Priming the reflexive canvas of the mind in a them/us reality a study of priming ethnic stereotypes in the news : responses to female Arab and Israeli prototypes
Abstract
Present research shows that there is no study examining media representation of Arab women and Israeli women as a prime causing stereotype activation in Americans. The goal of this study was to understand how news stories about Arab and Israeli women prime stereotypes in American college students. A 2 (female target ethnicity: Arab and Israeli) x 3 (depiction type: prototypical, non-prototypical, and control) x 3 (multiple messages) study design was conducted to examine how depiction and ethnicity in news story stimuli interacts with evaluations of college-aged participants (N = 107). Results showed that participants exhibited higher stereotyping after reading prototypical stories about Arab women and after they were not primed by stories. Lower stereotyping after participants read non-prototypical stories about Arab women implies that non-stereotypical news coverage can reduce stereotyping. A final major significant finding was that Arab stories were seen as more credible than Israeli stories.
Degree
M.A.
Thesis Department
Rights
OpenAccess.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.