Consequences of Repeated Exposure to Stereotype Threat

1. The Educational and Health Disparities Associated with Repeated Exposure to Stereotype Threat Jonathan M. Dubois New York University Stereotype Threat Rationale Stress & ASCC Measures • National Health Disparities • African Americans experience chronic stress and hypertension 14% more often than European Americans. • Very little research has been done to determine if repetitive stereotype threat is associated with the later experience of chronic stress and hypertension. • Education Achievement Gap • 17% of African Americans gain college degrees, as compared to 31% of European Americans and 51% of Asian Americans. • Psychological theories of intelligence suggest that academic self-concept clarity (ASCC) might be a primary factor in academic and general life success. • While research has shown that stereotype threat causes poor test performance, the relationship between stereotype threat and general academic achievement has not been examined. • Stereotype threat is defined as the experience of anxiety when faced with a confirmable stereotype(Steele & Aronson, 1995). • Often anxiety obstructs cognitive functioning, resulting in poor performance in academic settings. • Stereotype threat results from environmental stimuli that make group status salient. • (e.g., being the only woman in the room, a TV show displaying a group in stereotypical way, or explicit racist statements by another person) • Any social group has the potential to be victimized by stereotype threat, if there is a common stereotype concerning them. • Baseline cortisol will be used as a measure of stress levels. • Cortisol is the biological hormone directly related to both chronic stress and hypertension. • In addition, cortisol is a more accurate measure of chronic stress than diastolic blood pressure, which has been used in previous research. • Cortisol samples will be compared to scores on the Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen et al. 1983), shown correlate to be highly correlated with cortisol levels. • Academic-self concept Implicit Association Task • Clarity of academic self-concept will be examined by a timed me/not me identification task of academic and non-academic words. • For example, participants will be shown the word analytical and asked to categorize it rapidly as relating to themselves or not. Greater intervals in identification will evidence indecision. Primary Objective & Research Questions Stereotype Vulnerability • Individuals perceive stereotype threat to different degrees and respond to it in different ways. • Their experience is moderated by factors such as: • Stigma Consciousness • Group Identification • Domain Identification • Acceptance of Stereotypes • Individuals who identify to a greater degree with one or more of these factors are considered stereotype vulnerable. • Stereotype vulnerable individuals are likely to perform worse when faced with stereotype threat. • Stereotype vulnerable individuals may also perceive, and therefore experience stereotype threat more often. • The goal of the present study is to provide evidence that repetitive stereotype threat may play a role in racial disparities in health and academic outcomes. • Specific questions for the present study: • Is vulnerability to stereotype threat associated with symptoms of chronic stress? • Is vulnerability to stereotype threat associated with academic self-concept clarity? • It was hypothesized that stereotype vulnerability would be associate with both of these variables. Preliminary Results • Preliminary results with 11 participants show a significant trend (r = .64, p <.10) between the perceived stress scale for chronic stress and the RS-Race Scale, which measured stereotype vulnerability. • Stereotype vulnerability and questionnaire measures of academic self-concept clarity did not show a significant correlation (r = .36, p = .35). • However, implicit lab procedures for all variables and a larger sample size should produce statistically significant results. Participants • 100 African American women ages 18-25 will be recruited from universities in the New York City area. • Participants will be randomly assigned to two groups. • Stereotype threat • This group will be administered a sample GRE by a White experimenter thereby making race salient. • The test will be framed as a measure of intelligence to activate the common stereotype that African Americans are not intelligent. • Non-Stereotype threat • This group will receive the same test by the same experimenter, although it will be framed as non-diagnostic measure. This should prevent the stereotype from being perceived while testing. Implications Consequences of Repeated Exposure to Stereotype Threat • These results show that stereotype vulnerability might be related to racial disparities in health, especially differences in hypertension and cardiovascular disease. • The relation between academic self-concept clarity and stereotype threat might also prove to be significant in further testing, which would link stereotype threat to larger educational and achievement gaps. • Therefore vulnerability to stereotype threat should be the target of further research aimed at understanding the causes and potential solutions to repetitive stereotype threat. • Physical • Blood pressure increases under stereotype threat. • Repeated blood pressure spikes are known to lead to hypertension and chronic stress. • Chronic stress is associated with deterioration of cognitive and physical functioning, cardiovascular disease, immune disorders, and depression. • Academic • Stereotype threat causes under performance in testing. • Consistent stereotype threat may lead to an ambiguous academic self-concept, by undermining confidence in specific academic domains. Vulnerability Measures • Vulnerability will be determined by the performance of participants under conditions of stereotype threat, since previous research has found that vulnerable individuals tend to underperform to a greater extent than less vulnerable individuals. • Performance under stereotype threat will be compared to scores on the RS-Race Scale (Mendoza-Denton et al., 2002), which measures the expectation and perception of rejection based on race. Acknowledgements I would like to thank my mentors, Dr. Joshua Aronson and Dr. David Amodio, as well as all of the members of our research team.