Historically, only children from wealthy families could afford to attend private schools, whereas children from middle- and low-income families typically attended public schools.
If a child from a low-income family received a merit scholarship to attend a private school, how might the child be treated by classmates? Can you recall a time when you held prejudiced attitudes or beliefs or acted in a discriminatory manner because your group of friends expected you to?
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Chapter 1: Research Methods. Chapter 2: The Social Self. Chapter 3: Social Judgment and Decision-Making. Chapter 4: Understanding and Influencing Others. Chapter 5: Attitudes and Persuasion. Chapter 6: Close Relationships. Chapter 8: Helping and Hurting. Chapter 9: Group Dynamics. Full Table of Contents. This is a sample clip. Sign in or start your free trial.
JoVE Core Psychology. Previous Video Next Video. Next Video 7. Embed Share. Please enter your institutional email to check if you have access to this content. Please create an account to get access. Forgot Password? Please enter your email address so we may send you a link to reset your password. To request a trial, please fill out the form below. A JoVE representative will be in touch with you shortly. Prejudice can take the form of disliking, anger, fear, disgust, discomfort, and even hatred—the kind of affective states that can lead to behavior such as the gay bashing you just read about.
Our stereotypes and our prejudices are problematic because they may create discrimination — unjustified negative behaviors toward members of outgroups based on their group membership. Stereotypes and prejudice have a pervasive and often pernicious influence on our responses to others, and also in some cases on our own behaviors.
To take one example, social psychological research has found that our stereotypes may in some cases lead to stereotype threat — performance decrements that are caused by the knowledge of cultural stereotypes. In one particularly disturbing line of research about the influence of prejudice on behaviors, Joshua Correll and his colleagues had White participants participate in an experiment in which they viewed photographs of White and Black people on a computer screen.
Across the experiment, the photographs showed the people holding either a gun or something harmless such as a cell phone. Discrimination is a major societal problem because it is so pervasive, takes so many forms, and has such negative effects on so many people. Even people who are paid to be unbiased may discriminate.
Price and Wolfers found that White players in National Basketball Association games received fewer fouls when more of the referees present in the game were White, and Black players received fewer fouls when more of the referees present in the game where Black.
The implication is—whether they know it or not—the referees were discriminating on the basis of race. You may have had some experiences where you found yourself responding to another person on the basis of a stereotype or a prejudice, and perhaps the fact that you did surprised you. Perhaps you then tried to get past these beliefs and to react to the person more on the basis of his or her individual characteristics.
And yet, despite our best intentions, we may end up making friends only with people who are similar to us and perhaps even avoiding people whom we see as different. In this chapter, we will study the processes by which we develop, maintain, and make use of our stereotypes and our prejudices. We will consider the negative outcomes of those beliefs on the targets of our perceptions, and we will consider ways that we might be able to change those beliefs, or at least help us stop acting upon them.
Correll, J. The influence of stereotypes on decisions to shoot. European Journal of Social Psychology, 37 6 , — Broadly speaking, stereotype threat research is typically divided into three subdivisions — whether stereotype threat is present in a given domain, whether its presumable effects can be prevented or reduced, and the underlying mechanisms of the effects.
All three types of research are necessary — there is no use preventing it if its effects are nonexistent, but no change will ever occur if we do not first understand why it is happening and then develop strategies to overcome it. Research has come a long way in developing intervention strategies, and there now exists a wide variety of interventions that organizations can implement in order to reduce stereotype threat and its effects on employees. One issue concerning these interventions raised by researchers and organizational leaders is that many of the strategies, while sound in theory and laboratory testing, are not always applicable or practical in real-world practice, and therefore are not helpful to organizations Streets and Major, For example, one well-known intervention strategy within the stereotype threat literature is to increase minority representation within the organization Purdie-Vaughns et al.
Doing so has been shown to not only increase the value placed on diversity, but has also aided in the development of role models—a strong antecedent for the success of stereotyped individuals Marx and Roman, While this practice is undoubtedly effective, reorganizing personnel or modifying hiring practices requires major organizational change and expense. This intervention may not be attainable, particularly for smaller companies with fewer resources and opportunities to hire new personnel. It seems the main argument against implementing stereotype threat interventions in the workplace is cost and potential disruption to the work environment.
In the next section we describe intervention strategies that are no or low cost that can be integrated into existing training programs.
Ultimately the organization has to weigh the costs and benefits of implementing workplace interventions. Stereotype threat is triggered by subjective interpretation of situational contexts, which makes perceptions malleable through interventions.
