Stereotype Threat

In 1995, Claude M. Steele and Joshua Aronson coined the term stereotype threat. The cornerstone of the phenomenon of stereotype threat is the pressure to not conform to a given expectation of poor performance. This results in an activation of negative and internalized stereotypes. In other words, the pressure to not conform to a known negative stereotype about the group with which one identifies can result in compromised performance on a said task.

Steele and Aronson first examined stereotype threat among African Americans. One negative stereotype toward African Americans is low intelligence; when intelligence is defined as fixed, it creates a belief that innate or biological limitations may be to blame for poor performance. Unfortunately, these stereotypes have been applied wrongly to explain the achievement gap between African Americans and Caucasians on standardized test scores. Steele and Aronson's 1995 study created a scenario characterized by stereotype threat, where this stereotype was made salient by telling the treatment group that the test they were taking measured intelligence. The control group was told that the test was a measure to study problem solving. When stereotype threat was absent, the scores of the African American students only differed to the degree that would be expected on the basis of their prior Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores. When stereotype threat was present, the African American students performed worse than the Caucasian students. The difference was beyond what prior SAT scores would predict for individual differences in skill level. Stereotype threat was shown to be a condition where negative stereotypes about a group identity are evoked and individuals are in a situation where they could conform to that stereotype. In the previous example, the suggestion that the test was a measure of intelligence invoked the stereotype that African Americans have lower intelligence for the African American students and under the pressure of the possibility of confirming this stereotype, they actually performed worse than would have been expected. The stereotyped group does not have to believe the stereotype for this effect to materialize.