Stereotype threat effects on Black and White athletic performance.

Two experiments showed that framing an athletic task as diagnostic of negative racial stereotypes about Black or White athletes can impede their performance in sports. In Experiment 1, Black participants performed significantly worse than did control participants when performance on a golf task was framed as diagnostic of "sports intelligence." In comparison, White participants performed worse than did control participants when the golf task was framed as diagnostic of 'natural athletic ability." Experiment 2 observed the effect of stereotype threat on the athletic performance of White participants for whom performance in sports represented a significant measure of their self-worth. The implications of the findings for the theory of stereotype threat (C. M. Steele, 1997) and for participation in sports are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive test performance among nondemented elderly African Americans and whites

We examined the neuropsychological test performance of a randomly selected community sample of English-speaking non-Hispanic African American and white elders in northern Manhattan. All participants were diagnosed as nondemented by a neurologist, whose assessment was made independent of neuropsychological test scores. African American elders obtained significantly lower scores on measures of verbal and nonverbal learning and memory, abstract reasoning, language, and visuospatial skill than whites. After using a stratified random sampling technique to match groups on years of education, many of the discrepancies became nonsignificant; however, significant ethnic group differences on measures of figure memory, verbal abstraction, category fluency, and visuospatial skill remained. Discrepancies in test performance of education-matched African Americans and whites could not be accounted for by occupational attainment or history of medical conditions such as hypertension and diabetes. These findings emphasize the importance of using culturally appropriate norms when evaluating ethnically diverse elderly for dementia.     

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)     

A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance.

A general theory of domain identification is used to describe achievement barriers still faced by women in advanced quantitative areas and by African Americans in school. The theory assumes that sustained school success requires identification with school and its subdomains; that societal pressures on these groups (e.g., economic disadvantage, gender roles) can frustrate this identification; and that in school domains where these groups are negatively stereotyped, those who have become domain identified face the further barrier of stereotype threat, the threat that others' judgments or their own actions will negatively stereotype them in the domain. Research shows that this threat dramatically depresses the standardized test performance of women and African Americans who are in the academic vanguard of their groups (offering a new interpretation of group differences in standardized test performance), that it causes disidentification with school, and that practices that reduce this threat can reduce these negative effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotype threat among schoolgirls in quasi-ordinary classroom circumstances.

There is ample evidence today in the stereotype threat literature that women and girls are influenced by gender-stereotyped expectations on standardized math tests. Despite its high relevance to education, this phenomenon has not received much attention in school settings. The present studies offer the 1st evidence to date indicating that middle school girls exhibit a performance deficit in quasi-ordinary classroom circumstances when they are simply led to believe that the task at hand measures mathematical skills. This deficit occurred in girls working alone or in mixed-gender groups (i.e., presence of regular classmates) but not in same-gender groups (i.e., presence of only same-gender classmates). Compared with the mixed-gender groups, the same-gender groups were also associated for girls in the stereotype threat condition with greater accessibility of positive role models (i.e., female classmates who excel in math), at the expense of both stereotypic in-group and out-group members (i.e., low-math-achievement girls and high-math-achievement boys). Finally, the greater accessibility of positive role models mediated the impact of the activated stereotype on girls' performance, exactly as one would expect from C. M. Steele's (1997) stereotype threat theory. Taken together, these findings clearly show that reducing stereotype threat in the classroom is a crucial challenge for both scientists and teachers. (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)     

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)     

The space between us: Stereotype threat and distance in interracial contexts.