Interventions target institutional, structural level features of the organization and also individual level factors related to subjective construals of environments Cohen et al. Effective interventions range from brief, low-cost interventions such as changing physical workplace environments to long-term, high-cost changes such as diversifying the workforce.
In this section we describe a range of stereotype threat reducing interventions that have been tested in laboratory and field settings, which are summarized in Table 1. Research has documented several environmental cues that can trigger stereotype threat, thus employers can be proactive in minimizing the presence of these cues in the workplace.
For example, halls decorated with photos of senior management and executives that represent Caucasian males may trigger doubt that women and minorities can advance in the organization. Do the magazines reflect a diversity of tastes and are they targeted to diverse audiences? Research has shown that perceptions of environments are not limited to physical workspace. Websites, employment offer letters, and virtual environments have all been shown to evoke similar appraisals of belonging, potential threat, and person-organization fit to that of physical environmental cues Ng and Burke, ; Braddy et al.
The design and content of websites, language used in various materials, and presence of stereotypes in virtual settings all have the potential to signal to diverse applicants and employees that they do not belong Walker et al. Organizational research has also shown that a stereotype-affirming environment leads members of stereotyped groups to question their belonging to that workgroup Elsbach, Women in technology perceived greater threat when working in environments that they felt were masculine in nature.
Physical markers within an environment include things such as masculine wall colors, breakroom paraphernalia such as calendars or refrigerator magnets, or a norm of vulgar language. Making the physical environment, particularly common areas such as the breakroom and lobby, more gender neutral will help to dispel the feeling that the organization favors one gender group over the other. In sum, employers should scrutinize physical and virtual workplace environments and messages to ensure that these cues are communicating the intended message that all employees are valued and belong.
A more pervasive environmental cue is lack of racial, ethnic, age, and gender diversity among employees. Being a numeric minority in an evaluative context such as the workplace is sufficient to trigger stereotype threat Inzlicht and Ben-Zeev, ; Murphy et al.
For example, women college students viewed one of two videos depicting a science conference. Those viewing the video in which women were underrepresented were less interested in attending the conference, anticipated feeling a lack of belonging at the conference, and showed a cardiovascular threat response to watching the video compared to women who watched a gender balanced video Murphy et al. Research on solo status documents the negative effects of being the only or one of few members of a racial or gender group in the workplace Saenz and Lord, ; Sekaquaptewa and Thompson, A non-diverse workforce can elicit mistrust and less commitment from minority employees Roberson et al.
Another reason a non-diverse workforce is problematic is there are fewer ingroup members to serve as role models for members of minority groups. If ingroup role models are not available, merely presenting members of underrepresented groups with stories of successful minority role models is effective in reducing stereotype threat von Hippel et al.
Although the organization may not have a very diverse body of employees, this does not prevent the organization from communicating its value of diversity to current and prospective employees. Although a color-blind policy indicating race does not affect performance or evaluations and employees are valued for their work ethic seems positive, this widely endorsed policy is viewed as exclusionary by minorities Plaut et al. Often a color-blind approach results in valuing a majority perspective by ignoring important group differences and overemphasizing similarities Ryan et al.
In contrast, a multicultural philosophy values differences and recognizes that diversity has positive effects in organizations Ely and Thomas, Minority groups report feeling more welcome when organizations have multicultural policies Bonilla-Silva, ; however, majority groups have reported feeling excluded Thomas, More recent research suggests an all-inclusive multicultural approach is most effective. This approach recognizes and values contributions from all groups, majority and minority, and all employees report feeling included with this philosophy Plaut et al.
Organizational behaviors that communicate the adoption of a multicultural philosophy are often based on awareness and sensitivity. For example, the creation of a specific position responsible for managing diversity issues can better equip the organization to address diversity-related concerns.
Diverse employees who are potential candidates for promotion could be identified and targeted in the promotion process.
Turnover rates for diverse employees could be specifically analyzed and interpreted. Organizations can implement training with all employee ranks that stresses the value of a diverse workforce Blanchard, ; Konrad and Linnehan, There are numerous strategies that organizations can undertake.
Research has shown that the adoption of multicultural practices such as these leads to attracting and retaining highly qualified diverse applicants Ng and Burke, ; Brenner et al. Conversely, if applicants perceive the organization is not welcoming of racial and ethnic diversity, they may be less likely to pursue employment with that organization Purdie-Vaughns et al.
As discussed previously, a negative consequence of stereotype threat is discounting feedback Roberson et al. Members of minority groups are particularly likely to mistrust feedback when it is in interracial or intergender contexts Cohen et al. A negative consequence for those giving critical feedback is the feedback withholding bias Harber, Wise feedback has the goal of clarity, to remove ambiguity regarding the motive for the feedback so that members of minority groups do not attribute negative feedback to racial or gender bias.
