Effects of self-stereotyping and stereotype threat on intellectual performance

Past research with various racial/ethnic groups suggests that the tendency for group members to hold negative in-group associations at the unconscious level in somewhat rare (Greenwald et al., 1998). However, evidence of this type of self-stereotyping was revealed in Study I among 38 African-American participants. Their scores on the Implicit Association Test (IAT, Greenwald et al., 1998) indicated that 50% of them had IAT scores favoring White Americans and the other 50% had scores favoring African-Americans. Based on these results, Study 2 tested the potential relation between implicit self-stereotyping and stereotype threat. Steele & Aronson, (1995) have argued that stereotype threat primarily is generated by situational or contextual factors (e.g., the characterization of a test as diagnostic of or not diagnostic of ability or biased against one's group or bias free). We examined the notion that stereotype threat can be generated by implicit self-stereotyping even in the absence of stereotype-threatening contextual factors. Seventy-eight African-American participants completed the IAT and a difficult verbal aptitude test under conditions of public or private threat. Results revealed that 65% of participants showed evidence of implicit self-stereotyping with IAT scores favoring White Americans over African-Americans. There was a marginally significant effect of IAT scores. Participants with pro-White versus pro-Black IAT scores, on average, performed better on the verbal aptitude test. The direction of this effect was opposite to predictions, which expected participants with pro-White IAT scores to show impaired rather than enhanced performance on the verbal aptitude test. Discussion centers on the implications of implicit self-stereotyping among African-Americans and the plausible explanations for the enhanced performance of stereotype threatened participants (i.e., those with pro-White UT scores).