We Can Do It: The Interplay of Construal Orientation and Social Comparisons Under Threat.

The authors investigated how a collective self-construal orientation in combination with positive social comparisons "turns off" the negative effects of stereotype threat. Specifically, Experiment 1 demonstrated that stereotype threat led to increased accessibility of participants' collective self ("we"). Experiment 2 showed that this feeling of "we-ness" in the stereotype threat condition centered on the participants' stereotyped group membership and not on other important social groups (e.g., students). Experiment 3 indicated that in threat situations, when participants' collective self is accessible, positive social comparison information led to improved math test performance and less concern, whereas in nonthreat situations, when the collective self is less accessible, positive comparison information led to worse test performance and more concern. Our final experiment revealed that under stereotype threat, only those comparison targets who are competent in the relevant domain (math), rather than in domains unrelated to math (athletics), enhanced participants' math test performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Converging Evidence That Stereotype Threat Reduces Working Memory Capacity.

Although research has shown that priming negative stereotypes leads to lower performance among stigmatized individuals, little is understood about the cognitive mechanism that accounts for these effects. Three experiments tested the hypothesis that stereotype threat interferes with test performance because it reduces individuals' working memory capacity. Results show that priming self-relevant negative stereotypes reduces women's (Experiment 1) and Latinos' (Experiment 2) working memory capacity. The final study revealed that a reduction in working memory capacity mediates the effect of stereotype threat on women's math performance (Experiment 3). Implications for future research on stereotype threat and working memory are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotype performance boosts: The impact of self-relevance and the manner of stereotype activation.

The activation of positive stereotypes has been shown to produce academic performance boosts. Evidence regarding the role of self-relevance in producing such effects has been mixed. The authors propose that the subtlety of stereotype activation plays a key role in creating performance boosts among targets and nontargets of stereotypes. Study 1 found that subtle stereotype activation boosted performance in targets, but blatant activation did not. Study 2 was conducted on both targets and nontargets using different methods of stereotype activation. Again, targets showed performance boosts when stereotypes were subtly activated but not when they were blatantly activated. Nontargets, however, showed boosts in performance only when stereotypes were blatantly activated. The role of self-relevance in mediating sensitivity to stimuli is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotype threat and executive resource depletion: Examining the influence of emotion regulation.

Research shows that stereotype threat reduces performance by diminishing executive resources, but less is known about the psychological processes responsible for these impairments. The authors tested the idea that targets of stereotype threat try to regulate their emotions and that this regulation depletes executive resources, resulting in underperformance. Across 4 experiments, they provide converging evidence that targets of stereotype threat spontaneously attempt to control their expression of anxiety and that such emotion regulation depletes executive resources needed to perform well on tests of cognitive ability. They also demonstrate that providing threatened individuals with a means to effectively cope with negative emotions--by reappraising the situation or the meaning of their anxiety--can restore executive resources and improve test performance. They discuss these results within the framework of an integrated process model of stereotype threat, in which affective and cognitive processes interact to undermine performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multiple social identities and stereotype threat: Imbalance, accessibility, and working memory.

In 4 experiments, the authors showed that concurrently making positive and negative self-relevant stereotypes available about performance in the same ability domain can eliminate stereotype threat effects. Replicating past work, the authors demonstrated that introducing negative stereotypes about women’s math performance activated participants’ female social identity and hurt their math performance (i.e., stereotype threat) by reducing working memory. Moving beyond past work, it was also demonstrated that concomitantly presenting a positive self-relevant stereotype (e.g., college students are good at math) increased the relative accessibility of females’ college student identity and inhibited their gender identity, eliminating attendant working memory deficits and contingent math performance decrements. Furthermore, subtle manipulations in questions presented in the demographic section of a math test eliminated stereotype threat effects that result from women reporting their gender before completing the test. This work identifies the motivated processes through which people’s social identities became active in situations in which self-relevant stereotypes about a stigmatized group membership and a nonstigmatized group membership were available. In addition, it demonstrates the downstream consequences of this pattern of activation on working memory and performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotype threat and working memory: Mechanisms, alleviation, and spillover.

Stereotype threat (ST) occurs when the awareness of a negative stereotype about a social group in a particular domain produces suboptimal performance by members of that group. Although ST has been repeatedly demonstrated, far less is known about how its effects are realized. Using mathematical problem solving as a test bed, the authors demonstrate in 5 experiments that ST harms math problems that rely heavily on working memory resources--especially phonological aspects of this system. Moreover, by capitalizing on an understanding of the cognitive mechanisms by which ST exerts its impact, the authors show (a) how ST can be alleviated (e.g., by heavily practicing once-susceptible math problems such that they are retrieved directly from long-term memory rather than computed via a working-memory-intensive algorithm) and (b) when it will spill over onto subsequent tasks unrelated to the stereotype in question but dependent on the same cognitive resources that stereotype threat also uses. The current work extends the knowledge of the causal mechanisms of stereotype threat and demonstrates how its effects can be attenuated and propagated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Targets as perceivers: How people determine when they will be negatively stereotyped.

Research on stereotype threat has demonstrated that when targets are forced to contend with the threat of being negatively stereotyped, their academic performance suffers (C. M. Steele & J. Aronson, 1995). The present research explored how the targets of negative stereotypes determine when they must contend with this threat. Across 5 experiments, the authors manipulated both the possibility and probability that Black and female students would be stereotyped as unintelligent prior to taking an analytical test. Collectively, these experiments showed that these students contended with stereotype threat only when they perceived that it was both possible and probable that they would be negatively stereotyped. The authors discuss the implications of these findings on the experience of being the target of negative stereotypes and on the academic achievement of Blacks and women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Threat inoculation: Experienced and imagined intergenerational contact prevents stereotype threat effects on older people's math performance.

The authors hypothesized that experienced and imagined intergenerational contact should improve older people's math test performance under stereotype threat. In Experiment 1 (N = 51, mean age = 69 years), positive prior contact with grandchildren eliminated stereotype threat, which was mediated partially by reduced test-related anxiety. In Experiment 2 (N = 84, mean age = 72 years), the effect of threat on performance was significantly improved when participants merely imagined intergenerational contact, a situation again mediated by reduced anxiety. Previous research established that intergroup contact improves intergroup attitudes. The findings show that intergroup (intergenerational) contact also provides a defense against stereotype threat. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mere effort and stereotype threat performance effects.

Although the fact that stereotype threat impacts performance is well established, the underlying process(es) is(are) not clear. Recently, T. Schmader and M. Johns (2003) argued for a working memory interference account, which proposes that performance suffers because cognitive resources are expended on processing information associated with negative stereotypes. The antisaccade task provides a vehicle to test this account because optimal performance requires working memory resources to inhibit the tendency to look at an irrelevant, peripheral cue (the prepotent response) and to generate volitional saccades to the target. If stereotype threat occupies working memory resources, then the ability to inhibit the prepotent response and to launch volitional saccades will be impaired, and performance will suffer. In contrast, S. Harkins's (2006) mere effort account argues that stereotype threat participants are motivated to perform well, which potentiates the prepotent response, but also leads to efforts to counter this tendency if participants recognize that the response is incorrect, know the correct response, and have the opportunity to make it. Results from 4 experiments support the mere effort but not the working memory interference account. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Battle of the sexes: Gender stereotype confirmation and reactance in negotiations.

The authors examined how gender stereotypes affect negotiation performance. Men outperformed women when the negotiation was perceived as diagnostic of ability (Experiment 1) or the negotiation was linked to gender-specific traits (Experiment 2), suggesting the threat of negative stereotype confirmation hurt women's performance relative to men. The authors hypothesized that men and women confirm gender stereotypes when they are activated implicitly, but when stereotypes are explicitly activated, people exhibit stereotype reactance, or the tendency to behave in a manner inconsistent with a stereotype. Experiment 3 confirmed this hypothesis. In Experiment 4, the authors examined the cognitive processes involved in stereotype reactance and the conditions under which cooperative behaviors between men and women can be promoted at the bargaining table (by activating a shared identity that transcends gender). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Girls' math performance under stereotype threat: The moderating role of mothers' gender stereotypes.

Previous research on stereotype threat in children suggests that making gender identity salient disrupts girls' math performance at as early as 5 to 7 years of age. The present study (n = 124) tested the hypothesis that parents' endorsement of gender stereotypes about math moderates girls' susceptibility to stereotype threat. Results confirmed that stereotype threat impaired girls' performance on math tasks among students from kindergarten through 2nd grade. Moreover, mothers' but not fathers' endorsement of gender stereotypes about math moderated girls' vulnerability to stereotype threat: Performance of girls whose mothers strongly rejected the gender stereotype about math did not decrease under stereotype threat. These findings are important because they point to the role of mothers' beliefs in the development of girls' vulnerability to the negative effects of gender stereotypes about math. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relation between perception and behavior, or how to win a game of Trivial Pursuit.

The authors tested and confirmed the hypothesis that priming a stereotype or trait leads to complex overt behavior in line with this activated stereotype or trait. Specifically, 4 experiments established that priming the stereotype of professors or the trait intelligent enhanced participants' performance on a scale measuring general knowledge. Also, priming the stereotype of soccer hooligans or the trait stupid reduced participants' performance on a general knowledge scale. Results of the experiments revealed (a) that prolonged priming leads to more pronounced behavioral effects and (b) that there is no sign of decay of the effects for at least 15 min. The authors explain their results by claiming that perception has a direct and pervasive impact on overt behavior (cf. J. A. Bargh, M. Chen, & L. Burrows, 1996). Implications for human social behavior are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using SAT-Grade and Ability-Job Performance Relationships to Test Predictions Derived From Stereotype Threat Theory.