Four studies investigate the role that stereotype threat plays in producing racial distancing behavior in an anticipated conversation paradigm. It was hypothesized that the threat of appearing racist may have the ironic effect of causing Whites to distance themselves from Black conversation partners. In Study 1, participants distanced themselves more from Black partners under conditions of threat, and this distance correlated with the activation of a "White racist" stereotype. In Study 2, it was demonstrated that Whites' interracial distancing behavior was not predicted by explicit or implicit prejudice. Study 3 provides evidence that conceiving of interracial interactions as opportunities to learn may attenuate the negative consequences of threat for Whites. Study 4 found that Whites have conscious access to their experience of stereotype threat and that this awareness may mediate the relationship between threat and distance. These results are discussed within a broader discourse of racial distancing and the possibility that certain identity threats may be as important as prejudice in determining the outcomes of interracial interactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social identity contingencies: How diversity cues signal threat or safety for African Americans in mainstream institutions.

This research demonstrates that people at risk of devaluation based on group membership are attuned to cues that signal social identity contingencies--judgments, stereotypes, opportunities, restrictions, and treatments that are tied to one's social identity in a given setting. In 3 experiments, African American professionals were attuned to minority representation and diversity philosophy cues when they were presented as a part of workplace settings. Low minority representation cues coupled with colorblindness (as opposed to valuing diversity) led African American professionals to perceive threatening identity contingencies and to distrust the setting (Experiment 1). The authors then verified that the mechanism mediating the effect of setting cues on trust was identity contingent evaluations (Experiments 2 & 3). The power of social identity contingencies as they relate to underrepresented groups in mainstream institutions is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Test anxiety and intellectual performance.

High school students were administered 2 anxiety scales, the Test Anxiety Scale and a Need for Achievement scale. Scores on these tests were related to scores on the School and College Ability Test (SCAT). Test anxiety was found to be negatively correlated with SCAT scores. The negative correlations obtained tended to be larger for female than for male Ss. The Need for Achievement scale showed only a slight tendency to correlate negatively with SCAT scores. The results were interpreted as being consistent with the conception of anxiety as an interfering nonintellectual influence on intellectual performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does stereotype threat affect test performance of minorities and women? A meta-analysis of experimental evidence.

A meta-analysis of stereotype threat effects was conducted and an overall mean effect size of |.26| was found, but true moderator effects existed. A series of hierarchical moderator analyses evidenced differential effects of race- versus gender-based stereotypes. Women experienced smaller performance decrements than did minorities when tests were difficult: mean ds = |.36| and |.43|, respectively. For women, subtle threat-activating cues produced the largest effect, followed by blatant and moderately explicit cues: ds = |.24|, |.18|, and |.17|, respectively; explicit threat-removal strategies were more effective in reducing stereotype threat effects than subtle ones: ds = |.14| and |.33|, respectively. For minorities, moderately explicit stereotype threat-activating cues produced the largest effect, followed by blatant and subtle cues: ds = |.64|, |.41|, and |.22|, respectively; explicit removal strategies enhanced stereotype threat effects compared with subtle strategies: ds = |.80| and |.34|, respectively. In addition, stereotype threat affected moderately math-identified women more severely than highly math-identified women: ds = |.52| and |.29|, respectively; low math-identified women suffered the least from stereotype threat: d= |.11|. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (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)     

A nontransformational test of intellectual competence.

Scores on the Perceptual Acuity Test (PAT), assessing accuracy in the perception of geometric forms and optical illusions, have previously revealed an age–developmental gradient among grade school children. However, information on test and nontest criteria of validity for adult samples has not been available. Evidence from 52 males and 38 females of mean ages 36.2 and 34.4 yrs, respectively, is reported, showing PTA scores to correlate significantly with performance on the Hidden Figures Test, the WAIS, and a personality scale for intellectual efficiency and with education and observers' ratings of variables such as range of interests, level of aspiration, intellectual competence, and the valuation placed on intellectual and cognitive matters. Factor analysis of 10 of these variables identified 3 major dimensions: Perceptual Ability, Rated Intelligence, and Academic Intelligence. As anticipated, the PTA had its highest loading on the nontransformational perceptual facet. (46 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cardiovascular reactivity and central adiposity in older African Americans.

