Effect of Metastereotypes and Conflict Experience on Research Supervisor-Supervisee Relationship Quality Among University Undergraduates

The present study aimed at finding the effects of metastereotypes and conflict experience of students on research supervisor-supervisee relationship quality among university students. A 3 (positive, negative, and control condition of met stereotypes) x 2 (students with conflict experience and without conflict experience) between-subjects experimental study was carried out on a purposive sample of 180 undergraduate students doing research under the supervision of regular faculty members of the University of Sargodha. Metastereotype Activation Task (He et al., 2019) was utilized to induce metastereotypes in students. On a single item, students indicated whether they had conflict experience(s) with their teachers. The supervisor-supervisee relationship was assessed through an adapted version of the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (Pianta, 2001). Supporting study hypotheses, the findings of factorial ANOVA revealed significant main effects and interaction effect of metastereotypes and conflict experience on the relationship quality. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research have been discussed. Keywords: Metastereotypes, conflict, supervisor-supervisee relationship