“Are you really proud of me?” Influence of stereotype threats on college athletes’ career thoughts

Abstract

Removing the vulnerability of a stereotype threat can weaken the stereotype’s negative influence. However, stereotype threats can be produced simply by reminding individuals of their stigmatized social identity. In this study, a typical explicit stereotype threat was compared with two types of reports on positive role models to determine whether the influence of stereotypes varied according to the type of report. In total, 178 college athletes were recruited and randomly assigned to the explicit threat group (EX group, n = 46), report on a special case group (RS group, n = 42), report on a general topic group (RG group, n = 46), or neutral report group (control, n = 44). The participants first read a short text with manipulated context. They then completed scales assessing career adaptability and optimism and were asked to choose whether to complete a scholastic test with high or low difficulty or not take the test at all. The career adaptability and optimism scores of the control group were higher than those of the RS and EX group. The career optimism scores of the RG group were higher than those of the EX group. Fewer participants opted for the difficult version of the scholastic text in the EX and RS groups; the majority of participants in these groups chose to not take any test. The results indicated the influence of negative stereotype threats and indicated that reading the news report on the special case did not have a positive and encouraging effect on the participants.

Keywords

Athletic identity optimism role model social identity stigma

Introduction

Stereotypes are fixed and rigid beliefs regarding the characteristics of members of a certain social group. Stereotype threat refers to being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one’s group.¹ People’s behavior or performance may be adversely affected from a fear that they will confirm how others perceive them.^2–4 Studies conducted in a diverse range of disciplines have reported the negative influence of stereotypes on performance, such as African- and Latin-American students’ academic engagement and women’s performance in the domains of mathematics or science.^5–8 Moreover, studies have revealed that stereotype-based threats reduce self-efficacy, career aspirations, and expectations in related domains.^3,9,10

Early studies on gender and racial stereotypes in the sports domain have been mostly conducted by following the experimental paradigm proposed by Steele and Aronson¹ regarding the activation of stereotype roles or threats³. In recent years, research has been conducted to examine the effect of stereotypes related to the academic performance of athletes. For example, Yopyk and Prentice¹¹ indicated that the participants who were assigned to the athlete identity group had lower self-evaluation than did those in the student identity group. They also performed more poorly in challenging mathematics tests. Jameson et al.¹² examined the influence of negative stereotypes on college athletes’ academic performance and revealed that the group with athlete identity answered fewer questions in mathematics tests, and their answers were less accurate. The unfavorable influence of stereotype threats on athletes’ academic performance or engagement has been further analyzed in recent studies.²,^13–15

With this understanding of the negative influence of stereotype threats, researchers have begun to investigate how such negative influences can be prevented. A common approach to mitigating the negative stereotypes involves helping individuals build identity safety through role model.^16,17 Dasgupta¹⁶ mentioned that highly accomplished role models could make individuals feel more secure in their social identity and their belongingness. For example, Ronkainen et al.¹⁸ found that youth athletes were inspired by senior elite athletes as role models. They suggested that role models could be combined with athletes’ counselling to facilitate their career development and future selves exploration. However, inconsistency findings have been reported on role model research¹⁷,¹⁹ and researchers argued that individuals’ beliefs regarding their role models may moderate the effectiveness of a role model in ameliorating the stereotype threat. From the perspective of the social comparison mechanism, the effect may vary according to the descriptive style about a role model.²⁰ On one hand, stronger identification of individuals with the role model was discovered to lead to more positive impacts and an upward comparison, encouraging positive effects on performance²¹ because individuals can imagine themselves becoming similar to the role model at some point in the future. However, when the gap between a compared object and subject is wide, it is difficult to regard a role model as an in-group member and thus suitable for comparison. A role model may also fail to inspire people when his or her success is described as being exogenous or having an unreliable cause.¹⁷,¹⁹

From the perspective of stereotype threats, it's worth noting that while a role model failed to inspire individuals, it could further cause implicit stereotype activation. Studies^1,12,22,23 have revealed that individuals may experience the insidious effects of stereotype threats simply by being reminded of their stigmatized social identity, and these effects then harm their performance. In such a case, noteworthy problems arise. In recent years, stereotype shaping and negative influences on athletes in academia have begun to gain attention in both research and practice. Teachers, trainers, and parents often employ positive role models as material to coach and encourage athletes.¹⁸,²⁴ News reports and mass media also provide coverage on positive athletic role models who, for example, excel in both academia and sports and have an outstanding career in fields other than sport. However, whether reading such content exerts a positive effect on athletes or negative stereotypes are strengthened through the aforementioned implicit activation must be determined. Given that such a perspective has not been adopted in prior research regarding the effect of academic stereotype threats on athletes, an experiment was conducted in this study to address stereotype threats from the social comparison perspective.

