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Stereotype Threat

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DOI: 10.1002/9781118528921.wbeaa134

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Stereotype Threat
Lauren E. Popham and Thomas M. Hess
North Carolina State University, USA
What is Stereotype Threat?
Stereotype threat occurs when one is con-
fronted by a negative, self-relevant stereotype
in a performance situation (Steele, 1997). Con-
cerns about confirming the negative stereotype
result in performance decrements on cog-
nitive tests by members of the stereotyped
group. When the stereotype is deemphasized,
however, differences between members of
stereotyped and nonstereotyped groups are
attenuated.
How is Stereotype Threat Induced?
Self-relevant stereotypes become salient
through situational cues, which then lead
to threat-related decrements. Cues that activate
stereotype threat may be blatant, moderately
explicit, or indirect and subtle (Nguyen &
Ryan, 2008). A blatant stereotype cue, for
example, would be an experimenter telling an
older participant that younger adults tend to
perform better than older adults on a cognitive
task that they will subsequently be asked to
perform. A moderately explicit cue would be
when individuals are reminded of subgroup
differences in ability but there is some ambigu-
ity about the direction of these differences, such
as indicating that men and women generally
perform differently on standardized math tests.
Indirect and subtle cues are those that involve
subconscious priming of stereotype-based
group differences, for example, by having
people indicate age, race, or gender prior to
taking a test or by emphasizing the diagnostic
nature of a high-stakes test. In each case, threat
leads to underperformance on the cognitive
task, but only in those who are members of
the stereotyped group. The size of the threat
The Encyclopedia of Adulthood and Aging, First Edition. Edited by Susan Krauss Whitbourne.
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118528921.wbeaa134
effect, however, tends to be larger when the
stereotype is only moderately explicit versus
blatant or subtle (Nguyen & Ryan, 2008).
Stereotype Threat in Older Adults
Stereotype threat was first identified by Steele
and Aronson (1995), who recognized that
African American students were under-
performing on standardized academic tests
because of the fear of confirming negative
racial stereotypes about their intellectual
abilities. In an experiment, they found that
characterizing a standardized test as diagnostic
of intellectual abilities caused African Amer-
icans to underperform compared to white
students, but characterizing it as diagnostic
of problem-solving abilities did not. Since
Steele and Aronson’s seminal experiment,
stereotype-based performance decrements
have been documented in numerous groups,
including older adults.
Negative aging stereotypes related to memory
and cognition are typically endorsed by young,
middle-aged, and even older adults (Hummert,
Garstka, Shaner, & Strahm, 1994). The work
of Levy (1996, 2003) has revealed that priming
older adults with negative aging stereotypes
reduces their memory performance and slows
their handwriting and walking speed, thereby
providing evidence that stereotype threat
can operate beneath conscious awareness to
degrade performance in older adults. Using
an explicit stereotype manipulation, Hess,
Auman, Colcombe, and Rahhal (2003) tested
the memory abilities of older and younger
adults who were exposed to a negative aging
stereotype versus a control group exposed to
a setting that deemphasized age differences in
memory ability. Older adults exposed to the
negative stereotype recalled significantly fewer
words than the younger adults in the same con-
dition, whereas in the control condition older
adults recalled just as many words as younger
2 STEREOTYPE THREAT
adults. Hess and colleagues also found that
the older adults who were highly invested in
the stereotyped domain were most vulnerable
to threat effects on recall. