Stereotype threat's effect on black students' academic achievement

August, 2011

Another study on the dramatic impact of stereotype threat on academic achievement, and how you can counter it.

In a two-part experiment, Black and White students studied the definitions of 24 obscure English words, and were later tested, in threatening or non-threatening environments. In the threatening study environment, students were told that the task would assess their "learning abilities and limitations" and "how well people from different backgrounds learn”. In the non-threatening environment, students were told that the study focused on identifying "different learning styles". When tested one to two weeks later, students were first given a low-stress warm-up exercise with half of the word definitions. Then, in order to evoke concerns about stereotypes, a test was given which was described as evaluating "your ability to learn verbal information and your performance on problems requiring verbal reasoning ability".

The effect of these different environments on the Black students was dramatic. On the non-threatening warm-up test, Black students who had studied in the threatening learning environment performed about 50% worse than Black students who had studied in the non-threatening environment. But on the ‘real’ test, for which stereotypes had been evoked, all the Blacks — including those who had done fine on the warm-up — did poorly.

In the second experiment, only Black students were involved, and they all studied in the threatening environment. This time, however, half of the students were asked to begin with a "value affirmation" exercise, during which they chose values that mattered most to them and explained why. The other students were asked to write about a value that mattered little to them. A week later, students did the warm-up and the test. Black students who had written about a meaningful value scored nearly 70% better on the warm-up than black students who had written about other values.

Reference: 

[2348] Taylor, V J., & Walton G. M.
(2011).  Stereotype Threat Undermines Academic Learning.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 37(8), 1055 - 1067.

Related News

A study involving 200 older adults (70+) experiencing a stay in hospital has found that at discharge nearly a third (31.5%) had previously unrecognized low cognitive function (scoring below 25 on the MMSE if high-school-educated, or below 18 if not).

What makes one person so much better than another in picking up a new motor skill, like playing the piano or driving or typing?

Following previous research suggesting that the volume of the

A study involving 38 people suffering from mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) has found that those receiving acupressure treatments from trained experts (eight treatments over 4 weeks) scored significantly better on tests of

Brain images of 16 participants in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program, taken two weeks before and after the program, have found measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress.

Given all the research showing the importance of sleep for consolidating memories, it should come as no great surprise that the reverse is also true: depriving yourself of sleep could help you forget experiences you would prefer not to remember.

A mouse study has revealed the brain becomes overly stimulated after a traumatic event causes an ongoing, frenzied interaction between two brain

An Australian study of 3796 14-year-olds has found that those who had been reported as having suffered abuse or neglect (7.9%) scored the equivalent of some three IQ points lower than those who had not been maltreated, after accounting for a large range of socioeconomic and other factors.

Data from a 35-year study of women from Gothenburg in Sweden has revealed that the risk of dementia was about 65% higher in women who reported repeated periods of stress in middle age than in those who did not.

A study involving over 180,000 older veterans (average age 68.8 at study start), of whom 29% had PTSD, has revealed that those with PTSD had a significantly greater risk of developing dementia.

Pages

Subscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest health newsSubscribe to Latest news
Error | About memory

Error

The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later.