The difference isn't black and white: stereotype threat and the race gap on Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices.

This study addresses recent criticisms aimed at the interpretation of stereotype threat research and methodological weaknesses of previous studies that have examined race differences on Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM). African American and White undergraduates completed the APM under three conditions. In two threat conditions, participants received either standard APM instructions (standard threat) or were told that the APM was an IQ test (high threat). In a low threat condition, participants were told that the APM was a set of puzzles and that the researchers wanted their opinions of them. Results supported the stereotype threat interpretation of race differences in cognitive ability test scores. Although African American participants underperformed Whites under both standard and high threat instructions, they performed just as well as Whites did under low threat instructions.

[1]  R. P. Brown,et al.  Putting the "affirm" into affirmative action: preferential selection and academic performance. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

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

[3]  Chaitra M. Hardison,et al.  On interpreting stereotype threat as accounting for African American-White differences on cognitive tests. , 2004, The American psychologist.

[4]  S. M. Pine,et al.  Effects of Computerized Adaptive Testing on Black and White Students. , 1979 .

[5]  J. Raven,et al.  Manual for Raven's progressive matrices and vocabulary scales , 1962 .

[6]  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.

[7]  R. Sternberg.  Advances in the psychology of human intelligence , 1982 .

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

[9]  Patrick F. McKay,et al.  Stereotype Threat Effects on the Raven Advanced Progressive Matrices Scores of African Americans1 , 2002 .

[10]  N. Ambady,et al.  Stereotype Susceptibility: Identity Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance , 1999 .

[11]  Jill E. Ellingson,et al.  High-stakes testing in employment, credentialing, and higher education. Prospects in a post-affirmative-action world. , 2001, The American psychologist.

[12]  Kevin J. Williams,et al.  The Effects of Stereotype Threat and Double-Minority Status on the Test Performance of Latino Women , 2002 .

[13]  A. Jensen,et al.  The g factor , 1996, Nature.

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

[15]  P. Hanges,et al.  Understanding the Stereotype Threat Effect With "Culture-Free" Tests: An Examination of its Mediators and Measurement , 2003 .

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

[17]  A. Jensen,et al.  Bias in Mental Testing , 1981 .

[18]  C. Steele,et al.  Stereotype Threat and Employment Testing: A Commentary , 2003 .

[19]  T. Claire,et al.  Extending the Concept of Stereotype Threat to Social Class: The Intellectual Underperformance of Students from Low Socioeconomic Backgrounds , 1998 .

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

[21]  N. Johnson,et al.  Traditional psychometric tests and proportionate representation : an intervention and program evaluation study , 1995 .

[22]  Milton D. Hakel,et al.  Asking the Right Questions About g , 2002 .

[23]  Jason P. Mitchell,et al.  Deflecting negative self-relevant stereotype activation: The effects of individuation ☆ , 2004 .

[24]  D. Day,et al.  Development of a Short form for the Raven Advanced Progressive Matrices Test , 1994 .

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

[26]  S. Spencer,et al.  The Interference of Stereotype Threat With Women's Generation of Mathematical Problem-Solving Strategies , 2001 .

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

[28]  R. Josephs,et al.  A burden of proof: Stereotype relevance and gender differences in math performance. , 1999 .

[29]  M. Inzlicht,et al.  Do High-Achieving Female Students Underperform in Private? The Implications of Threatening Environments on Intellectual Processing , 2003 .

[30]  R. Herrnstein,et al.  The bell curve : intelligence and class structure in American life , 1995 .

[31]  Patrick C. Kyllonen,et al.  Reasoning ability is (little more than) working-memory capacity?! , 1990 .

[32]  Michael Johns,et al.  Converging evidence that stereotype threat reduces working memory capacity. , 2003, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[33]  Chaitra M. Hardison,et al.  Using SAT-grade and ability-job performance relationships to test predictions derived from stereotype threat theory. , 2004, The Journal of applied psychology.

[34]  Stigma Consciousness and the Race Gap in College Academic Achievement , 2005 .

[35]  L. J. Stricker.  Inquiring About Examinees' Ethnicity and Sex: Effects on AP Calculus AB Examination Performance , 1998 .

[36]  M A Just,et al.  From the SelectedWorks of Marcel Adam Just 1990 What one intelligence test measures : A theoretical account of the processing in the Raven Progressive Matrices Test , 2016 .