These
studies showed the different consequences of group
priming (highlighting a social category) and stereotype
threat (highlighting a social identity). Whereas group
priming tends to affect behavior in a
stereotype-consistent fashion, stereotype threat appears to affect
only individuals whose social identities are tied to the
stereotype. According to this
view, the relevance of the stereotype to the self is
necessary for stereotype threat. Highlighting any
stereotype can produce stereotype-consistent behavior,
but the stereotype must be self-relevant to create
stereotype threat. To test this idea, male and
female undergraduates in Experiment 1 completed a math
test that was described as "diagnostic of ability"
(stereotype threat for women) or "a reasoning exercise"
(control). Half also completed a sentence-unscrambling
task to prime the trait "dumb" whereas the other half
completed the task with filler stimuli designed not to
raise the accessibility of intelligence-related
constructs. In the stereotype threat conditions,
females performed more poorly on the test than did
males, consistent with other studies on
stereotype threat. In control conditions, however,
performance was affected only by whether "dumb" had been
primed; performance was lower for both men and women when words denoting lack
of intelligence rather than filler stimuli comprised the
sentence descrambling task. In Experiment 2, men and
women completed a task described either as reflecting
"emotional sensitivity" (stereotype threat for men) or as an "emotional exercise" (control). Participants had been primed with either words related to
emotional insensitivity or filler words. Results
replicated those of Experiment 1, with the gender group
under stereotype threat (men) performing more poorly in
the diagnostic condition, but with both gender groups
performing more poorly when insensitivity had been
primed. Experiment 3 involved male and female
participants taking a math test under one of four
conditions. In one condition, the accessibility of
participants’ social self was increased before they took
a nonthreatening math test. In a second condition,
participants were primed with stereotypic traits before
taking a nonthreatening math test. In the third
condition, participants completed a test described
as diagnostic of math ability, and the fourth condition
involved participants taking a nonthreatening test.
Underperformance occurred when the stereotype was
relevant to the social self (either because the test was
diagnostic or because the self was made accessible). However, when the test was nonthreatening and
the self was not implicated, participants were affected by the prime,
with stereotypic traits producing
underperformance. Thus, stereotype threat is
separable from priming effects. Stereotype threat
is a predicament that arises in situations where one’s
performance is linked to a concern about confirming
negative stereotypes about one's group.
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