In the present study, a typical explicit stereotype threat was compared with two types of report regarding positive role models to clarify whether different influences were exerted. On the basis of a literature review, this study first hypothesized that participants in the explicit threat group (EX group) would receive the strongest stereotype threats and react poorly accordingly. Second, participants reading a report on an extremely successful but special role model (RS group) would be more likely to consider themselves to conform to the stereotype of their group and would be negatively influenced by stereotype threats similarly to participants in the EX group. Third, the participants reading a report on a positive but general topic (RG group) would benefit from the role model and not experience the stereotype threat effect.

Notably, regarding outcome variables, previous studies have mainly focused on the impacts of stereotypes on test performance and affect.⁷,²⁵ In recent years, literature has preliminarily proven that stereotypes also affect students’ career aspiration and lessen their professional options and career ambition.^26–28 Furthermore, cultural and gender stereotype has been linked to dysfunctional career thoughts and career indecision.^29,30 Given that athletes’ career development is an important research and practical issue, career thoughts were used as outcome variables in this study to investigate the influence of different types of news reports on the student athletes. Moreover, a selection of scholastic test difficulty was used in the present study as an indicator of academic motivation.¹¹,¹³ Relevant literature indicates that stereotype threat may affect motivation before affecting performance.²⁵ In difficult situations, for example, individuals may reduce their motivation or withdraw the amount of effort they devote to a task to protect their self-worth.¹⁰,¹³,³¹ Thus, the present study also aimed to determine the varied influence of news reports on athletes’ academic motivation.

Methods

Participants

This research involved college athletes recruited by teachers and trainers in sports-related departments. To understand the influence of stereotype threats on student athletes, students meeting the following criteria were included: current students who had joined a school team or competed in a competition above the interschool level during the preceding 2 years. In total, 192 student athletes in the second, third, and fourth grades were recruited from two universities in central and southern Taiwan and randomly assigned into one of the four groups. 178 participants remained after examination of the data and removal of invalid samples; 46 participants were placed in the explicit threat group (EX), 42 participants in the report on a special case group (RS), 46 participants in the report on a general topic group (RG), and 44 participants in the neutral group (C). The average age of the valid sample of participants was 20.19 (standard deviation [SD] = 1.05) years. The average number of years of specialized sport training was 7.88 (SD = 2.80) years. The main competitive sports were track and field, swimming, wrestling, baseball, basketball, volleyball, and badminton.

Instruments

Career adaptability and career optimism

The Career Adaptability Scale and Career Optimism Scale in the Career Futures Inventory developed by Rottinghaus et al.³² were employed to investigate the influence of stereotype threats and news reports on the participants’ career thoughts. Career adaptability concerns the extent of preparation for coping with anticipated professional tasks and personal adjustments that must be made to confront an unexpected change in work situation. Career optimism concerns the overall expectation of a favorable outcome in the future. Each scale contains 11 item. Factor analysis indicated a single-factor structure of the Career Adaptability Scale and the explained variance was 73.28%, and Cronbach’s α was .922. Examples of career adaptability items include “I can overcome potential barriers that may exist in my career” and “I will adjust easily to shifting demands at work.” In addition, factor analysis indicated a single-factor structure of the Career Optimism Scale and the explained variance was 69.05%, and Cronbach’s α was .920. Examples of career adaptability items include “I get excited when I think about my career” and “I will definitely make the right decisions in my career.” Each item was scored on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Analysis was conducted on the basis of the mean for each scale.

Short texts for context manipulation

This study employed four versions of a short text as tools to present different scenarios (see online Appendix for the full text).

Explicit threat (EX): This text was adapted from past negative stereotype manipulation¹³ and contained a direct statement that most athletes have inferior academic performance because they spend too much time in training and at competitions. The widespread negative stereotype in the social context, that of the “dumb jock,” was highlighted in the short text.

