The consequences of chronic stereotype threat: domain disidentification and abandonment.

Stereotype threat impairs performance across many domains. Despite a wealth of research, the long-term consequences of chronic stereotype threat have received little empirical attention. Beyond the immediate impact on performance, the experience of chronic stereotype threat is hypothesized to lead to domain disidentification and eventual domain abandonment. Stereotype threat is 1 explanation why African Americans and Hispanic/Latino(a)s "leak" from each juncture of the academic scientific pipeline in disproportionately greater numbers than their White and Asian counterparts. Using structural equation modeling, we tested the stereotype threat-disidentification hypothesis across 3 academic years with a national longitudinal panel of undergraduate minority science students. Experience of stereotype threat was associated with scientific disidentification, which in turn predicted a significant decline in the intention to pursue a scientific career. Race/ethnicity moderated this effect, whereby the effect was evident for Hispanic/Latino(a) students but not for all African American students. We discuss findings in terms of understanding chronic stereotype threat.

[1]  John M. Darley,et al.  Stereotype Threat Effects on Black and White Athletic Performance , 1999 .

[2]  Helen L. Chen,et al.  Outcomes of a Longitudinal Administration of the Persistence in Engineering Survey , 2010 .

[3]  P. Sheeran,et al.  Does changing behavioral intentions engender behavior change? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. , 2006, Psychological bulletin.

[4]  C. Steele.  A threat in the air. How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. , 1997, The American psychologist.

[5]  M. Conner,et al.  Efficacy of the Theory of Planned Behaviour: a meta-analytic review. , 2001, The British journal of social psychology.

[6]  Paul R. Hernandez,et al.  Toward a Model of Social Influence that Explains Minority Student Integration into the Scientific Community. , 2011, Journal of educational psychology.

[7]  Carrie B. Fried,et al.  Reducing the Effects of Stereotype Threat on African American College Students by Shaping Theories of Intelligence , 2002 .

[8]  Geraldine Downey,et al.  Sensitivity to status-based rejection: implications for African American students' college experience. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[9]  P. Bentler,et al.  Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis : Conventional criteria versus new alternatives , 1999 .

[10]  John C. Turner,et al.  Social comparison and social identity: Some prospects for intergroup behaviour , 1975 .

[11]  C. Hill,et al.  Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. , 2010 .

[12]  C. Steele,et al.  Situational disengagement and persistence in the face of adversity , 2007 .

[13]  S. Morgan,et al.  Beyond the Laboratory: Evaluating the Survey Evidence for the Disidentification Explanation of Black-White Differences in Achievement , 2004 .

[14]  C. Stangor,et al.  Prejudice : the target's perspective , 1999 .

[15]  Mary J. Fischer,et al.  STEREOTYPE THREAT AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: New Findings from a Racially Diverse Sample of College Freshmen , 2005, Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race.

[16]  Steven L. Neuberg,et al.  From Stereotype Threat to Stereotype Threats: Implications of a Multi-Threat Framework for Causes, Moderators, Mediators, Consequences, and Interventions , 2007, Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

[17]  Catherine Good,et al.  When White Men Can't Do Math: Necessary and Sufficient Factors in Stereotype Threat , 1999 .

[18]  P. Sheeran.  Intention—Behavior Relations: A Conceptual and Empirical Review , 2002 .

[19]  Kristopher J Preacher,et al.  Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models , 2008, Behavior research methods.

[20]  C. Steele,et al.  Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. , 1995, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[21]  Rosalind C. Barnett,et al.  Learning in a Man's World: Examining the Perceptions of Undergraduate Women in Male-Dominated Academic Areas , 2002 .

[22]  S. Raudenbush,et al.  Tests for linkage of multiple cohorts in an accelerated longitudinal design. , 2000, Psychological methods.

[23]  R. Kline.  Principles and practice of structural equation modeling, 2nd ed. , 2005 .

[24]  Lisa Rosenthal,et al.  The Roles of Perceived Identity Compatibility and Social Support for Women in a Single-Sex STEM Program at a Co-educational University , 2011 .

[25]  Denise Sekaquaptewa,et al.  Solo status, stereotype threat, and performance expectancies: Their effects on women’s performance , 2003 .

[26]  J. Dovidio,et al.  Stereotype Threat and Health Disparities: What Medical Educators and Future Physicians Need to Know , 2010, Journal of General Internal Medicine.

[27]  S. Spencer,et al.  Stereotype Threat and Women's Math Performance , 1999 .

[28]  K. Cokley,et al.  Ethnicity, gender, and academic self-concept: a preliminary examination of academic disidentification and implications for psychologists. , 2002, Cultural diversity & ethnic minority psychology.

[29]  K. Deaux,et al.  Negotiating Social Identity , 1998 .

[30]  A. Kiefer,et al.  Implicit Stereotypes, Gender Identification, and Math-Related Outcomes , 2007, Psychological science.

[31]  S. Spencer.  The effect of stereotype vulnerability on women's math performance. , 1993 .

[32]  Michael Inzlicht,et al.  A Threatening Intellectual Environment: Why Females Are Susceptible to Experiencing Problem-Solving Deficits in the Presence of Males , 2000, Psychological science.

[33]  Johannes Keller,et al.  Stereotype threat in classroom settings: the interactive effect of domain identification, task difficulty and stereotype threat on female students' maths performance. , 2007, The British journal of educational psychology.

[34]  S. Spencer,et al.  Consuming Images: How Television Commercials that Elicit Stereotype Threat Can Restrain Women Academically and Professionally , 2002 .

[35]  J. Osborne.  Race and Academic Disidentification , 1997 .

[36]  Jeff Stone,et al.  Battling Doubt by Avoiding Practice: The Effects of Stereotype Threat on Self-Handicapping in White Athletes , 2002 .

[37]  E. Pinel,et al.  Stigma consciousness: the psychological legacy of social stereotypes. , 1999, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[38]  S. Spencer,et al.  Contending with group image: The psychology of stereotype and social identity threat , 2002 .

[39]  Rex B. Kline,et al.  Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling , 1998 .

[40]  S. Spencer,et al.  Clearing the air: identity safety moderates the effects of stereotype threat on women's leadership aspirations. , 2005, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[41]  J. Gross,et al.  Signaling Threat , 2007, Psychological science.

[42]  Richard D. Harvey,et al.  Hostile environments, stereotype threat, and math performance among undergraduate women , 2000 .

[43]  The Canary in the Mine: The Achievement Gap between Black and White Students , 1998 .

[44]  M. Pitesky,et al.  Clearing the Air: Livestock's Contribution to Climate Change , 2009 .

[45]  S. Maxwell,et al.  Testing mediational models with longitudinal data: questions and tips in the use of structural equation modeling. , 2003, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[46]  Toni Schmader,et al.  Coping with stigma through psychological disengagement. , 1998 .

[47]  Toni Schmader,et al.  Coping With Ethnic Stereotypes in the Academic Domain: Perceived Injustice and Psychological Disengagement , 2001 .

[48]  Ryan P. Brown,et al.  Stigma on my mind: Individual differences in the experience of stereotype threat , 2003 .