When framed in this manner, the purpose of the feedback is to help the employee meet the high standards. Field studies show that minority students given wise feedback showed more motivation to improve Cohen et al. The role of communicating high standards in wise feedback is also reflective of organization mindsets. An entity or fixed mindset reflects beliefs that intelligence is something humans are born with and that the capacity to increase intelligence occurs within innate boundaries.
This mindset promotes viewing mistakes and challenges as evidence of low intelligence. In contrast, an incremental or malleable view of intelligence suggests that intelligence is a result of learning and hard work and that anyone can increase their intelligence. In this mindset, mistakes are viewed as an important part of the learning process.
Research with adolescents Paunesku et al. Recent work has documented that organizations perceived to have fixed mindsets elicited more stereotype threat among women Emerson and Murphy, Organizations perceived to have a growth incremental mindset did not elicit threat and women reported greater trust and commitment to the organization and had higher performance Emerson and Murphy, In sum, supervisors should be trained in giving wise feedback.
Organizations should communicate to current and prospective employees the value placed on motivation, hard work, and effort. New hires are selected in part for their competencies, thus emphasis on effort will keep employees motivated to perform well and may reduce or eliminate stereotype threat Murphy and Dweck, ; Emerson and Murphy, One way that employers can empower employees to avoid experiencing stereotype threat is through reattribution training, or attribution retraining Walton and Cohen, When facing challenges common in the workplace, employees who attribute hardships to temporary, external factors are more likely to excel in the face of failure than employees who attribute setbacks to internal factors such as ability Weiner, Research has shown that providing alternative explanations for the perceived difficulty of a task can allow individuals the opportunity to attribute that difficultly to something other than their stereotyped group membership Wilson et al.
Providing alternative explanations may help to alleviate some of the anxiety caused by stereotype threat because it buffers self-esteem from negative self-evaluation. Research shows that reattribution training can be effective when inadequate instructions or guidelines are offered Menec et al.
These alternative explanations for poorer performance reflect external and less controllable circumstances, thus group membership is no longer the only plausible explanation for shortcomings in performance. The individual can now partially attribute performance to factors not associated with self-esteem. To illustrate this technique, consider the following scenario. For example, highlighting cases where individuals first felt like an outsider, but then developed a sense of community after joining an organization-related club.
When a new trainee experiences difficulty learning a new job skill, the trainer can emphasize that other new employees experienced initial trouble but mastered the skill after practice, which will diffuse the negativity of the setback.
However, attribution retraining is only successful when the employee is provided with the opportunity to grow and learn from their mistakes Menec et al. Employers who wish to implement this intervention should consider the training opportunities available to new and current employees and expand resources as necessary to support development opportunities. Attribution retraining must not be confused with simply providing plausible excuses for employees or lying to employees about why they may have failed.
Additionally, attribution retraining should not give employees a guilt-free outlet for regular underperformance. Rather, the goal of attribution retraining should be to remind employees of any existing difficult circumstances which may be stalling performance, not create them Roberson and Kulik, Therefore, managers ought to utilize this strategy only when the following criteria are met: 1 when a stereotyped employee is presumably struggling due to stereotype threat; 2 when actual difficult circumstances may be preventing employees from succeeding; and 3 when underperformance is understandable and not crucial to typical job performance.
Meeting these criteria will insure that attribution retraining is targeted at combating stereotype threat among truly capable employees. Although attribution retraining will not target the source of stereotype threat, it may provide additional resources to employees who are having trouble coping with it. One way in which stereotype threat can be actively removed from an evaluative performance situation is by simply reframing the task—that is, by using a description that does not evoke negative stereotypes about a social group.
Although diagnostic exams and workplace evaluations activate stereotype threat implicitly, explicitly describing an exam or evaluation as non-diagnostic for example, of intelligence is enough to eliminate the effects of stereotype threat Steele and Aronson, Research has also found that stereotype threat can be eliminated by explicitly stating that exams show no difference in performance based on stereotypes.
This method is quite practical because simply stating the gender and cultural fairness of an exam before it is administered can easily reduce stereotype threat effects.
In a workplace setting, describing evaluations as objective or fair may alleviate stereotype threat Kray and Shirako, That is, if an evaluation is conducted by more than one supervisor and focuses on behaviors and quantitative metrics of performance, evaluations may be less biased and may not evoke threat Austin and Villanova, ; Bommer et al.
