How stereotype threat undermines academic performance in college

Stereotyping: Impacts on Social Interaction in Daily Life

The objective of this work is to examine stereotypes and to answer the question of "What impact does stereotyping have on our daily relations with others?"

Just as human beings come in all shapes and sizes with many diversified languages, cultures, belief systems and a great variation in talent the range of stereotypes available in today's world is quite large. Stereotypes are often inaccurate and at all times undesirable. Stereotypes occur in all areas of life including education, the workplace, the social groupings, as well as many other various stereotype branding.

EDUCATION and STEREOTYPES

The work of Grossman, Kim, and Tan (2008) reports a case study designed to "generate rich discussions regarding unintended effects of stereotypes and to show how racism may be occurring on college campuses." Primary points made in the study reported by Grossman, Kim and Tan includes those as follows:

stereotype is a socially held mental picture that represents an oversimplified, prejudiced, or uncritical judgment.

A stereotype threat arises when one is in a situation where one has the fear of doing something that would inadvertently confirm a stereotype.

A stereotype threat is cued by the mere recognition that a negative group stereotype could apply to you in a given situation.

It is important to understand that the person may experience a threat even when they do not believe the stereotype.

A stereotype threat generates "spotlight anxiety," which causes emotional distress and vigilant worry that may undermine performance.

A stereotype threat may induce "attributional ambiguity," for example, a person gets a low grade and asks, "Is it something about me or because of my race?" stereotype threat comes from the environment, not from some defect inside the person and that research shows it can be corrected by an environmental change.

The diversity among Asian-Americans is so great that almost any generalization about them will be a stereotype.

The myth that Asian-Americans are a "model minority" may lead us to miss problems these students have.

Part of the reason some Asian-American students have trouble speaking out in class may be due to extra cultural pressure.

Intergenerational conflict may account for some behavior that is difficult to understand. (Grossman, Kim, and Tan, 2008)

II. MEDIA EFFECT on STEREOTYPES

The work of Yang (2008) entitled: "Building up a Cognitive-Sociological Model of Stereotypical Frames and Their Effects" states: "Framing analysis reveals that socially disadvantaged groups are frequently subjected to negative media framing. Findings from media effect studies suggest that stereotypical frames can activate the audiences' negative cognitive and affective responses. However, little effort to date has been made to bridge findings from the two approaches and explain the mechanism through which these activated responses further influence people's social lives and prevent people from changing their stereotypical attitudes. Recognizing the shortcomings of former studies, this paper proposes a cognitive-sociological model of stereotypical frames. The model postulates: a) stereotypical frames can be classified into different genres according to their possible cognitive / affective effects; b) cognitive/affective responses activated by stereotypical frames are positively related to people's willingness to keep social distance in their minds; c) there is a the negative correlation between social distance and the change of people's stereotypical attitudes. Built upon the essential interrelation of framing theory, social distance and stereotypes, the cognitive-sociological model illustrates the full effects-chain and reveals hidden relationships which are generally ignored by former studies. This model has heuristic value in testing three pairs of relationships: stereotypical frames and audiences' cognitive/affective responses; audiences' cognitive/affective responses and their willingness to keep social distance; social distance in audiences' minds and the maintenance of their stereotypical attitudes."

III. RELIGION and STEREOTYPES

Matthews (2001) states in the work entitled: "How Muslims are Negatively Stereotypes: The Australian Experience that the effects of negative stereotyping are those as follows:

Refugees: When refugees are labeled as troublemakers and criminals their settlement in Australia is affected through racism, injustice and diminished employment prospects.

In the Courts: Although the examples given previously are not indicative of the responses or attitudes of all magistrates, they convey messages to Muslim woman suffering male violence that effectively deter them from pursuing legal intervention. One common response is "What is the point?"

