Intelligence and the Stereotype Threat

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/opinion/sunday/intelligence-and-the-stereotype-threat.html

by tokenadult • 14 years ago

49 25 14 years ago

Digit-Al• 14 years ago

So the basic conclusion seems to be "anxiety makes people perform worse". Hardly a new finding.

stupandaus• 14 years ago

I think the point is to show that stereotypes generate anxiety that subsequently affects performance, something which most people who do not face stereotypes in their day to day lives take into account.

It would be really interesting to see if positive stereotypes like the Asian model minority stereotype have the opposite impact of improving test performance.

astine2• 14 years ago

I'd suggest that at the very least it creates extra pressure to perform and that pressure by itself can help to generate better results.

yummyfajitas• 14 years ago

One interesting implication of this work (obvious caveats [1]), those who are more likely to suffer from stereotype thread will underperform those who don't. Thus, even if one measures equal ability among applicants, he should prefer those from a group which is stereotypically superior [2].

An interesting question this raises is how much collectivist attitudes play a role in this effect. For example - consider two hypothetical individuals from a stereotypically underperforming group. Individual A is a collectivist and strongly cares about the perception and welfare of his group. Individual B is an individualist and holds no special affection for his group relative to any other.

Will A be more vulnerable to stereotype thread than B? It's reasonable to hypothesize that individual B might care about stereotypes less than A, and therefore might be less affected.

A fairly straightforward way to test this would be to repeat stereotype threat experiments using dimensions on which people are not typically collectivist (e.g., blood type rather than tribal affiliation).

[1] Assuming the effect survives outside the laboratory, wouldn't necessarily apply in a hypothetical world with different stereotypes, etc.

[2] I'm focusing solely on maximizing group performance, ignoring legal risks, moral issues, etc.

DaniFong• 14 years ago

Unless outsider membership confers other values, such as perspective or the capacity to make larger out of the box thinking judgements (according to Simonton's research, it does), and unless the degree to which stereotypes undervalue people exceeds the performance gap in the particular situations you can create.

shenberg• 14 years ago

As an interesting aside, blood type is actually considered to be a predictor of a person's personality, temperament, etc in Japan - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_types_in_Japanese_culture

stephengillie2• 14 years ago

As is the birth month in European culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology

Weaponx2007a2• 14 years ago

So it's a social problem. And it should be solved with telling kids this: Quote: " And we should ensure that the social climate at our children’s schools is one of warmth and trust, not competition and exclusion."

That'll work. sure. Getting your papers graded above average is competition and with competition comes fierceness and willingness to learn and fight. How about a nice debate? Oh we can't because that would make two viewpoints compete against one another.

Apocryphon2• 14 years ago

I think if making sure students felt safe was all that was necessary, the self-esteem movement of the '90s wouldn't be so harshly derided today. A possible alternative to making everyone felt non-competitive is to make the participants certain that the competition is egalitarian and fair, that everyone had equal opportunity to do well in it.

Weaponx2007a2• 14 years ago

I actually don't believe it's about feeling safe. I think that humans themselves evolved out of necessity or vanish forever (a struggle). Also if you are born this way and have the guts to perfect and admit failure, you will eventually get something in return for your perseverance. I don't think that making anyone feel good about their mediocrity is a good way to settle any type of anxiety about ones being. It just delays the truth hitting them right in the face, for doing absolutely nothing.

MaysonL• 14 years ago

I think it's fairly well proven by now that praising children for, and reinforcing, hard work and persistence, has much better results than splitting them into smart and stupid.

im3w1l• 14 years ago

I think you are completely right!

One thing I wonder about, is how to avoid promoting useless work just for works sake. Like how many people say you should track accomplishments, not hours.

What do you think?

Apocryphon2• 14 years ago

This phenomenon sounds like a combination of a negative placebo effect and learned helplessness.

Sniffnoy• 14 years ago

So if you want a fair test, and some people are going to feel threatened no matter what... how about the solution of trying to rattle everybody? :)

entropy_• 14 years ago

Well, you'd be giving an advantage to people who perform better than others when under stress. But then, that's not necessarily a bad thing is it?

As an aside, I've noticed that people respond to stress in extremely varying ways. I've seen smart and talented people completely fail at tests because they were stressed(even though I can personally attest to the fact that when not under stress they would've performed perfectly). I've also seen others who can be completely under-prepared for a test, not know how to answer half the questions they encounter and yet still not panic and somehow squeeze by and not fail(I know I've been in that position countless times because of my reluctance to study throughout school). I remember reading an article(though I can't find it now) a while back about how this was due to a fundamentally different internal attitude, one that refuses to rise up to challenges and simply declare themselves a failure and another that enjoys challenges and manages to rise up to meet them.

bking• 14 years ago

I personally take stereotypes as a challenge to prove someone wrong.

I guess it is just how you respond to the stressors of a possible static constraint implied upon you. Do you accept their conclusion or decide to find your own?

stephengillie2• 14 years ago

If I say "I'm going to analyze your traits and habits, and model your personality relative to those similar to you", I've observed that most people would tentatively agree to the process.

However, if I say "I'm going to group you with your stereotype", most people become rebellious or contrary.

