How Self-Affirmation Work On Different Task Under Stereotype Threat

Stereotype threat refers that “people have negative stereotypes for certain groups of some kind of social property being, because of fearing to pass others to negative stereotypes, people feel in the sense of threat or additional stress”. When the individual suffer stereotype threat, individuals show consistent behavior with negative stereotypes,such as academic performance decline, job performance descend, or even affect the body health. Previous study found that the effects of stereotype threat will be under the influence of task difficulty and identity. stereotype threat shows no effect under Low identity of individuals, and when the mission is simple, stereotype threat will not affect the individual’s task performance.The negative consequences of Stereotype threat can be weaken by self-affirmation.Self-affirmation get through affirm irrelevant field of self value to maintain self integrity and reduce the defense reaction. Studies have shown that self-affirmation let women to get rid of the stereotype of mathematical tasks are not suitable for women,improves task performance in math; the intervention effect of self-affirmation sustain to the second year.The effect of stereotype threat relate to task difficulty, but under stereotype threat condition, there is no direct evidence if the effect of self-affirmation is work in different task difficulty. To solve this problem, the research will project two experiments. Experiment 1 manipulate the self-affirmation, research the effect ofself-affirmation in different task performance in relevant area; Experiment 2 research the effect of self-affirmation in different task performance in irrelevant area. Current research found that self-affirmation can certainly help to reduce person’s psychological pressure, reduce the tension and defensiveness. In order to examine the heart rate changes under self-affirmation, experiment 2 will measure heart rate under experiment condition, and provide physiological data support for the research.Experiment 1 selected high school students as subjects, using 2(self-affirmation:is self-affirmation VS not self-affirmation) x 2(task difficulty: easy VS difficult)design, by manipulating the self-affirmation, measure task performance of the threatened areas. Data analysis found that self-affirmation and task difficulty have interaction effect under the stereotype threat situation, when the task is simple, objects who suffer self-affirmation perform worse in threatened areas, when task is difficult,objects who suffer self-affirmation perform better in threatened areas; Experiment 2selected college students as subjects, using 2(self-affirmation: is self-affirmation VS not self-affirmation) x 2(task difficulty: simple task VS difficult tasks) of mix design,by manipulating the self-affirmation, measure the stereotype threat situations unrelated field task performance. Data analysis found that self-affirmation and task difficulty have interaction effect under the stereotype threat situation, when the task is simple,objects who suffer self-affirmation perform worse in unrelated area, when task is difficult, objects who suffer self-affirmation perform better in unrelated area. Analysis of heart rate data results that stereotype threat not only to reduce the individual’s behavior, but also increases the heart rate, self-affirmation could reduce the heart rate.The result of experiment 1 and experiment 2 indicate that self-affirmation and task difficult relationship is consist across the field under the stereotype threat situation.Stereotype threat could improve the individual’s heart rate, and self-affirmation can alleviate the pressure, reduce the heart rate.