One of the consequences of stereotypical thinking (either in the form of autostereotypes or heterostereotypes) is the phenomenon called stereotype threat. Read the text: 

a) text: 

The term “stereotype threat” was originally developed by Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson in their 1995 research on how African American students' academic performance could be negatively impacted when they were reminded of the stereotype that their group tends to perform poorly on standardized tests. Aronson and Steele found that when individuals are in situations where their actions might confirm a negative stereotype about their group, they experience pressure, which can lead to anxiety and reduced performance. This phenomenon occurs across various domains (e.g., race, gender, age), and its main elements are anxiety or stress (the individual’s fear of confirming a stereotype creates extra cognitive and emotional stress), situational context (stereotype threat is often triggered by specific situations, such as taking a test or being evaluated in a context relevant to the stereotype), and group membership (the individual’s awareness of belonging to a group associated with negative stereotypes heightens vulnerability to the threat). Aronson and his colleagues (1999) showed that stereotype threat can also affect groups not traditionally thought of as stigmatized. For example, when white male engineering students were told that their math skills would be compared to Asian students (a group stereotyped to excel in math), their performance declined, showing the broad applicability of the stereotype threat. In another influential study, Spencer, Steele, and Quinn (1999) demonstrated that women performed worse on math tests when reminded of the stereotype that "men are better at math," highlighting the gender-based implications of the stereotype threat. 


Last modified: Monday, 13 January 2025, 10:15 PM