"Stereotype" seems like a hot-button keyword. We react to the term, not to the concept behind it. Why?

pessimizer• 14 years ago

Because "stereotype" != "analyze your traits and habits, and model your personality." That's called personality analysis and modelling.

Stereotypes involve using unrelated culturally-bound flags to pretend like you've done a personality analysis on someone. It's not stereotyping to notice someone doesn't wear a lot of makeup, and then declare that that person doesn't like to wear makeup, at least in the contexts that you've seen them in. It's stereotyping to notice someone doesn't wear makeup, then declare them a lesbian.

astine2• 14 years ago

The phrase "similar to you," is vague enough to possibly connote an actual scientific bases of measurement. Eg you could be measuring people according to their intelligence percentile as opposed to their racial group.

The term "stereotype" has a very specific meaning where people are compared archetypes of their racial, gendered, or social group, not something intrinsic to their personality or morality. Stereotypes can be very negative and so are viewed as generally unfair.

clarkm2• 14 years ago

Though it's not yet published (and still under review), Wicherts and de Haan have a paper titled "A meta-analysis of the effects of stereotype threat on the cognitive test performance of African Americans"[1] which compares all published and unpublished studies on the stereotype threat. After examining the studies' methodologies, sample sizes, and other quality indicators, they found that the only variable correlated with publication is whether the study supported the existence of a significant stereotype threat.

In other words, the studies are suffering from massive publication bias, which is leading some researchers to question the very existence of the stereotype threat.

[1] The paper is referenced on Wicherts' CV: http://wicherts.socsci.uva.nl/CVJMW.pdf

tokenadult• 14 years ago

Thanks for the link (which I have shared as a direct Facebook friend with the author of the New York Times piece submitted here). Jelte Wicherts is a straight shooter and a very good researcher. I look forward to the publication of another forthcoming article listed on the CV:

Kan, K. J., Wicherts, J. M., van der Maas, H. L. J., & Widaman, K. F. (under review). A genetic origin of Black-White mean IQ differences? Weak inferences based on ambiguous results.

clarkm2• 14 years ago

Good to hear you passed this reference along -- hopefully its results are widely discussed and don't fall victim to the same publication bias, which would be quite ironic.

And I agree about Jelte Wicherts. I especially like his commitment to open data and data sharing.

strlen• 14 years ago

Anecdotally, this seems to be a serious hinderance in the American primary and secondary systems: student sees a setback and deduces he simply isn't "smart enough to study math" and this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy through the mechanisms described in this article. Obviously mathematics and heavily mathematical sciences _are_ very much cognitively demanding, but the students arriving to this conclusion aren't usually studying the kind of math that's beyond the limits of an average college bound students: in other words, "not being good at math" is valid reason to drop abstract algebra or complex analysis during the junior year of college, but it's not a reason to accept a C in high school[1] algebra, declare yourself "bad at math", and then choose a major that involves very little math (even if excludes subject fields they're truly passionate about and excel at).

AP Calculus and AP Physics were the most dreaded classes in high school and students were discouraged to take them. I did take AP Calculus (for obvious reasons I was already familiar with functions that take other functions as parameters and return yet other functions) but I followed conventional wisdom and held-off on AP Physics.

Oddly, however, when I got to college I got better grades in _more difficult_ calculus classes (multivariate, vector calculus, differential equations) in college and did well in Physics (which was meant to serve as a "weed-out" class, i.e., forced-curved such that at least 25-50% would fail). I think the psychology had much to do with this: this is a freshman class full of people, why _shouldn't_ I master this material?

I wonder what would happen if instead high school students were told "these are the very basics of modern physics and mathematics and every technical major or minor -- at colleges that are far less selective than where many of you are headed -- is expected to pass them."

[1] When I came to the US in seventh grade from former USSR (where I was already studying algebra, geometry, physics and chemistry at the time) I had a math "placement test" tossed me the first day without any warning and scored two points below the threshold to place me into a "pre-Algebra class" that would merely qualify me for the privilege of studying algebra in 8th grade! I had to take a course at a local community college and pass two additional placement tests over the summer vacation to place into 8th grade algebra. It's no wonder that students assume they're "bad at math" given such an environment.

iamtoby2003• 14 years ago

thanks for sharing this article, i cosntantly felt threatened and suffered lack of condifence growing up and my performances were often affected by "conditional stupidity"

gojomo• 14 years ago

There is a psychological test sometimes alleged to detect hidden stereotyping called the 'Implicit Association Test' (IAT):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_Association_Test

The usual interpretation of the IAT is that delays or errors in associating certain categories with positive/negative traits indicates hidden bias. But if a stereotype threat effect is also present when taking the IAT, then delays/errors may be arising from a (self-fulfilling) fear of confirming negative stereotypes about bias, moreso than any actual bias.

Since the IAT is often introduced as a way to detect subtle and stigmatized biases, test-takers are explicitly primed to worry about stereotypes-about-stereotyping. In this kind of use, the IAT might thus be more like a "push poll" (or a Scientologist's 'E-meter'), designed to create effects in the test-taker, than an objective measure of unprimed attitudes.

Intelligence and the Stereotype Threat

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