Literature Overview : Stereotype Threat : Causes , Effects , and Remedies

I. Concise Overview of the Literature People are often judged or stereotyped according to their group membership(s). Group membership can include (but is not limited to) ethnicity, race, gender, age, and religious affiliation. Stereotypes about an individual’s group, which can be shaped as either positive or negative, elicit a variety of emotions. Negative stereotypes often cause negative responses, which can manifest themselves in the stereotyped individual’s reactions, performance on a task, motivation, and self-esteem. Research has shown that the threat of being evaluated, judged by, or treated in terms of a negative stereotype can cause individuals to perform worse in a domain in which negative stereotypes exist about a group of which they are a member. Imagine taking a difficult math test that is at the upper limits of your ability. If you are a male and you find yourself having difficulty, you may begin to worry about failing the test. If you are a female, however, you may worry about failing the test and reinforcing the math-inferiority stereotype. Therefore, struggling with a math test becomes doubly threatening, as you begin to worry not only about failing the test, but also about being personally reduced to a negative stereotype targeting your group in that domain. This phenomenon has been termed stereotype threat (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999; Steele & Aronson, 1995). Research suggests that the negative effects of stereotype threat on performance are mediated by psychological and physiological mechanisms such as anxiety, arousal (i.e., readiness to respond to specified stimuli), and working memory (Schmader & Johns, 2003; Spencer et al., 1999; Steele, 1997). Individual differences such as the extent to which a person identifies with their group (e.g., gender) or a particular domain (e.g., math) also seems to influence the impact that stereotype threat has on individuals’ performance. Stereotype threat not only creates performance decrements but ultimately may also impact major life decisions (i.e., choice of profession) and prevent individuals from reaching their full potential within a threatened domain (Gupta & Bhawe, 2007). As a result of such shortand long-term negative effects, researchers have begun to look at ways to remediate stereotype threat. Effective remediation strategies include de-emphasizing threatened identities and providing examples of stereotyped individuals who have succeeded with the domain (Danaher & Crandall, 2008; Marx & Roman, 2002).