Stereotype Threat

How and When is Stereotype Threat Elicited?

Stereotype threat was first documented empirically by Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson in 1995. In one seminal study, Black college students performed worse than their White peers on a task that was described to them as a diagnostic measure of verbal ability, an effect that paralleled the race gap typically found on standardized tests. However, when the same task was described to a second half of the sample as a simple laboratory exercise and unrelated to intelligence, Black students performed significantly better on the task, and their performance was not significantly different from that of their White counterparts after their prior SAT scores were taken into account. This effect demonstrates that subtle situational cues can impair performance and exacerbate the appearance of group differences in ability.

Since the phenomenon was first identified, stereotype threat has been firmly established as an effect that can be created for any group in the right situation. Stereotype threat has been examined as a cause of women's underperformance in math, Latinos' underperformance on intellectual tests, and older adults' poorer memory performance. White men, a group that is not typically stigmatized, show lower performance on a math test when told that their ability will be compared with that of Asian men, a group stereotyped to be mathematically superior. Studies also show that Asian American women perform better on a math test when reminded of their Asian background but [Page 854]perform worse when reminded of their gender. Again, this result shows that simple features of the situation, such as reminders of one's race or gender, can affect how one performs.

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