On University Campuses: A phenomenon called 'stereotype-threat' has been described where minorities feel a sense of threat when in a situation where a negative stereotype applies to their group. The sense of threat in turn leads them to under-achieve. Dr. Asmar's findings demonstrated that "negative responses by their teachers and by their non-Muslim peers towards identifiable Muslims do appear to affect some of those students quite painfully." (Matthews, 2001)

IV. WORKPLACE STEREOTYPES

The work of Gilbert (2006) entitled: "Manly men, Oil platforms and Breaking Stereotypes" interviews Robin Ely and questions him concerning the stereotypical manly man and discovers that in situations where men at work are acting invulnerable the outcome is a workplace that is much less safe and that risk taking was much higher. Specifically stated by Robin Ely in this interview is that as follows: "Research shows that in dangerous, male-dominated work settings, men's tendency to gain respect by demonstrating and defending their masculinity is costly. Efforts to appear invulnerable blocked precisely the kinds of actions that encourage safety and effectiveness. Covering up mistakes, for example, curtails learning and allows for the repetition and escalation of errors. In complex systems with high degrees of interdependence, small errors that go unrecognized can cascade into large accidents. Moreover, practices that conflate competence with toughness lead workers to ignore precautionary measures and take unnecessary risks. Thus, the costs of men's masculine striving are high, and both individuals and organizations pay the price." (Gilbert, 2006) Ely additionally states in the interview as follows:

Research shows that in dangerous, male-dominated work settings, men's tendency to gain respect by demonstrating and defending their masculinity is costly. Efforts to appear invulnerable blocked precisely the kinds of actions that encourage safety and effectiveness. Covering up mistakes, for example, curtails learning and allows for the repetition and escalation of errors. In complex systems with high degrees of interdependence, small errors that go unrecognized can cascade into large accidents. Moreover, practices that conflate competence with toughness lead workers to ignore precautionary measures and take unnecessary risks. Thus, the costs of men's masculine striving are high, and both individuals and organizations pay the price." (Gilbert, 2006)

VI. MEDIATING ROLE of AROUSAL

The work of Ben-Zeev, Inzlicht, and Fein (2002) entitled: "What is Stereotype Threat? An Investigation of the Mediating Role of Arousal in Threatening Intellectual Environments' states that "the mere presence of even one male can undermine the problem-solving performance of highly skilled female students - an effect attributed to stereotype threat (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, and Fein, 2002). In the current set of studies, we examine whether physiological arousal is a mediator of this effect. According to the Yerkes-Dodson (1908) theory of physiological arousal, performance is optimal at intermediate levels of arousal and decreases when arousal is either low or high, resulting in an inverted-U shaped function. We propose that stereotype threat may interfere with performance by leading to arousal that exceeds an optimal level." (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, and Fein, 2002) it is additionally stated in the report of the findings of this study that it is likely that arousal has an important role as a mediator of stereotype threat. Women's performance deficits in the presence of men were attenuated when women were given an opportunity to misattribute their arousal to an external source. When arousal was "removed," by misattribution to a benign source, women were less likely to experience impairments in performance. Furthermore, far from exhibiting performance deficits, women who were in the minority actually showed a trend for performance surfeits in the misattribution condition. That is, they tended to do better on the math test than did minority females not given the opportunity to misattribute their arousal. Although this difference was not significant, it does suggest a trend that future research may revisit. By decreasing the heightened arousal experienced by women in the minority condition, the misattribution may have reduced their arousal closer to optimal levels. Women in the same-sex conditions should not have been as aroused, so it is conceivable that any reduction in arousal caused by misattribution may have dropped their arousal to sub-optimal levels, causing a slight decline." (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, and Fein, 2002)

Findings in the study reported by Inzlicht and Ben-Zeev are stated to support "the prediction that cues in the environment, such as gender-composition, give rise to heightened arousal, which in turn, mediate stereotype threat. In experiment 1, performance deficits associated with stereotype threat were attenuated when females were given an opportunity to misattribute their arousal to an external source. When female participants in our study were outnumbered by males, they suffered impairments in performance. When they could misattribute their arousal to the subliminal noise, however, they exhibited no performance deficits. In Experiment 2, we found a cross-over interaction between identification with mathematics and threat. When female participants identified with the threatened math domain, they experienced performance decrements in the minority environment. When they were not identified with math, in contrast, they actually experienced problem-solving surfeits in the same minority environment. Taken together, both of these experiments suggest that arousal may have an important role as a mediator of threatening intellectual environments." (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, and Fein, 2002) Results of the study reported by Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev hold that stereotype threat has arousal properties and that this has been indicated due to:

1) Recent research examining the role of stereotype threat in the high incidence of high blood pressure among African-Americans indicates that threatening intellectual environments may be stressful Black participants who experienced threat had blood pressure that rose faster and remained higher than non-threatened Black participants or White participants in any condition. Interestingly, although blood pressure was affected by the threat manipulation, actual test scores were not: Black participants scored as well as White participants in both threat and non-threat conditions. On the face of it, it appears that the threat manipulation was not successful; however, an alternative explanation that is in line with the present results is possible. Perhaps the manipulation was indeed successful, but participants failed to be impaired by it because they attributed their arousal to being hooked up to the electrocardiograph;

2) in another study Stone et al. (1999)."..found that White participants performed worse on an athletic task when the stereotype about Black athletic superiority was made salient. This effect, however, was attenuated once participants were asked to monitor the effect of the lab space on their performance -- giving them an opportunity to misattribute their arousal. Although not central to either line of research, these two sets of findings suggest that leading participants to misattribute their arousal -- by focusing on an electrocardiograph or the effects of a lab space -- may have reduced the negative effects of stereotype threat on threatened individuals' performance. (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, and Fein, 2002)

Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev states that this pattern of results."..adds support to the idea that arousal may play a mediating role in stereotype threat." (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, and Fein, 2002) Stated as other mediators of stereotype threat are those as follows:

1) distraction;

2) expectation;

3) underperformance;

4) self-consciousness. (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, and Fein, 2002)

It is possible that these distracters are activated due to arousal which leads to performance impairments. Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev summarize by stating that stereotype threat may potentially."..interfere with performance in a variety of ways: by causing an arousal that lowers performance, by diverting attention onto task-irrelevant worries, or by fostering lower performance expectations. Arousal appears to be involved in mediation, but how it is involved -- be it through its association distracters or expectations -- is still unknown." (Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, and Fein, 2002)

The work entitled: "Case Study Scenario: It Depends on the Lens" states that there are effective methods available for coping with stereotypes and that those include the underlying principle which is to "disrupt the tendency to use stereotypes as cognitive shortcuts. Strategies and solutions are stated to include: (1) devote adequate time; (2) Avoid premature ranking of the applicants; (3) Critically analyze supporting materials (recommendation letters, teaching evaluations, research statements); (4) Read candidates work rather than relying solely on support materials; (5) Be accountable -- be prepared to explain your decisions and rankings; (6) Be transparent -- what are the criteria, is it the same for men and women, is it the right criteria?; (7) Structure diverse groups and allow for maximum participation; (8) Think about how the job ad and descriptions might impact the applicant pool and perceived fit of the candidates; and (9) Consider using a Candidate Evaluation Tool." (Cornell University, nd)

The work of Ford (1997) entitled: "Effects of Stereotypical Television Portrayals of African-American on Person Perception" states that media portrayals of African-Americans have been show "to increase the likelihood that whites will make negative social perception judgments of an African-American." (Ford, 1997) in fact, among the many studies reported that focus on stereotyping and its affect, stereotyping is just as diverse as population that is ultimately served by the psychological profession.

SUMMARY & CONCLUSION

No group is really immune from stereotyping and there are many various forms of stereotyping that are likely to arise and surface including stereotyping of Muslims, African-Americans, Whites, Hispanics, African-American individuals and including those of the male and female gender. Stereotyping has been demonstrated in this study to be pervasive across all aspects of daily life and to have a negative affect on those who are stereotypes due to effectively minimizing the individual within the stereotyping of their personality. (Ford, 1997)