Year: 2017
Type: article
Abstract: In three studies, I examined the psychological state of being energized by negative expectations of others. Although there is a large body of psychological literature available on the effects of expectancy beliefs that elicit behaviors consistent with those beliefs, relatively little attention has been paid to situations where expectancy beliefs bring about a host of behaviors that goes against the expectations. Using Asians/Asian Americans as my target demographic, I tested the general hypothesis that Asians/Asian Americans will be more likely to respond to insult or derogatory treatment in a productive way through increased effort, in a phenomena I have called the “I will show you” effect. Meta-analysis of effect sizes across three studies showed that there was a marginal effect of culture x insult interaction (z = 1.86, p = .06, r = .07) where Asian Americans showed a significant effect of insult manipulation in performance boost (z = 3.07, p = .002). This effect was not found among Anglo Americans (z = .40, p = .69). More research is needed in narrowing the gap between what does (or does not) stand in the way of translating the insult-based motivational script into an actual performance boost. The small effect among Asian Americans observed in the current research suggests that further investigation of this population of interest would prove fruitful in such endeavor.
Author: Emily S Kim
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2766072590