Rising to the threat: Reducing stereotype threat by reframing the threat as a challenge

In two experiments, we found that the performance-inhibiting consequences of stereotype threat were eliminated when the threat was subtly reframed as a challenge. In Experiment 1, Black school children in North Carolina completed a 10-itemmathematics test. Participants who reported their race before taking the test performed more poorly than participants who reported their race after completing the test, unless the test was framed as a challenge. Experiment 2 replicated this effect with undergraduates at a prestigious university. When reminded that they graduated from high schools that were poorly represented at the university, they performed more poorly than their peers on a math test. However, when the test was reframed as a challenge, this threat had no effect on their performance. These findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical applications for both educational and athletic training. 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. People perform more poorly across a broad range of evaluative domains when reminded that they belong to a group associated with weakness in that domain (for reviews, see Aronson & McGlone, 2009; Schmader, Johns, & Forbes, 2008; Shapiro & Neuberg, 2007; Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002). When reminded of their group membership, for example, White people struggle athletically (e.g., Stone, Lynch, Sjomeling, & Darley, 1999), Black people struggle academically (e.g., Steele & Aronson, 1995), women struggle mathematically (e.g., Shih, Pittinsky, & Ambady, 1999; Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999) and spatially (McGlone & Aronson, 2006), and men struggle linguistically (e.g., Keller, 2007). These so-called stereotype threat effects are pervasive, and research suggests that they explain in part why Black students continue to performmore poorly thanWhite students in academic settings (e.g., Cohen, Garcia, Apfel, & Master, 2006; Walton & Spencer, 2009). The present research tested a simple theoretically-driven and domain-general intervention that was designed to eliminate stereotype threat effects. A summary of why stereotype threat impairs performance Stereotype threat effects emerge for a variety of interrelated reasons, recently encapsulated in Schmader et al.’s (2008) threemechanism stereotype threat model. They argued that stereotype ll rights reserved. threat activates physiological stress responses (e.g., Blascovich, Spencer, Quinn, & Steele, 2001), performance monitoring (e.g., Seibt & Förster, 2004), and the mental suppression of negative thoughts and emotions (e.g., Bosson, Haymovitz, & Pinel, 2004), all of which deplete limited cognitive resources. People experiencing stereotype threat consequently perform more poorly because they have fewer cognitive resources to devote to tasks than do their peers who are not experiencing threat. Researchers have similarly identified a range of situational factors that moderate stereotype threat. As early studies showed, the threat disrupts performance only when the provoking stereotype is salient. Whereas Black students asked to report their race before taking a diagnostic academic test perform more poorly than their White counterparts, the effect does not occur if these students are asked to report their race after completing the test (e.g., Steele & Aronson, 1995). Participants must also identify with the target domain (e.g., Aronson, Lustina, Good, Keough, & Steele, 1999; Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2002), and the group with which they are associated (e.g., Schmader, 2002), as the negative stereotype is threatening only if it applies to a domain and a group that are personally relevant. Female engineers who work alongside male engineers are therefore particularly susceptible to stereotype threat, because their individual reputations and mathematical prowess are regularly challenged by the negative stereotype that women are mathematically less capable than men, an effect that has been shown in both laboratory and field experiments (e.g., Pronin, Steele, & Ross, 2004: Good, Aronson, & Harder, 2008). In A.L. Alter et al. / Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 (2010) 166–171 167 sum, self-relevant threats impair performance by depleting valuable cognitive resources. Our research examines the hypothesis that such depletion might be prevented by conditions that encourage individuals to adopt a mindset that construes such threats as challenges. Challenge-framing as a threat-reduction mechanism Over the past three decades, researchers have cast threat and challenge as opposing styles of appraising potentially stressful situations (e.g., Kobasa, 1982; Mendes, Blascovich, Hunter, Lickel, & Jost, 2007). Challenges are cast positively, as situations in which people feel capable of conquering stressors, whereas threatening situations seem to demand more resources than the perceiver can muster (Blascovich, Mendes, Hunter, & Salomon, 1999; White, 2008). Threat appraisal generates stress-related physiological responses and impairs performance in moderately difficult tasks (e.g., Blascovich et al., 1999). Challenge appraisal, conversely, facilitates performance by inducing adaptive stress responses and preparing the perceiver to address the stress (Scheepers, 2009; Vick, Seery, Blascovich, & Weisbuch, 2008). Importantly, people might interpret the same task as a challenge or a threat, depending on a range of situational factors, like the negative consequences of failure (e.g., Keller & Bless, 2008). Given the divergent consequences of threat and challenge appraisals for performance, reframing an otherwise threatening task as a challenge might reduce the effects of stereotype threat. Accordingly, we conducted two experiments to examine whether introducing typically threatening tasks as challenges might eliminate the damaging effects of stereotype threat on performance. Experiment 1: mitigating stereotype threat in elementary school students In Experiment 1, we examined whether Black students might perform better on an otherwise threatening academic test if the test were framed as a challenge. Black students in North Carolina completed 10 sample items from a standardized math test called the End of Grade Exam (EOG), which is designed to ensure that children have attained a minimum standard of academic proficiency at the end of each grade. Some participants reported their racial background immediately before taking the math test, which made their racial group salient, whereas the remaining participants reported their racial background after completing the test. The experimenter framed the test either as a challenge or a threat by verbally describing it as a useful learning experience (challenge) or a true measure of their ability (threat). We expected students who reported their race before taking the test to perform more poorly than students who reported their race after completing the test, but only when the test was framed as a threat rather than a challenge.