The effect is that the threat results in distraction, self-consciousness, evaluation apprehension, test anxiety, and loss of motivation. Note that these effects are only visible for tests that are challenging.
Easy assignments do not show a difference in scoring even when students are given prompts to elicit the threat. Given all of this, a natural question would be whether or not students will respond to the opposite kind of prompting.
It turns out that they do. This is called "Stereotype Lift. Note, however, that this only works when the activated stereotype actually exists and the participants buy into it. The results are also not as strong as with Stereotype Threat, but it is statistically significant. Your Account. What is Stereotype Threat? Show caption. Utility-value interventions aim to increase value and engagement in coursework and can combat the tendency to discount and devalue academics among students who experience stereotype threat.
To be effective, such interventions must help participants value the task and believe that they can succeed at the task. Finding utility-value in the task means that individuals see the importance and usefulness of the task to accomplish their goals, both in the immediate situations and in their lives.
The intervention increased perceptions of utility-value and interest, especially for students who were low in expected or actual classroom performance. Views of utility-value mediated the relationship between interests in the domain and academic performance in the domain. This intervention has been effectively implemented with first generation college students, women in biology, and racial minority students, resulting in higher end-of-semester grades.
Other research finds that perception of utility-values in coursework is positively correlated with hard work, interest, and performance Harackiewicz et al. To our knowledge, utility-value interventions have not been implemented in the workplace. However, like values-affirmation interventions, many field studies are first conducted in education settings and later applied to organizational settings.
A utility-value intervention would be useful for organizations when employees show lower motivation or interest in their work, particularly if they are performing poorly in a challenging domain like science, technology, engineering, and mathematics STEM. For example, when learning a difficult task employees can be asked to think about how the new learning will help them accomplish their work goals, but also how it is relevant to life outside of work.
However, it is important that utility-value interventions are employee-generated. That is, having supervisors tell employees that a new task is valuable is not effective and may backfire, leading to lower employee performance on the task and less interest see Canning and Harackiewicz, A combination of direct communication about the task utility and allowing employees to self-generate the value and utility of the task is most effective.
For employees lower in confidence in the task, it is more effective to apply the utility and value of the task to everyday life situations rather than to the work domain Canning and Harackiewicz, When women and racial minorities are underrepresented in the workplace, they may experience belonging uncertainty Walton and Cohen, Belonging interventions share stories with underrepresented groups to dispel the belief that they alone feel isolated or that their difficulties are unique to their gender or racial group Walton et al.
In academic field settings, college freshmen were given information that most college freshmen struggle with their sense of belonging in the beginning of college but that this uncertainly subsides and they develop a sense of belonging. Compared to a control group, students who received the belonging intervention had higher GPAs throughout the entire duration of their college years Walton and Cohen, Like reattribution training, the belonging intervention shaped the way college students interpreted their college experiences.
A naturalistic study conducted with science faculty members at a large university found evidence for belonging uncertainty Holleran et al. Interactions among male and female faculty members were monitored for content and participants were asked to rate the competencies of those with whom they interacted. Results indicated that men were much less likely to engage in conversation regarding research with women compared to men, and when such conversations were carried out, women were generally regarded as less competent.
No such competence contrasts were present for men. This imbalanced treatment appeared to evoke disengagement among women, such that inequity in socialization prompted a feeling of not belonging to the rest of the workgroup. This mirrors much of the belongingness literature regarding stereotype threat, in that performance and engagement tend to suffer for individuals who are not viewed as belonging to the group Holleran et al.
Two additional areas related to stereotype threat are closely tied to sense of belonging in university or the workplace and personal values. Research on communal goal affordances finds that women may be underrepresented in many male-dominated fields e.
A distinct but related concept is valuing interdependence, that underrepresented students, and by extension employees, may not see Western organizational values of independence as congruent with their values of cultural interdependence Stephens et al. This section reviews research and interventions on communal goal affordances, and then interdependence and cultural mismatch. Current research suggests that women and racial minorities may experience stereotype threat in male- and majority race-dominated domains and avoid STEM disciplines because they do not see their personal life goals and cultural values as congruent with the expected quality of life of a STEM student, scientist, or engineer Diekman et al.
Many women and racial minorities have communal goals, or an orientation to nurture others, and are more likely to endorse communal goals then men and Caucasians Diekman et al. Societal stereotypes of STEM disciplines suggest that scientists, mathematicians, and engineers are typically male, work in isolation in a laboratory, value competitiveness, and have little time for family Barbercheck, Stereotypes of scientists make STEM unappealing fields of study or work for many women Cheryan et al.
One line of research examined stereotype threat through the lens of communal goals and utility-values discussed in the previous section. Smith et al. Particularly among women in male-dominated majors e. An intervention with science students combined a utility-value intervention with a communal goal intervention Brown et al. The culture of science emphasizes agentic values, which can deter women and minorities from pursuing STEM education and careers.
