'Stereotype Threat' Affects Everyone

Author: Gale Berninghausen

Have you ever felt stereotyped due to your race, sex, physical capabilities or specific social group? Have you worried that your academic achievements or failings may confirm the stereotypes attached to your group? Have you ever questioned the bias of the people who are responsible for assessing your abilities? Have you under-performed academically, athletically or in other areas due to your fears of being threatened by stereotypes? Have you ever heard the term "stereotype threat"?
Within the first weeks of every fall term, the Office of Institutional Diversity hosts a lecture addressing a specific issue concerning diversity. On Sept. 19, Associate Provost for Institutional Diversity Roman Graf welcomed Yale University's assistant professor of psychology Geoffrey Cohen to speak on the effects of stereotype threat.
Cohen explained this little known issue as "an idea with big implications for education and schooling." His lecture, entitled "Stereotype Threat and the Academic Success of Women and Minority Students," examined the applications, causes, effects and solutions for stereotype threat. Graf remarked, "Everyone should be aware of stereotype threat because we all have some stereotypes which have an effect on people."
So, what exactly is stereotype threat? It is, simply, the fear of confirming a negative stereotype about one's group. It is a universal process that can apply to anyone and is widely experienced. Every person belongs to a group that has been stereotyped in some way.
Stereotype threat can cause anxiety and serious distraction and can undermine performance, thus explaining why certain groups fare poorly in school. It is experienced only in situations where the individual fears that a stereotype may be applied to him or her.
Let's take a look at some of those situations. For example, imagine that you're a white kid who steps out on the basketball court only to think, "White guys can't jump." You play in fear of confirming that racial-athletic stereotype and as a result your game is bad. Or perhaps you're a transfer student from a college unlike Middlebury, and you've been warned that you'll struggle to make it here. Your academic achievements may falter because you feel threatened by the stereotypes attached to your past college experience. It's also possible that you're a female student in a mostly male science or math class. Everyone knows that girls aren't as good at science or math as boys, right? What if you confirm that? Or maybe you're white and everyone knows that Asians are better at math. Finally, maybe you're a minority, and stereotypes about your academic capabilities threaten your chance at success.
That's stereotype threat. Now, let's look at how it works and how it's been studied. Cohen, who received his bachelor of arts in psychology from Cornell in 1992 and his doctorate in social psychology from Stanford in 1998, has been at Yale since 1999. The recipient of numerous fellowships, honors and awards and the author of many publications, Cohen has lectured on stereotype threat throughout the United States and Canada. His work is done in conjunction with his mentor from Stanford University, Professor Claude Steele, who first described "stereotype threat" back in 1992.
Cohen, Steele and others have studied stereotype threat in correlation to the academic success of women and minority students at several universities. They have found fascinating results that confirm the primarily negative effects of stereotypes.
Often these appear in test taking where students may feel disadvantaged. Tests described as "ability-diagnostic" and "ability-non-diagnostic" have been administered to groups of white and black students and groups of male and female students.
Ability-diagnostic tests are stereotype relevant because students take the test with the understanding that it will determine their ability in a certain academic discipline. The students may under-perform due to anxieties about the stereotype of their racial or gender group. In such a test, black students performed 50 per- cent as well as white students.
However, if administered a test that the students are told is ability-non-diagnostic and stereotype irrelevant, a drastic improvement is noticed which subsequently wipes out the race or gender-based achievement gap.
These findings are significant because they indicate that women and minority students often experience academic success or failure based upon the way they are tested. But the ramifications of stereotyping reach beyond test taking to student-teacher interactions.
Teachers are often faced with something known as the "mentor's dilemma," which is based on the question of how to provide critical feedback without undermining the motivation and desire to succeed. Cohen stated that this is "especially acute when providing feedback across lines of difference, such as race, where there is a question of bias."
The teacher must indicate that while he or she may be providing serious critical feedback, it is done without buying into the negative stereotypes of a specific group. Thus, teachers must use positive buffers across racial lines to, Cohen said, "invoke high standards and assure the students of their capacity and potential to reach those standards." This is meant to increase the minority success rate and lessen the racial divide. The phrasing of feedback is, therefore, fundamental in education.
In his lecture, Cohen outlined several solutions to the "stereotype threat." It is effective to downplay the diagnostic nature of tests. It is important to refute stereotypes associated to certain groups.
Diversity within the teachers or evaluators can also help to diminish questions of bias. The institution, college or university can intervene with specific programs that strive to wipe out race-based and gender-based achievement and improve the academic success of minority students. Cohen added that "if students understand that ability is malleable, that can be of help."
Graf believes that it is important to "get everybody on the campus to know what this is because it could contribute to the academic success of students." Consider the implications of stereotype threat and question whether it applies to you, as a student or professor, here at Middlebury. Graf expressed certainty that there is "not a single person who couldn't profit" from a greater awareness of stereotype threat.