从0到1:刻板印象威胁与女性创业者机会评估

女性较之其男性同行在评价创业机会时显现出更消极的态度,致使她们难以实现创业企业从0到1的关键突破。部分研究指出,刻板印象威胁可能是造成女性消极评估创业机会的重要前因,然而关于影响中介机制和干涉手段的研究却略显不足。本文基于认知失调理论,引入心理距离作为中介变量、榜样作为调节变量探究刻板印象威胁影响女性创业机会评估的过程及其干预手段。借助204名MBA学生和123位女性创业者样本分别进行实验研究和问卷调查,实证结果表明:刻板印象威胁对女性创业机会评估具有显著的负向作用;心理距离在刻板印象威胁和机会评估之间起到中介作用;榜样负向调节了刻板印象威胁与创业心理距离之间的关系,减小了女性在刻板印象威胁影响下形成的创业远距离感。研究结论将有助于理解创业性别不均衡现象背后的心理动因,对通过优化媒体宣传内容和创新创业教育课程设计激活女性创业活力有重要启示作用。

From Zero to One:Stereotype Threat and Opportunity Evaluation

Opportunity evaluation is a key step in turning opportunity beliefs into entrepreneurial actions and is defined as assessment of whether specific circumstances create value.There are gender differences in opportunity evaluation,which is women tender to evaluate entrepreneurial opportunities more negatively than their male counterparts,and finally fails before the last step of creating a startup.Previous studies have indicated that such gap may be partly explained by women perceiving stereotype threats under negative gender stereotypes and thus evaluating opportunities less favorable,while men are not affected under the similar circumstances.Stereotype threat is defined as a kind of mental“predicament”,making women worry about doing something that would confirm the negative stereotype.Meanwhile,we only have a limited understanding of the processes through(mediation)and the circumstances under which(moderation)stereotype threat impacts opportunity evaluation,providing us limited understanding of the gender issue in opportunity evaluation.Draw on cognitive dissonance theory,we introduce the psychological distance as a mediator and role model as a moderator to explore the both microscopic mechanism of the impact of stereotype threats on opportunity evaluation and the contextual factor between such relationships.Thus,we suggest that among women,stereotype threat impacts their opportunity evaluation through increasing psychological distance,and further that this mediating effect is moderated by the existence effect of role model.To address these issues,we test our model in two independent studies.Specifically,based on the samples of 204 MBAs we did an experimental research to examine our main effect by ANOVAs and bootstrapping method.Moreover,based on the samples of 123 female entrepreneurs,we did a questionnaire to validate the mediating mechanism and further explore the moderating effect by hierarchical regression and bootstrapping method.The experimental results show that women perceived stereotype threat under negative stereotype information and thus making women entrepreneurs evaluate the opportunity negatively,while men will not be affected.Moreover,the regression results from second questionnaire survey show that 1)stereotype threat perceived by women plays a negative role in opportunity evaluation;2)psychological distance plays a mediating role between stereotype threat and opportunity evaluation;and 3)role model play a moderating role between stereotype threat and psychological distance,which means that role model can reduce the entrepreneurial psychological distance of women who under stereotype threat.The research have several theoretical and practical contributions.First,the paper responses to the call that more attention needs to be paid to psychological factors in entrepreneurship research by focusing on the psychological process of women entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation.Second,the paper extend the literatures on the relationship between stereotype threat and opportunity evaluation by adding psychological distance as a mediator and role model as a moderator.Third,the paper contributes the research of stereotype in entrepreneurship by focusing on the impact of negative stereotypes on female entrepreneurs themselves,rather than on resource providers(e.g.investors).Furthermore,the conclusion implies that we can activate female entrepreneurial vitality by optimizing media promotion content and entrepreneurship education courses.We acknowledge a number of limitations of our research.First,the paper may not completely avoid the potential statistical bias caused by interaction between relevant psychological variables,although both experimental research and questionnaires have been used to ensure the robustness of conclusions.Second,Although the paper have tried to control the relevant variables,the effect of stereotype threat may still be affected by individual cognitive characteristics that are not taken into model.Third,although existing studies have not found gender differences in role model effects,considering role gender will provide more detailed insights.