STEREOTYPE SUSCEPTIBILITY: Identity Salience and Shifts in Quantitative Performance

Abstrad—Recent studies have documented that performance in u domnifi is hindered when individuals feel that a sociocultiiral group to which they belong is negatively stereotyped in that domain. We report that implicit activation of a social identity can facilitate cis well as impede performance on a quantitative task. When a particular social identity was made salient ai an implicit level, performance was altered in the direction predicted hy the stereotype a.ssociated with the identity. Common cultural stereotypes hold that Asians have superior ijunntitative skills compared with other ethnic groups and that women have inferior quantitative skills compared with men. We found that Asian-American women performed better on a mathematics test when their ethnic identity was activated, but worse when their gender identity was activated, compared with a control group who had neither identity activated. Cross-cultural investigation indicated that it was the .stereotype, and not the identity per se. that influenced performance.