The Black Electric Flying Circus

Have you ever wonder why sometimes people that belong to a minority group seem to just confirm the prejudice against then when they are submitted to some test to measure the thing we think they are bad at? One of the reasons that some studies have come up to explain the low performance might be the stereotype threat. These studies show that once you place someone in category that is expected to perform badly in a situation; it will negatively influence the final result. What happens is that the worry to deny that stereotype end up just making you spend more time worring about then fighting it.

The first experiment to prove that theory was conducted in 1995 at Stanford with Caucasians and African Americans. The experience was to apply a GRE - Graduate Record Examination - in two mixed groups; the first one was told that their intelligence was being measured and second one was told nothing of that sort. The Caucasians performed almost equally in both group, however the African Americans had a significant lower result in the group that was told that their intelligence was being measured.

Beside this breakthrough experiment several other have shown the effect of the stereotype threat in minorities groups (Steele & Aronson, 1995), women (Spencer et al. 1999), girls (Ambady, Shin, Kim, & Pittinsky, 2000), and students from low social-economic background (Croizet & Claire, 1998). But how does it work?

A study conducted at the University of Padonova in Italy (http://dpss.psy.unipd.it/ita/download/Maass/Cadinu_et_al_pdf1.pdf) found that the most important effect of the stereotype threat was the thought intrusion. That little voice that stay on your mind saying that you “suck” at it. This voice starts to consume your cognitive power affecting in a strong manner your performance at the test/activity you are taking.

Hear I post a documentary called blue eyed that show it happening in a workshop experiment. The documentary is very harsh but it shows a reality we choose to ignore.

Part 1