Brown et al. The communal goals literature has implications for organizations in STEM fields that want to recruit a diverse workforce and support them in the workplace. It is important for organizations to communicate valuing communal goals and providing employees with opportunities to conduct work that will help the community.
As with diversity policies, this can be accomplish through websites, brochures, and job descriptions. Many companies already have such opportunities in place, and contribute to local communities as part of public relations efforts. Employers should know that women, particularity in male-dominated occupations, may perceive greater fit with the organization, and therefore greater job satisfaction and performance Spanjol et al.
A related value that can be undermined in academic and workplace settings, and decrease sense of belonging in organizations is interdependence. Research finds that low-income, first generation college students, and racial minorities are more likely to take an interdependent worldview, compared to an independent worldview, than middle class majorities Stephens et al. Underrepresented students may perceive a cultural mismatch and lack of fit with US universities, which predicts lower sense of belonging and academic performance Stephens et al.
To address this cultural mismatch in higher education, Stephens et al. First generation college students who received the interdependent letter had higher performance on an academic task. For first generation college students, those who received an interdependent letter and perceived the academic task as less difficult had better performance compared to first generation students receiving an independence letter Stephens et al.
The possible cultural mismatch for low-income and racial minority employees should be a concern for organizations. The Stephens et al. As previously stated, an all-inclusive multicultural approach is most effective for employees from all backgrounds Plaut et al. When adopting diversity missions, philosophies, and policies, organizations can express their value of contributions from all groups, majority and minority, by including statements on how working in the organization can meet communal goals and the value placed on interdependent work.
A final intervention to reduce stereotype threat in the workplace is to simply talk about it. Johns et al. As a result of these instructions, women did not underperform on a math test in the stereotype threat condition. Another study found that instructing participants under stereotype threat that their anxiety may actually enhance their test performance eliminated the effect of threat Johns et al.
These studies suggest that providing people with external attributions for experiencing anxiety during evaluative performance situations may help them regulate the anxiety and reduce or eliminate stereotype threat. Directly confronting stereotype threat can create stereotype reactance in which individuals are motivated to disprove the stereotype Kray et al. Kray et al. Kray and Shirako suggest that organizational leaders can help reduce stereotype threat by actively managing the messages employees hear regarding what traits are necessary to perform well on tasks and ensuring that stereotypes are not activated or endorsed in the workplace.
Researchers note that for interventions to be effective, an indirect approach should be taken Robinson, ; Cohen et al. The interventions should not be advertised as a means to improve performance or well-being, as this may dampen their effects or backfire Sherman et al. In the workplace, minorities who are perceived to have been hired or promoted because of affirmative action are stigmatized Leslie et al.
Instead, interventions should be subtle, include all employees, not just minorities, and be embedded in existing workplace activities e. Interventions should be focused on addressing the psychological needs and motivational processes on which they are based Cohen et al.
Interventions developed based on anecdotal evidence or intuition may backfire and create more threat e. Timing of the interventions is also a factor to consider. Research is still underway to address how timing affects intervention effectiveness Cohen et al. Interventions that focus on early stages e. Interventions may be implemented after a problem has already been identified and can disrupt the downward spiral, for example after a merger or during a mid-quarter progress meeting Cohen et al.
It is important to note that stereotype threat interventions alone may not boost employee performance, but instead may prevent decrements in performance. Effective interventions must be coupled with opportunities for growth and resources to provide proper training for employees. That is, the interventions will not provide employees with the necessary abilities to perform well, they merely help employees reconstrue the workplace environment in ways that allow their highest potential to surface.
Finally, not all well-developed diversity policies will have the intended positive effects on diversifying the workforce and helping minority employees feel welcome. Lab based research finds that organizations with diversity policies may be seen as fair when there is objective evidence of bias Brady et al. Further, organizations that have received diversity award may be perceived as fair despite evidence of unfair practices Kaiser et al.
Organizations that are serious about implementing effective diversity policies and practices should appoint a diversity and inclusion officer with expertise in diversity science Plaut, We, and others, argue that knowledge of employment and discrimination law is not sufficient. An expert in diversity science, and the psychology behind diversity policies and practices, is needed to fully utilize effective policies and practices to achieve diversity and inclusion in organizations Plaut, In this review we have argued the recent question of scholarly debate Kalokerinos et al.
We and others Kray and Shirako, ; Kalokerinos et al. Throughout the review we described several field studies both within education and workplace environments. However, we recognize a dearth of studies in workplaces and this gap needs to be addressed in future research Kray and Shirako, ; Kalokerinos et al.
