Reputation of Intellectual Inferiority Undermines Memory Efficiency among College Students

Can a group reputation of intellectual inferiority interfere with memory efficiency? Students targeted by a stereotype of lower ability had to memorize letter-number pairs (C-49) in a task presented either as a test of learning ability (diagnostic condition) or as a laboratory exercise (non diagnostic condition). The difficulty of the task was manipulated through the time available to memorize the material. Results showed that when the task was difficult, students under the diagnostic condition performed worse than students under the non-diagnostic condition. When the task was easy, the reverse pattern was observed. The implications of this finding are discussed. Current Research in Social Psychology (Vol. 10, No. 8) (Dutrevis & Croizet)