A stereotype threat occurs when people find themselves in a situational predicament where their actions are likely to confirm a negative perception about their social group. The risk of confirming a negative stereotype creates a self-relevant threat that can potentially impair an individual's performance in evaluative situations (Steele, 1997). Studies have shown that negative stereotypes have a significant impact on individuals' cognitive processes, thus reducing their performance. To illustrate the effects of stereotype threats, I will describe a personal experience where implied expectations had a significant influence on my performance.
Apart from studies and a part-time job, participation in athletics forms a significant part of my daily schedule. I have represented my school on several occasions in athletic competitions both in local and national competitions. However, despite being an established sportsperson, I neither enjoy watching nor playing sports. I participate in sporting activities to maintain an athletic body but not to derive pleasure from it. This means that I am not familiar with most athletes who have acquired global recognition due to their prowess. A couple of months ago, a few friends and I decided to test our knowledge about international athletics. We undertook online tests that required us to answer several questions related to current and past events in athletics. My friends believed that I would do better than them in the tests due to my experience as an athlete.
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In this situation, my friends expected that I always kept track of both local and international events in athletics since I was an athlete. They also assumed that I participated in athletics out of passion, which made me a good athlete. Therefore, friends and, indeed, most other people were predisposed to believe that I enjoy playing and watching sports. This expectation meant that they expected an exceptional performance in the online tests that we were undertaking. The implied expectations had a negative influence on my performance in the test. The stereotype about athletes communicated by the friends triggered cognitive processes to monitor my performance in the test (Mrazek et al., 2011). I was worried that underperforming would disappoint my friends. This depleted the cognitive resources that I would have used to handle the tests, which led to poor performance analytically. The stereotype about athletes held by the friends significantly influenced my performance in the test.
Research has shown that self-relevant threats reduce an individual's performance by draining valuable intellectual resources (Alter et al., 2010). However, studies have also revealed that the impact of these threats can be reduced by creating situations that present threats as challenges. Perceiving a threat as a challenge allows an individual to develop cognitive responses that enable them to overcome the challenge. Research shows that when people are faced with challenges, they are inclined to feel capable of overcoming the challenge (Alter et al., 2010). Therefore, perceiving the stereotype threat as a challenge that should be overcome is a practical approach to resist it.
References
Alter, A. L., Aronson, J., Darley, J. M., Rodriguez, C., & Ruble, D. N. (2010). Rising to the threat: Reducing stereotype threat by reframing the threat as a challenge. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , 46 (1), 166-171.
Mrazek, M. D., Chin, J. M., Schmader, T., Hartson, K. A., Smallwood, J., & Schooler, J. W. (2011). Threatened to distraction: Mind-wandering as a consequence of stereotype threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , 47 (6), 1243-1248.
Steele, C. M. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American psychologist , 52 (6), 613.