Employers should evaluate testing or evaluation procedures to make sure the fairness of the metric is communicated to employees. An intervention that can reduce stereotype threat and improve performance is values-affirmation Sherman and Cohen, ; Sherman and Hartson, The intervention is based on self-affirmation theory, which states that affirming an aspect of the self that is valued and unrelated to a particular threat can buffer self-esteem and alleviate the threat Sherman and Cohen, Value-affirmation interventions have been implemented in school settings, typically having students write for 15—20 min about things that they value and why, often including this as a regular writing assignment throughout the academic term.
It also has reduced stereotype threat and increased sense of belonging among minorities Cohen et al. Research suggests the key mechanism for values-affirmation interventions is to have participants write about social belonging Shnabel et al. Recent research has applied values-affirmation interventions in the workplace and found improved performance and retention Cable et al.
Cable et al. This communicated to the employees that all inputs were valued and important, and resulted in decreased experiences of stereotype threat among employees. Wiesenfeld et al. Results indicated that witnessing the unfair treatment, which is theorized to threaten self-integrity, inhibited performance on a subsequent task. Conversely, when the layoff was perceived as fair, participants were less likely to report self-consciousness as opposed to the unfair condition.
In other words, when affected employees perceive a threat to their self-esteem, they alter how they evaluate themselves and exhibit performance detriments.
Organizations can implement brief values-affirmation interventions by providing employees with opportunities to express their values and things important in their non-work life that may boost their sense of belonging to the organization. For example, opening a business meeting by asking for announcements about recent life events such as birthdays, births, weddings, graduations, and other such positive activities highlights that organizations care about the whole person and reminds employees of the broader spectrum of their values besides their contribution to the workplace see Lepper and Woolverton, Sharing such personal stories will likely improve interpersonal relationships among employees and with supervisors, thus improving sense of belonging to the organization Kray and Shirako, Harackiewicz et al.
Utility-value interventions aim to increase value and engagement in coursework and can combat the tendency to discount and devalue academics among students who experience stereotype threat.
To be effective, such interventions must help participants value the task and believe that they can succeed at the task. Finding utility-value in the task means that individuals see the importance and usefulness of the task to accomplish their goals, both in the immediate situations and in their lives.
The intervention increased perceptions of utility-value and interest, especially for students who were low in expected or actual classroom performance. Views of utility-value mediated the relationship between interests in the domain and academic performance in the domain.
This intervention has been effectively implemented with first generation college students, women in biology, and racial minority students, resulting in higher end-of-semester grades. Other research finds that perception of utility-values in coursework is positively correlated with hard work, interest, and performance Harackiewicz et al. To our knowledge, utility-value interventions have not been implemented in the workplace. However, like values-affirmation interventions, many field studies are first conducted in education settings and later applied to organizational settings.
A utility-value intervention would be useful for organizations when employees show lower motivation or interest in their work, particularly if they are performing poorly in a challenging domain like science, technology, engineering, and mathematics STEM. For example, when learning a difficult task employees can be asked to think about how the new learning will help them accomplish their work goals, but also how it is relevant to life outside of work.
However, it is important that utility-value interventions are employee-generated. That is, having supervisors tell employees that a new task is valuable is not effective and may backfire, leading to lower employee performance on the task and less interest see Canning and Harackiewicz, A combination of direct communication about the task utility and allowing employees to self-generate the value and utility of the task is most effective.
For employees lower in confidence in the task, it is more effective to apply the utility and value of the task to everyday life situations rather than to the work domain Canning and Harackiewicz, When women and racial minorities are underrepresented in the workplace, they may experience belonging uncertainty Walton and Cohen, Belonging interventions share stories with underrepresented groups to dispel the belief that they alone feel isolated or that their difficulties are unique to their gender or racial group Walton et al.
In academic field settings, college freshmen were given information that most college freshmen struggle with their sense of belonging in the beginning of college but that this uncertainly subsides and they develop a sense of belonging. Compared to a control group, students who received the belonging intervention had higher GPAs throughout the entire duration of their college years Walton and Cohen, Like reattribution training, the belonging intervention shaped the way college students interpreted their college experiences.
A naturalistic study conducted with science faculty members at a large university found evidence for belonging uncertainty Holleran et al. Interactions among male and female faculty members were monitored for content and participants were asked to rate the competencies of those with whom they interacted. Results indicated that men were much less likely to engage in conversation regarding research with women compared to men, and when such conversations were carried out, women were generally regarded as less competent.