This review provided evidence that stereotype threat affects women and racial minorities in important ways besides performance including affecting domain identification, job engagement, career aspiration, and openness to feedback. Stereotype threat is also relevant in domains beyond personnel selection including leadership, entrepreneurship, negotiations, and competitiveness.
It is important to note that our review focused primarily on cognitive stereotypes and workplace behaviors beyond performance Spencer et al. Recent research suggests that non-cognitive stereotypes have been largely ignored in the organizational stereotype threat literature Dhanani and Wolcott, This reflects a cognitive bias in the stereotype threat literature and future research should explore the role of non-cognitive stereotypes in stereotype threat in the workplace.
In this review we focused primarily on workplace behaviors other than performance, which resulted in excluding research on age-based stereotype threat and job performance von Hippel et al. Negative job attitudes predicted greater intentions to resign or retire.
The most common stereotypes associated with older adults are primarily cognitive or physical such as having poor memory, slower processing, reduced executive functions, and less physical speed and strength Cuddy et al. To our knowledge, research has not examined the effects of age-based stereotype threat on non-performance outcomes such as leadership, entrepreneurship, negotiations, and competitiveness, thus literature on age-based stereotype threat was omitted.
As Cox and Kulik argue, age-based stereotype threat is an understudied area and is critical for the future of organizational psychology as the workforce ages and generations intermix in the workplace. Finally, there are other types of stigmas relevant to workplace stereotype threat that were not discussed include obese employees Carlson and Seacat, and employees with non-traditional work histories Melloy and Liu, We concluded the review with examples from field-tested interventions that implementing brief, low-cost workplace interventions to reduce stereotype threat is feasible.
Many of the psychological processes underlying threat can be addressed in onboarding and training programs. For example, onboarding programs can implement reattribution training and belongingness interventions and a few examples were provided. Good practices in new hire training and onboarding often already reflect some of these principles Klein and Polin, Although the evidence suggests that stereotype threat is highly likely to occur in workplace settings, more evidence is needed to document its occurrence see Hall et al.
In addition, some research questions remain unanswered regarding whether boundary conditions found in the lab apply in the field. As previously stated, stereotype threat does not affect all minority groups equally Schmader et al. Some of the features of the situation, such as task difficulty and task diagnosticity, or the person such as high domain identification, may not be present in non-lab settings such as the workplace Sackett and Ryan, Thus it is not clear that group identity must be high in evaluative situations with important consequences.
Research needs to determine what impact the presence of absence of these variables has on stereotype threat effects in the workplace. In addition, the overemphasis on performance needs to be remedied by focusing on other outcomes important in the workplace Kray and Shirako, ; Kang and Inzlicht, ; Spencer et al.
Two additional areas for future research that seem to be understudied concern clarifying the construct of stereotype threat Shapiro and Neuberg, ; Voyles et al. First, Voyles et al. Therefore, metastereotypes must precede stereotype threat because stereotyped groups must believe that the perceiver holds a negative stereotype about their social group.
Conceptualized this way, metastereotypes are relevant at the stereotype activation phase and stereotype threat is the reaction to the metastereotype. Future research should continue to clarify these concepts and examine the specific processes through which they operate.
Related to metastereotypes is a concern regarding how we measure self-reported experiences of stereotype threat Xavier et al. Further, Shapiro and Neuberg , Shapiro , Shapiro et al. The form of stereotype threat affects how it is measured Shapiro, and what interventions are most appropriate Shapiro et al. What we have learned from lab and field studies is valuable for improving diversity and inclusion in organizations.
Future research should continue examining the basic mechanisms and boundary conditions of stereotype threat and testing the effectiveness of interventions for the workplace.
BC conceptualized the argument and organization of the review. Each author equally contributed to the content of the review. The work contributing to this manuscript was supported by grants to the first author from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health R01GM Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
The authors would like to thank Abdiel J. Flores, Breanna R. Wexler, Zachary W. Petzel, and Mindy Siebert for their feedback on an earlier draft, and the reviewers for their valuable insights. Acs, Z. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Executive Report Google Scholar.
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Participants in the comparison group wrote about one or more values that they had identified as being relatively unimportant participants wrote about why someone else might care about these values.
The researchers found that Black students who completed the self-affirmation tasks ended up getting better grades than Black students who completed the control tasks. Moreover, the self-affirmation intervention was able to decrease the gap between the grades of Black and white students.
In a study , researchers also found that self-affirmation was able to reduce the achievement gap between men and women in a college physics course. In the study, women who wrote about a value that was important to them tended to receive higher grades, compared to women who had written about a value that was relatively unimportant to them. In other words, self-affirmation may be able to reduce the effects of stereotype threat on test performance. Actively scan device characteristics for identification.
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Psychology Expert. Elizabeth Hopper, Ph. Updated February 18,
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