Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/55957
Research the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, conducted two studies with 380 undergradu- ate university students in the United King- dom to debunk Debunk a Stereotype? Just Say It Isn't So A new study finds that a short discussion about why a stereotype is invalid can overcome the stereotype in the process. Laura Smith, a psycholo- gist from the UQ Business School at the University of Queensland in Australia, and Tom Postmes, a professor of social psychology at UPCOMING & ONGOING n SPORTS AND MULTIMEDIA Sports channel ESPN and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia have partnered to study consumer behav- ior during major sporting events. The study, ESPN XP, began with the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Using data from the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative and part- ners such as the Nielsen Company, researchers will measure media usage and the effect of advertising for these events across television, radio, Internet, mobile, and print. n WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE EAST Charlotte Karam, Lama Moussaw, and Fida Afiouni of the American 60 BizEd SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010 University of Beirut's Suliman S. Olayan School of Business in Leba- non will conduct a two-year study of why so few educated women are Laura Smith the belief that women are worse at math than men. The researchers had some groups engage in a five- to ten-minute dis- cussions about why this stereotype was not true; then, participants com- pleted a math exam. The women in this group performed as well as men taking the same exam. However, when women participated in a short discussion about why this stereotype was valid, they performed worse than their male counterparts on the exam. In many countries, teenage girls often do worse on math exams than boys, which leads to women's under- representation in the mathematics and engineering professions, says Smith. Stereotypes "derive their power from being agreed upon and validated by others," she adds. "We could use discussion to promote positive social change and eliminate some of these inequalities." The next step for this research would be to test whether repeated discussions on this topic could actu- ally change these stereotypes over time, says Smith. She might conduct a long-term study to learn if multiple discussions have this effect, even when people hear occasional contra- dictory opinions. "Shaping stereotypical behaviour through the discussion of social ste- reotypes" was published in the May 2010 issue of The British Journal of Social Psychology. promoted at Middle Eastern univer- sities. Most studies on the topic of women's advancement in academia have a Western perspective, say these researchers. With their research proj- ect, "The Current Status of Academic Women in the Middle East: Scientific Analysis for Human Resource Policy Development," the researchers hope to encourage mentoring relationships for young women in academia. n RESEARCH ACROSS DISCIPLINES Three professors have a received a $350,000 grant from the Science of Science and Innovation Policy program at the National Science Foundation. Kai Larsen and Jin- tae Lee, associate professors at the University of Colorado at Boulder's TETRA IMAGES/PHOTOLIBRARY ERIC O'CONNELL/GETTY IMAGES