Two studies investigated a potential cognitive mediator for stereotype threat, a phenomenon whereby the mere threat of confirming a negative stereotype results in a performance deficit. It was hypothesized that people attempt to suppress stereotypes in memory during threatening situations, consuming cognitive resources, but that the suppression is released after the threatening situation has en...

BACKGROUND Stereotype threat, defined as the predicament felt by people in either positive or negative learning experiences where they could conform to negative stereotypes associated with their own group membership, can interfere with learning. The purpose of this study was to determine if a simple orientation session could reduce stereotype threat for orthopedic residents. METHODS The inter...

Background: Women in mathematical domains may become attuned to situational cues that signal a discredited social identity, contributing to their lower achievement and underrepresentation. Aim: The current study examined whether heightened ingroup representation alleviates the effects of stereotype threat on women’s mathematical performance. It further investigated whether single-sex testing en...

Two experiments tested the influences of vivid imagery and person schemata on eyewitness accuracy. Participants watched an event sequence including actors performing stereotype-consistent and inconsistent actions. Additionally, participants either read descriptions of actions (Experiment 1) or vividly imagined actions (Experiment 2). After either 30 minutes or 2 days, recognition memory, source...

Given that context affects olfaction and the elderly exhibit olfactory deficits, the current study tested whether a subtle change in internal context, evoked by priming the elderly stereotype, would affect performance in a variety of olfactory tasks including odor sensitivity, discrimination, and identification (Experiment 1), as well as perceived odor intensity, pleasantness and familiarity, a...

Many people hold negative attitudes and stereotypes about gay men, including the stereotype that gay men are likely to be child molesters. This article explored the implications of this stereotype for judgments made in a hypothetical legal case involving child sexual abuse accusations against a male teacher by either a male or female victim. Mock jurors who held the most anti-gay attitudes and ...

The relation between academic race stereotype endorsement and academic self-concept was examined in two studies of seventh- and eighth-grade African Americans. Based on expectancy-value theory, the authors hypothesized that academic race stereotype endorsement would be negatively related to self-perceptions. Furthermore, it was anticipated that the relation between stereotype endorsement and se...

This study investigated the hypothesis that age differences in memory performance may be influenced by stereotype threat associated with negative cultural beliefs about the impact of aging on memory. Recall was examined in 48 young and 48 older adults under conditions varying in the degree of induced threat. Conditions that maximize threat resulted in lower performance in older adults relative ...

Physical attractiveness is an important cue for social interaction. Psychology studies have long shown that physical attractiveness can elicit positive personality attributions as well as positive behaviour towards other people. This effect is explained by the attractiveness stereotype. In this paper, we investigate whether this stereotype apply to the interaction with virtual agents. We report...