Stereotype Accuracy of Ballet and Modern Dancers

Abstract

The authors recorded preprofessional ballet and modern dancers' perceptions of the personality traits of each type of dancer and self-reports of their own standing, to test the accuracy of the group stereotypes. Participants accurately stereotyped ballet dancers as scoring higher than modern dancers on Fear of Negative Evaluation and Personal Need for Structure and accurately viewed the groups as equal on Fitness Esteem. Participants inaccurately stereotyped ballet dancers as lower on Body Esteem; the groups actually scored the same. Sensitivity correlations across traits indicated that dancers were accurate about the relative magnitudes of trait differences in the two types of dancers. A group of nondancers reported stereotypes that were usually in the right direction although of inaccurate magnitude, and nondancers were sensitive to the relative sizes of group differences across traits.

Keywords:

• ballet dancers
• intergroup perception
• modern dancers
• stereotype accuracy
• stereotypes