The word stereotype
(literally solid type
) originally was a technical term in printing, a contrast to movable type. With movable type, each letter is on its own block and you can pick them up one by one and assemble whatever you wish from the pieces. With stereotype, the entire page of text is on one block and you get it, all or nothing.
The analogy to the mind is that people, seeing just a tiny piece of a person (just one letter, in the analogy) assign to them a wide range of other attributes (the whole page, in the analogy).
We have another name for stereotypes: schemata. The subconscious mind if full of learned automated subroutines that assign complex meaning to simple bits of information to help us more rapidly and effectively process the world. When those schemata are doing their job well, we call them schemata or knowledge. When they are instead pointing out incorrect trends, we call them stereotypes.
We’ll discuss more about how stereotypes arise when we discuss implicit bias next week. For now, it is sufficient to know that they often assign negative attributes to groups of people who do not individually deserve that assignation.
Stereotype threat is a psychological phenomenon with three antecedents and one consequent:
This phenomenon has been robustly studied in many ways1. It applies to all kinds of activity, from math to memory to miniature golf, and with all kinds of stereotypes, be it age, gender, race, height, or even invented attributes creates specifically for a study.
Three board categories of studies are prevalent:
Subjects are divided into two groups: a control group, where stereotype threat is assumed to be present for those in a one population and not for those in another; and an intervention group, where some action is taken to reduce the presence of stereotype threat. The skill or knowledge being measured is advanced, requiring some prerequisite coursework, and the subjects have accomplished those prerequisites.
Both the stereotypically good and stereotypically bad group perform similarly. The stereotype appears to be false.
This is expected: they had to pass the prereqs, so all came in performing at a similar level.
The stereotypically good group does as well as in the control, but the stereotypical bad group dramatically outperforms them. The stereotype appears to be the opposite of the truth.
This is because the individuals in the stereotypical bad group who made it into the study were able to perform well with only part of their working memory available; give them the full memory and they show how much more they can do.
Subjects are divided into two groups: a control group, where stereotype threat is assumed to be present for those in a one population and not for those in another; and an intervention group, where some action is taken to reduce the presence of stereotype threat. Participants are selected at random from the full population.
The stereotypically good group outperfoms the stereotypically bad group. The stereotype appears to be true.
This is expected: one group has more working memory to devote to the task than the other.
Both the stereotypically good and stereotypically bad group perform similarly. The stereotype appears to be false.
With the stereotype threat removed, both groups have the same working memory available, and thus can perform at similar levels.
Subjects are all from the same stereotypical group and asked to perform the same task. Some (group 1) perform it surround by members of a group that is stereotypically better than them at the task; some (group 2) perform it surround by members of a group that is stereotypically worse than them at the task; and some (group 2) perform it surround by other members of their own group only.
Group 1 does worse than the other two groups. This is because being around those stereotypically better than them causes them to be aware of their stereotypical inferiority, raising stereotype threat. Groups 2 and 3 are not so threatened and perform similarly.
It’s worth pointing out one component that is not in the stereotype threat formula: belief in the stereotype. People who believe the negative stereotype about them and people who do not are both impacted by stereotype threat.
Establishing the why
of social sciences is harder than the what
, but the prevalent theory appears to be:
Whether this is the correct explanation or not, the fact remains: disbelieving a stereotype does not remove the impact of stereotype threat.
See, e.g., this bibliography for a sampling of the relevant academic papers.↩︎
See, e.g.: Good, C., Aronson, J., & Harder, J. (2008). Problems in the pipeline: Stereotype threat and women’s achievement in high-level math courses.
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29(1), 17–28↩︎
See, e.g.: Stone, J., Lynch, C. I., Sjomeling, M., & Darley, J. M. (1999). Stereotype threat effects on black and white athletic performance.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1213–1227↩︎
See, e.g.: Aaronson, J., Lustina, M., Good, C., Keough, K., Steele, C., Brown, J. (1998). When White Men Can’t Do Math: Necessary and Sufficient Factors in Stereotype Threat.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 53(1), 29–46↩︎