceptions regarding motherhood and teaching. There is a need to address practices at grassroots level, where historical stereotyping and procedures have become entrenched in the system. For female teachers to experience meaningful equality, these underlying issues need to be addressed and this cannot be achieved through legislative processes. What is required is that the whole process of socialisation into sex roles needs to be addressed. This study sets out to analyse and describe the world of mother teachers, and to explore how entrenched assumptions, cultural values and beliefs impact on the meaningful construction and harmonisation of the dual role of mother and teacher. The professional woman who becomes a mother finds herself faced with the dual role of mother and professional and the result is that conflicting and complementary dimensions emerge that makes the pressure to meet all expectations overwhelming. These mother teachers consistently try to be what they think ‘others’ want them to be and, therefore, they often have not come to terms with who they are. Their life become a life to please ‘others’ and because they cannot please everybody, they experience feelings of failure. This study came to understand that the mother teachers’ will experience ambivalence and discomforts concerning their attempts to balance their personally constructed multiple roles successfully when they do not accept themselves fully as women with special talents, competencies and attributes. Supportive behaviour from the state, school principals and fathers is needed. However, mother teachers themselves are the main source for self-actualisation. Unfortunately, when mother teachers cannot accept themselves for who and what they are, no support system will be able to help them to feel successful about being both homemakers and professionals. I was interested in what each participant’s experiences of motherhood and teaching were; how she expressed herself in conveying these experiences; and consequently, the meaning she attached to her experiences. The research problem, and the nature of the information sought, suggested the use of three distinct methods, namely (1) the narrative interview; (2) reflexive journal entries; and (3) observational field notes. After these three data collection methods had been conducted, coding of the information gathered took place to facilitate analysis and interpretation. From the findings, I believe that these mother teachers will only find themselves and fulfil their place in society once they are able to redefine their own perceived role expectations of society when fulfilling personally constructed multiple role expectations. / Dissertation (MEd (Educational Management, Law and Policy))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted