Stereotype Threat

The idea

Stereotype threat is anxiety about confirming a negative stereotype about one's group, which is said to impair performance. The idea was originally used to explain race and gender differences in academic achievement. In a typical experiment, members of a stereotyped group take a difficult test either under conditions that highlight the stereotype, such as being told the test measures group differences, or under neutral conditions, and many early studies found lower scores under threat. The idea spread widely and was extended to other groups: older adults who internalize aging stereotypes show worse memory and physical performance. The evidence has since weakened. Many studies used small samples and suboptimal designs, and the literature may be subject to publication bias. In a registered replication across eight laboratories with about fifteen hundred participants, testing a well-known study of women's mathematics performance, the stereotype-threat effect was virtually null, far smaller than in the original.