Stereotype Threat

[astra_nomer]

Take that, Inherent Differences!

(it apparently holds for minorities, too)

Comments

[remcat.livejournal.com]

So interesting ... so as I read it, if a person thinks poorly of themselves in a stereotypical way, they can be intentionally triggered and made to perform badly on tests.

[astra-nomer.livejournal.com]

It seems to be even more insidious than that. All you need to do is ask the test-takers to think about their gender or race, without even stressing the negative aspects of it, and suddenly they perform worse. I think it's also interesting that there seems to be no effect on white males at all -- it shows just how privileged they really are.

[capsicumanuum.livejournal.com]

Even worse, you don't even have to explicitly ask the women about their gender. Asking them whether they live in co-ed or gendered housing causes the same effect! It's really frightening how conditioned we are to think about femaleness as a handicap.