This study examined central adiposity, as measured by waist circumference (WC), in relation to mental-stress induced systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and heart rate (HR) responses, body composition, the metabolic syndrome, and health practices in 22 older, African American men and women (ages 52–79 years). The high WC (>100 cm) group showed significantly greater SBP, DBP, and HR reactivity, greater fasting insulin levels, lower high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, greater fat mass in both truncal and peripheral regions, and greater body mass index as compared to the low WC (     

The difference isn't black and white: Stereotype threat and the race gap on raven's advanced progressive matrices.

This study addresses recent criticisms aimed at the interpretation of stereotype threat research and methodological weaknesses of previous studies that have examined race differences on Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM). African American and White undergraduates completed the APM under three conditions. In two threat conditions, participants received either standard APM instructions (standard threat) or were told that the APM was an IQ test (high threat). In a low threat condition, participants were told that the APM was a set of puzzles and that the researchers wanted their opinions of them. Results supported the stereotype threat interpretation of race differences in cognitive ability test scores. Although African American participants underperformed Whites under both standard and high threat instructions, they performed just as well as Whites did under low threat instructions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exploring the within-person coupling of sleep and cognition in older African Americans.

This study examined the within-person relationship between sleep and cognitive functioning. Fifty community-dwelling African Americans (age range = 50–80 years) were asked to report their sleep duration and quality the previous evening and to complete cognitive measures over 8 occasions within a 2–3 week period. A within-person daily change in sleep duration was significantly associated with worse global cognitive performance. The greater an individual deviated away from his or her average sleep duration on a particular day, the more likely his or her performance would decline. These results demonstrate that the sleep-cognition relationship can be observed at a within-person level of analysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychopathy, threat, and polygraph test accuracy.

The accuracy of the control question polygraph test with psychopaths was evaluated within a realistically threatening context. Subjects were 24 psychopathic and 24 nonpsychopathic male prison inmates. Within each diagnostic group, equal numbers of "guilty" and "innocent" subjects were tested by experienced professional polygraphers regarding their involvement in a mock theft by using standard control question procedures. A group contingency threat was devised in which subjects believed that their personal performance could decide benefits or penalties for the sample as a whole. Guilty psychopaths were detected just as easily as guilty nonpsychopaths, and the majority of guilty subjects (87%, excluding inconclusives) were correctly identified. However, innocent subjects were identified with only 56% accuracy, and an analysis of false positive errors suggested that the subjective impact of the threat was a critical factor in these outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Desegregation and the intellectual performance of the Negro: Comment.

I should like to make three criticisms of Irwin Katz' timely and stimulating article, "Review of Evidence Relating to Effects of Desegregation on the Intellectual Performance of Negroes" (see record 1965-01781-001). My first criticism is that the author failed to include in his extensive bibliography reference to several pertinent studies/papers. My second criticism is directed against the author's failure to consider the possibility of hereditary differences between Negro and white children. My third criticism is directed toward the widespread tendency of psychologists to neglect the importance of heredity as a determinant of behavior, personality, and even of the environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of noise on intellectual performance.

Studied the effect of realistic noise levels on an intellectually challenging task. 33 undergraduates performed proofreading in quiet or with a background of intermittent teletype noise (70 db). As predicted, noise Ss did not differ significantly from quiet Ss in detecting spelling errors but were poorer at identifying grammatical errors. Contrary to expectations, recall of the content of the proofreading passages was unaffected. Detailed analysis revealed that Ss initially worked more slowly and less steadily during noise bursts than during intervening quiet periods, but more accurately. Results are interpreted in terms of the feedback available to the Ss and the strategies they adopted to cope with the distraction. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of the confluence model of intellectual development.

Longitudinal data from 53,000 children on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (collected at age 4 yrs), the WISC, and the Wide Range Achievement Test (collected at age 7 yrs) were used to test 5 confluence model hypotheses (R. B. Zajonc; 1975, 1976, 1979). Results failed to confirm the importance of birth interval as a determinant of intellectual development. Alternative interpretations, involving social class effects and prenatal care, are suggested. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)