The Moderating Effect of Humour on Media Mediated Stereotype Threat

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Psychology - Media Psychology, grade: 1,1, University of Koblenz-Landau (Kommunikations- und Medienpsychologie), language: English, abstract: The present study aims to gain empirical knowledge about stereotype threat and its underlying mechanisms. An experiment with an all-female sample demonstrated that media mediated stimuli can provoke stereotype threat. Due to that fact the external validity of the construct could be confirmed.

For inducing stereotype threat a video of the German comedian Mario Barth was used, the participants in the control group watched a video of German comedian Luke Mockridge. In the main study a significant effect of stereotype threat on achievement could be found. Additionally, regression analysis suggested that the effect of stereotype threat is moderated significantly by situational humour. The more humour a participant perceived the less was the susceptibility of the participant to the effects of stereotype threat. A moderation of the effects of stereotype threat by coping sense of humour was tested but not confirmed.