Report on a special case (RS): This text included a news report regarding a specific successful athlete and discussed the athlete’s excellent academic performance, sporting achievements, and career development and how the athlete balanced these aspects. Three news reports conforming to the research objectives were preliminarily selected by the researcher. Subsequently, one article was selected by two sports psychologists after discussion before being edited. The news report focused on an ex-athlete who had attended university for both academic and sporting reasons and who had an outstanding career that had developed beyond sport. However, although the news report provided a typical description of the positive role model, the athlete’s background, resources, school attendance, and career development and experience clearly differed from those of athletes in general. A short text was obtained from the report, with original information such as the name, school, and profession of the athlete altered, and the text was then examined by experts to ensure that the adapted report contained identical information to the original report. (The news report can be acquired by contacting the corresponding author.)

Report on a general topic (RG): This text contained news content mainly exploring athletes’ performance and development in school work and sport. It described a positive role model without focusing on any particular individual. Similar to the RS text, three news reports conforming to the requirements were selected by the researcher, and experts then discussed them before selecting one news report. The selected report was chosen mainly because of its description of the academic conflict faced by athletes regarding their identity and the effort the athletes had exerted to resolve the conflict. The story of a specific successful athlete was not included, and emphasis was placed on the methods of progress and how any athlete can succeed as long as an effort is made. The news report was edited and examined by experts before being used as a short text in the RG scenario.

Neutral scenario (C): This text was a report unrelated to sport and was used as a control scenario. A simple text on popular science was chosen as the reading material after a discussion among experts.

Experimental procedure

Participant recruitment and testing were conducted after examination of the study by a research ethics committee. The research objectives and procedure and participants’ rights were first clearly explained by the researcher to the participants. After the consent was obtained, the formal test process was conducted through group testing in class. With the help of university faculty members, data was collected in five classes in the two universities. To guarantee the validity of the experimental design, the researchers controlled the duration and order of question answering throughout the process. In the first part, questions on the participants’ basic information were completed. The second part consisted of the experimental manipulation; the participants read the short text or news report suitable to their group. They were then asked to write a two- or three-sentence summary of the text after careful reading and to compose a text of approximately 200 words on their reflections. These were used to examine the validity of the experimental manipulation. In the third part, the Career Optimism Scale and Career Adaptability Scale were completed. Finally, the researcher informed the participants to complete the last part of the test in which they could choose to take the difficult or easy version of the scholastic test or to stop their test without answering any further questions. The instructions were as follows:

Next, you are going to answer the questions in the last part of this study; these questions are designed to mainly learn about your current academic situation and problems. You can choose one of two versions. The difficult version is suitable for senior high school students and comprises 20 items on Chinese literature and 20 items on mathematics. The easy version also comprises 20 items each on Chinese literature and mathematics but is suitable for junior high school students. If you do not want to answer any questions in this part, you can choose finish now. We will provide another questionnaire (not a scholastic test) for you to complete.

The participants were told that to avoid peer interference, they must write down their choice on the questionnaire. The researcher then handed the corresponding test brochure to them. Once all the participants had made their choice, they were instructed to return the questionnaire immediately, and it was announced that the test was terminated (without the scholastic test actually being conducted). After the testing, participants received a gift certificate worth approximately US$3.5 as a “thank you” for completing the test. Furthermore, the overall background and connotation of the research were explained to the participants by a teacher of athletic psychology with practical experience, and problems related to stereotypes and the careers of student athletes were explained as a reference for the students.

Data processing and statistical analysis

After the questionnaires had been returned, a basic inspection was conducted to remove questionnaires with missed questions or identical answers, and the summaries in the short text and reflection articles were used to examine the effect of the manipulation. A high school teacher independently checked the summaries of the text answered by all the participants. If the summaries did not correspond to the manipulation group they belonged to, the questionnaires were considered invalid. After the examination, only one summary made by the participants was identified as not matching the manipulation criteria. However, a total of six invalid questionnaires were removed because of the summary part was left unfilled. Five responses were further eliminated because these participants did not follow the experiment process during the test; and two responses contained too many missed questions were also eliminated.