No such competence contrasts were present for men. This imbalanced treatment appeared to evoke disengagement among women, such that inequity in socialization prompted a feeling of not belonging to the rest of the workgroup. This mirrors much of the belongingness literature regarding stereotype threat, in that performance and engagement tend to suffer for individuals who are not viewed as belonging to the group Holleran et al.
Two additional areas related to stereotype threat are closely tied to sense of belonging in university or the workplace and personal values. Research on communal goal affordances finds that women may be underrepresented in many male-dominated fields e.
A distinct but related concept is valuing interdependence, that underrepresented students, and by extension employees, may not see Western organizational values of independence as congruent with their values of cultural interdependence Stephens et al.
This section reviews research and interventions on communal goal affordances, and then interdependence and cultural mismatch. Current research suggests that women and racial minorities may experience stereotype threat in male- and majority race-dominated domains and avoid STEM disciplines because they do not see their personal life goals and cultural values as congruent with the expected quality of life of a STEM student, scientist, or engineer Diekman et al.
Many women and racial minorities have communal goals, or an orientation to nurture others, and are more likely to endorse communal goals then men and Caucasians Diekman et al. Societal stereotypes of STEM disciplines suggest that scientists, mathematicians, and engineers are typically male, work in isolation in a laboratory, value competitiveness, and have little time for family Barbercheck, Stereotypes of scientists make STEM unappealing fields of study or work for many women Cheryan et al.
One line of research examined stereotype threat through the lens of communal goals and utility-values discussed in the previous section. Smith et al. Particularly among women in male-dominated majors e. An intervention with science students combined a utility-value intervention with a communal goal intervention Brown et al. The culture of science emphasizes agentic values, which can deter women and minorities from pursuing STEM education and careers.
Brown et al. The communal goals literature has implications for organizations in STEM fields that want to recruit a diverse workforce and support them in the workplace. It is important for organizations to communicate valuing communal goals and providing employees with opportunities to conduct work that will help the community. As with diversity policies, this can be accomplish through websites, brochures, and job descriptions. Many companies already have such opportunities in place, and contribute to local communities as part of public relations efforts.
Employers should know that women, particularity in male-dominated occupations, may perceive greater fit with the organization, and therefore greater job satisfaction and performance Spanjol et al. A related value that can be undermined in academic and workplace settings, and decrease sense of belonging in organizations is interdependence. Research finds that low-income, first generation college students, and racial minorities are more likely to take an interdependent worldview, compared to an independent worldview, than middle class majorities Stephens et al.
Underrepresented students may perceive a cultural mismatch and lack of fit with US universities, which predicts lower sense of belonging and academic performance Stephens et al. To address this cultural mismatch in higher education, Stephens et al. First generation college students who received the interdependent letter had higher performance on an academic task.
For first generation college students, those who received an interdependent letter and perceived the academic task as less difficult had better performance compared to first generation students receiving an independence letter Stephens et al. The possible cultural mismatch for low-income and racial minority employees should be a concern for organizations.
The Stephens et al. As previously stated, an all-inclusive multicultural approach is most effective for employees from all backgrounds Plaut et al. When adopting diversity missions, philosophies, and policies, organizations can express their value of contributions from all groups, majority and minority, by including statements on how working in the organization can meet communal goals and the value placed on interdependent work.
A final intervention to reduce stereotype threat in the workplace is to simply talk about it. Johns et al. As a result of these instructions, women did not underperform on a math test in the stereotype threat condition. Another study found that instructing participants under stereotype threat that their anxiety may actually enhance their test performance eliminated the effect of threat Johns et al.
These studies suggest that providing people with external attributions for experiencing anxiety during evaluative performance situations may help them regulate the anxiety and reduce or eliminate stereotype threat. Directly confronting stereotype threat can create stereotype reactance in which individuals are motivated to disprove the stereotype Kray et al.
Kray et al. For example, Asian women underperformed on maths tests when reminded of their gender identity but not when reminded of their Asian identity. This is because Asian individuals are stereotypically seen as good at maths. In the same way, many of us belong to a few different groups — it is sometimes worth shifting the focus towards the one which gives us strength.
Gaining confidence by practising the otherwise threatening task is also beneficial, as seen with female chess players. One way to do this could be by reframing the task as a challenge. Finally, merely being aware of the damaging effects that stereotypes can have can help us reinterpret the anxiety and makes us more likely to perform better. We may not be able to avoid stereotypes completely and immediately, but we can try to clear the air of them.
Transforming Adnams towards a sustainable future — Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. Edition: Available editions United Kingdom. Become an author Sign up as a reader Sign in. Magdalena Zawisza , Anglia Ruskin University.
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