Meaning In Life And Automatic Stereotyping: A Study Of College Students

The purpose of the present study was to explore the role of meaning in life in automatic stereotyping in White individuals with respect to African Americans. The study aimed to establish whether meaning in life predicted automatic stereotyping even when controlling for self-esteem, a variable suggested to be a moderator of stereotyping. To assess these variables a number of tasks or measures were administered. The Person Categorization Task was employed as a measure of automatic stereotyping, the Purpose in Life test - Short Form (PIL-SF) was given as a measure of perceived meaning in life, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSS) was administered as a measure of global self-esteem. The study was conducted with 110 White college students (64 females and 46 males) from a medium-sized university located in the southern United States. The average age of the participants was 18.98 years old (SD age = 1.49). The results of the study's initial analyses did not yield a statistically significant association between meaning in life and negative automatic stereotyping. Self-esteem was also not significantly associated with negative automatic stereotyping. The regression model with meaning and self-esteem as predictors of negative automatic stereotyping was not significant, with meaning and self-esteem not predictive of lower levels of automatic stereotyping to a statistically significant degree. Median-split analyses partially supported a significant correlation between perceived meaning in life and negative automatic stereotyping for participants with low negative automatic stereotyping. The implications of the findings are discussed in light of the study limitations. Future recommendations are also offered.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A. in Psychology

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Year dc:date.available

2015

Author dc:creator

• Florez, Ivonne Andrea

Contributors dc:contributor

• Stefan E. Schulenberg
• Michael Allen
• Laura R. Johnson

• Automatic Stereotyping
• Meaning In Life
• Prejudice
• Self-Esteem
• Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/799

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:egrove.olemiss.edu:etd-1798