Recent studies have documented that performance in a domain is hindered when individuals feel that a sociocultural group to which they belong is negatively stereotyped in that domain. We report that implicit activation of a social identity can facilitate as well as impede performance on a quantitative task. When a particular social identity was made salient at an implicit level, performance was altered in the direction predicted by the stereotype associated with the identity. Common cultural stereotypes hold that Asians have superior quantitative skills compared with other ethnic groups and that women have inferior quantitative skills compared with men. We found that Asian-American women performed better on a mathematics test when their ethnic identity was activated, but worse when their gender identity was activated, compared with a control group who had neither identity activated. Cross-cultural investigation indicated that it was the stereotype, and not the identity per se, that influenced performance.

Narcissism-a personality trait encompassing grandiosity, arrogance, self-absorption, entitlement, fragile self-esteem, and hostility-is an attribute of many powerful leaders. Narcissistic leaders have grandiose belief systems and leadership styles, and are generally motivated by their needs for power and admiration rather than empathetic concern for the constituents and institutions they lead. However, narcissists also possess the charisma and grand vision that are vital to effective leadership. We review and critically assess the theoretical and research literature on narcissistic leaders in order to understand the potential positive and negative consequences of their leadership, the trajectories of their leadership, and the relationship of narcissism to established models of leadership. We conclude that the study of narcissistic leaders is inherently limited in scope, and propose a new definition of narcissistic leadership in order to reframe the discussion and better incorporate the topic of narcissism into the field of leadership studies.

A growing body of research indicates that the activation of negative stereotypes can impede cognitive performance in adults, whereas positive stereotypes can facilitate cognitive performance. In two studies, we examined the effects of positive and negative stereotypes on the cognitive performance of children in three age groups: lower elementary school, upper elementary school, and middle school. Very young children in the lower elementary grades (kindergarten-grade 2) and older children in the middle school grades (grades 6-8) showed shifts in performance associated with the activation of positive and negative stereotypes; these shifts were consistent with patterns previously reported for adults. The subtle activation of negative stereotypes significantly impeded performance, whereas the subtle activation of positive stereotypes significantly facilitated performance. Markedly different effects were found for children in the upper elementary grades (grades 3-5). These results suggest that the development of stereotype susceptibility is a critical domain for understanding the connection between stereotypes and individual behavior

Katz and Hass (1988) identified and measured what they termed pro-Black attitudes. However, the pro-Black attitudes they investigated were not direct positive attitudes, but rather were mediated by feelings of sympathy and helpfulness toward African Americans based on recognition of the widespread prejudice against them. Although sympathetic attitudes about a group are certainly not negative attitudes (Schuman & Harding, 1963;Woodmansee & Cook, 1967), neither are they direct positive attitudes (Czopp & Monteith, 2006). This may be why, for instance, higher scores on the Pro-Black Scale are not necessarily linked to increased support for pro-Black policies such as raising the number of college scholarships for African Americans (Eisenstadt, Leippe, Stambush, Rauch, & Rivers, 2005).