The main analysis, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), was performed to understand the career adaptability and career optimism differences among the four groups; this was followed by a post hoc comparison using the least significant difference (LSD). The chi-squared test was employed to identify any differences among the four groups in their choice of the scholastic test version. The statistical power was set as α = .05.

Results

First, ANOVA was used to determine differences among the groups, and significant differences were discovered regarding career adaptability and career optimism. Table 1 and Figures 1 and 2 present the results of the LSD employed for post hoc comparison. The career adaptability and career optimism scores of the control group were higher than those of the EX and RS groups. In addition, regarding career optimism, the difference obtained from the post hoc comparison between the RG group (report on a general topic) and EX group (explicit threat) was significant (RG > EX). The effects were of medium size (Table 1).

Table 1.

Differences in career adaptability and career optimism among the groups.

	N	M	SD	F	p	Post hoc
Dependent variable: Career adaptability
EX	46	3.84	0.91	3.515*	.016	C > EX (Cohen’s d = 0.59);C > RS (Cohen’s d = 0.54)
RS	42	3.89	0.88
RG	46	4.15	0.77
C	44	4.32	0.70
Dependent variable: Career optimism
EX	46	3.19	0.92	4.244*	.006	C > EX (Cohen’s d = 0.52); C > RS (Cohen’s d = 0.55); RG > EX (Cohen’s d = 0.51)
RS	42	3.22	0.73
RG	46	3.64	0.81
C	44	3.66	0.87

*p < .05; Effect size was calculated using Cohen’s d.³³ Effect sizes of 0.2 are regarded as small, 0.5 as medium, and 0.8 as large.

Figure 1.

Career adaptability scores in the four groups.

Figure 2.

Career optimism scores in the four groups.

In the second part, the groups’ choices regarding the scholastic test difficulty were tested. A chi-squared test revealed that the difference was significant, with X² (6, N = 178) = 15.02 (p = .02). Table 2 indicates that in all the four groups, the participants most commonly opted for the easy version, with the percentage ranging from 40.48% to 60.87%. The percentage of EX (8.7%) and RS (21.43%) group participants opting for the difficult version was low. However, the number of participants choosing to give up immediately in the RG and control groups was significantly lower than that in the other two groups. The percentage of those who chose the difficult version was greater in the RG (26.09%) and control group (22.73%).

Table 2.

Difficulty level choices of the groups.

		Version
		Difficult	Easy	Not answer	Total
Groups	EX	4 (8.70%)	23 (50.00%)	19 (41.30%)	46
	RS	9 (21.43%)	17 (40.48%)	16 (38.10%)	42
	RG	12 (26.09%)	28 (60.87%)	6 (13.04%)	46
	C	10 (22.73%)	25 (56.82%)	9 (20.45%)	44
Total		35 (19.66%)	93 (52.25%)	50 (28.09%)	178

Discussion

This study investigated the influence of different scenarios of stereotype activation. A text explicitly activating a stereotype was compared with two types of news report (on a special case and a general topic, respectively). Several findings were particularly noteworthy.

First, regarding the participants’ future career thoughts, the career adaptability and career optimism scores of the participants who read text containing negative stereotypes (EX group) and on a special case (RS group) were lower than those of the control group, which supported the finding of other studies regarding the adverse influence of negative stereotype threats. Such an influence has been noted in racial and gender studies.¹,^5–8 Career optimism and career adaptability were selected as variables in the present study because they both positively affect self-efficacy in career decision making, career planning, and future success.³⁴ The research result was in line with literature that participants’ perceptions of negative stereotype messages can harm their career thoughts.^26,27,30,35 What was worth particular attention is that the career thoughts of the RS group (report on a special case) were lower than those of the control group, which has not been revealed in other studies. In this study, the RS group read a report on a successful role model who has background and life experience clearly differed from those of athletes in general. According the results of the present study, such a report in addition to not generating a positive effect, they can also implicitly activate stereotypes.²² It is in agreement with the findings of aforementioned research on social comparison in which the gap between the compared object and an individual was concluded to be too great, resulting in the individual finding it difficult to connect with the role model or successful figure.²⁰ The present findings also support the conclusion that the effect of a role model is influenced by the way in which the role model attained his or her success. With special backgrounds and resources, the participants could have concluded that the role model’s success was due to external causes and resources to which they do not have access. In agreement with the results of other studies,¹⁷,¹⁹ this study discovered no positive inspiring effect, leading the participants to believe that they were described by the general negative academic stereotype rather than being similar to the successful individual detailed in the report.

