Think of capable others and you can make it! : self-efficacy mediates the effect of stereotype activation on behavior

Previous research has shown that activating a stereotype can influence subsequent behavior in a stereotype-consistent way. The present research investigates the role of self-efficacy beliefs in this effect. Specifically, we demonstrate that being primed with the stereotype of professors increases knowledge confidence compared to being primed with a less educated profession (Experiments I and 2), and that these higher self-efficacy beliefs result in higher performance at a general knowledge test (Experiment 2). These findings are corroborated in Experiment 3 that shows that participants primed with the stereotype of athletes show higher persistence in a physical exercise than participants primed with a stereotype less associated with persistence. Again, behavior was mediated by self-efficacy beliefs. The findings are in line with the active-self account (Wheeler & Petty, 2001; Wheeler, DeMarree, & Petty, 2007) that proposes that priming with a stereotype influences a person's behavior through altered self-representations.