La amenaza del estereotipo para el rendimiento en las pruebas motrices específicas para el deporte

Female tennis worldwide has a participation problem, with severe gender disparity at competitive and older age groups despite afairly even split amongst the much younger age groups. It seems logical to suggest that gender stereotype threat could contributeto an underperformance, and eventual demotivation, of girls in tennis. Twenty-six girls aged 9-14 were split into equal sized controland experimental groups and underwent a battery of common tennis tests, including forehand accuracy, standing broad jump,and agility ‘T’ testing. In the case of the experimental group, the participants read a short statement which suggested that femaleswould produce inferior results relative to males. The results showed increases in performance in the experimental group, contraryto the hypothesis; however, the increase still highlights the effect of stereotyping on performance.