However, this does not indicate that no positive effect can be generated by role models and cases of success. In the RG group of this study, the effect of a positive role model was delivered through description in which the methods of progress were emphasized, and it was explained that any athlete can succeed if they make an effort. The level of career optimism of the participants who read this report was higher than that of the EX group, which indicated that some positive influence can be generated by using stories regarding role models and successful experiences.¹⁸,²¹ In recent years, researchers focusing on the removal of negative stereotype threats have suggested that exposing individuals to in-group role models is an effective approach to help them build identity safety.^16,17 Also, reshaping the threat and describing the challenge are positive actions that can give individuals the confidence to overcome stressors and may be a mechanism for weakening the negative influences of stereotypes.³⁵ These ideas, in combination with the benefits of appropriate role model descriptions, can serve as a reference for trainers, teachers, and media professionals seeking to conduct athletes’ career education.

The influences of different scenarios were further examined by considering the participants’ selection of difficulty level for the scholastic test. Studies have suggested that the negative influence of stereotypes on performance is related to self-handicapping.²,¹³ In the EX and RS groups, the number of participants selecting the difficult version was lower; these groups also had the highest percentages of participants choosing to not take a test. It is possible that athletes in the EX and RS group experienced stronger negative stereotype threats and chose to reduce their effort or give up an academic work to prevent damage to their self-esteem. In education, individuals influenced by stereotype threats often exhibit behaviors such as reduced effort, complaints of stress, and fewer attempts at tasks to protect their personal values.¹,¹⁰,³¹ Such avoidance behaviors in the learning process may result in negative impacts such as harming performance and possibly even causing interrupted education.³⁶ Avoidance strategies are frequently used by students who perceive themselves as incompetent in a certain situation, which was similar to the unfavorable situations that student athletes face at school. Research indicated that student athletes tend to perceive themselves as having isolated identities as athletes and are less able to engage themselves in learning or connect with others students.³⁷ From a practical perspective, how to create an identity safety environment and to combat stereotype threats through role models or other approaches is the urgent need to further study when guiding athletes’ education.

Limitations and future directions

The effects of the four scenarios in this study on career adaptability and optimism and the selection of test difficulty were determined in this study. The results have several limitations that require particular attention and can serve as a reference for future research. First, to conform to the subject of investigation, news reports were deliberately selected and edited. However, reports regarding athletes’ academic problems and career development are diverse and could have varying influence depending on athletes’ background (such as age, level of competition, and academic department). Future research should conduct tests by using common types of reports and determine the orientation and intensity of the influence. Second, though the results supported the hypothesis that participants in the RG condition would identify with the role model and participants in the RS group would not, the research design in the present study cannot provide a clear explanation about the mechanism underlying. Third, the research process in this study was terminated immediately after the participants had selected one version of the scholastic test; their academic performance was not measured. Therefore, although self-handicapping was the core topic of this study, the reasons for the participants’ choice of difficulty level were not completely understood, and the influence of these reasons on performance in the actual test could not be inferred. Finally, the participants of this study were college students, and the degree of their career development may have varied depending on their year of study. Some of the participants may have already determined the desired orientation of their career. Therefore, regarding career development, care should be taken in explaining the substantial representativeness of career adaptability and career optimism and even the choice of difficulty of the test in this study.

Conclusion

Role models have long been employed in research to positively affect participants. In the sports domain, news reports on successful athletes and examples of career development abound. This study used an experimental design to obtain preliminary findings on the effects of different report styles. Although descriptions of special role models that explicitly convey a positive and successful image have not been employed in previous studies, such descriptions were discovered in this study to not necessarily have a positive effect because of the wide gap that participants perceive between themselves and the subjects of the descriptions. Instead, the implicit stereotypical connotation was found to negatively influence the participants’ perception, beliefs, and attitude, strengthening the stereotype. The present research results serve as a reference for future athletic training and career development guidance.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. The four versions of full text employed in the experimental manipulation are available in the online Appendix.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (MOST 108-2410-H-415-036-MY2).

ORCID iD

Yawen Hsu

Supplemental material

Supplementary material for this article is available online.

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