e-Pedagogium 2012, 12(1):18-31 | DOI: 10.5507/epd.2012.003

Activation of social stereotypes and performance in an exam test

Marek Franěk, Věra Strnadová

doc. PhDr. Marek Franěk, CSc., Ph.D., PhDr. Věra Strnadová, Ph.D., Katedra managementu, Fakulta informatiky a managementu, Univerzita Hradec Králové, Rokitanského 62, 500 03 Hradec Králové, e-mail: marek.franek@uhk.cz

It was found that priming, which activated a stereotype of a professor, could lead to improvement in a knowledge task (Dijksterhuis, van Knippenberg, 1998). Two experiments were conducted in a real situation. In Experiment 1 undergraduate students were asked to complete a mid-term test. Prior to knowledge testing they were primed with stereotypes of an university professor or a charwoman. The results revealed that students, who were primed with the stereotype of the university professor performed slightly better than students, who were primed with the stereotype of charwoman. However, significant differences were found only among males majoring in technical and economical subjects. Experiment 2 was conducted two years later. Since we did not succeed to control all variables, the results from Experiment 1 were not reproduced. Practical applications of our findings are discussed.

Keywords: Social stereotypes activation, mental performance, priming

Published: February 1, 2012  Show citation