What is Stereotype threat?
Stereotype threat is the phenomenon in which people perform worse on tasks when they are reminded of a negative stereotype about their group. The anxiety of potentially confirming the stereotype consumes cognitive resources and undermines performance, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
How it works
Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson (1995) showed that Black students performed worse on a test when it was described as measuring intellectual ability (activating racial stereotypes) compared to when the same test was described as a non-diagnostic problem-solving exercise. Similarly, women perform worse on math tests after being reminded of gender stereotypes about math ability.
Applied example
A female engineer taking a technical interview who is the only woman in the room may underperform not because of lower ability but because the situational cue (being outnumbered) activates stereotype threat, consuming working memory that would otherwise be used for problem-solving.
Why it matters
Stereotype threat demonstrates that performance gaps between groups are partly situational, not fixed, and that changing the testing environment (removing identity cues, emphasizing growth mindset) can close performance gaps without any change in underlying ability.