To examine the generalizability of stereotype threat theory findings from laboratory to applied settings, the authors developed models of the pattern of relationships between cognitive test scores and outcome criteria that would be expected if the test scores of women and minority group members were affected by stereotype threat. Two large data sets were used to test these models, one in an education setting examining SAT-grade relationships by race and gender and the other in a military job setting examining Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery-job performance relationships by race. Findings were not supportive of the predictions arising from stereotype threat theory, suggesting caution in positing threat as a key determinant of subgroup mean test score differences in applied settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-related variation in the influences of aging stereotypes on memory in adulthood.

Adults 24-86 years of age read positive or negative information about aging and memory prior to a memory test. The impact of this information on recall performance varied with age. Performance in the youngest and oldest participants was minimally affected by stereotype activation. Adults in their 60s exhibited weak effects consistent with the operation of stereotype threat, whereas middle-age adults exhibited a contrast effect in memory performance, suggestive of stereotype lift. Beliefs about aging and memory were also affected by stereotypic information, and older adults' changed beliefs were more important in predicting performance than was exposure to stereotype-based information alone. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotype Threat and Performance: How Self-Stereotypes Influence Processing by Inducing Regulatory Foci.

The authors hypothesized that activated self-stereotypes can influence the strategies of task solution by inducing regulatory foci. More specifically, positive self-stereotypes should induce a promotion focus state of eagerness, whereas negative stereotypes should induce a prevention focus state of vigilance. Study 1 showed that a negative ascribed stereotype with regard to task performance leads to better recall for avoidance-related statements whereas a positive stereotype leads to better recall for approach-related statements. In Studies 2 and 3, both an experimental manipulation of group performance expectation and the preexisting stereotype of better verbal skills in women than in men led to faster and less accurate performance in the positive as compared with the negative stereotype group. Studies 4 and 5 showed that positive in-group stereotypes led to more creative performance whereas negative stereotypes led to better analytical performance. These results point to a possible mechanism for stereotype-threat effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotype threat reinterpreted as a regulatory mismatch.

This research documents performance decrements resulting from the activation of a negative task-relevant stereotype. The authors combine a number of strands of work to identify causes of stereotype threat in a way that allows them to reverse the effects and improve the performance of individuals with negative task-relevant stereotypes. The authors draw on prior work suggesting that negative stereotypes induce a prevention focus and on other research suggesting that people exhibit greater flexibility when their regulatory focus matches the reward structure of the task. This work suggests that stereotype threat effects emerge from a prevention focus combined with tasks that have an explicit or implicit gains reward structure. The authors find flexible performance can be induced in individuals who have a negative task-relevant stereotype by use of a losses reward structure. The authors demonstrate the interaction of stereotypes and the reward structure of the task with chronic stereotypes and Graduate Record Examination math problems (Experiment 1), and with primed stereotypes and a category learning task (Experiments 2A and 2B). The authors discuss implications of this research for other work on stereotype threat. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotype threat spillover: How coping with threats to social identity affects aggression, eating, decision making, and attention.

Stereotype threat spillover is a situational predicament in which coping with the stress of stereotype confirmation leaves one in a depleted volitional state and thus less likely to engage in effortful self-control in a variety of domains. We examined this phenomenon in 4 studies in which we had participants cope with stereotype and social identity threat and then measured their performance in domains in which stereotypes were not “in the air.” In Study 1 we examined whether taking a threatening math test could lead women to respond aggressively. In Study 2 we investigated whether coping with a threatening math test could lead women to indulge themselves with unhealthy food later on and examined the moderation of this effect by personal characteristics that contribute to identity-threat appraisals. In Study 3 we investigated whether vividly remembering an experience of social identity threat results in risky decision making. Finally, in Study 4 we asked whether coping with threat could directly influence attentional control and whether the effect was implemented by inefficient performance monitoring, as assessed by electroencephalography. Our results indicate that stereotype threat can spill over and impact self-control in a diverse array of nonstereotyped domains. These results reveal the potency of stereotype threat and that its negative consequences might extend further than was previously thought. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans.

Stereotype threat is being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one's group. Studies 1 and 2 varied the stereotype vulnerability of Black participants taking a difficult verbal test by varying whether or not their performance was ostensibly diagnostic of ability, and thus, whether or not they were at risk of fulfilling the racial stereotype about their intellectual ability. Reflecting the pressure of this vulnerability, Blacks underperformed in relation to Whites in the ability-diagnostic condition but not in the nondiagnostic condition (with Scholastic Aptitude Tests controlled). Study 3 validated that ability-diagnosticity cognitively activated the racial stereotype in these participants and motivated them not to conform to it, or to be judged by it. Study 4 showed that mere salience of the stereotype could impair Blacks' performance even when the test was not ability diagnostic. The role of stereotype vulnerability in the standardized test performance of ability-stigmatized groups is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)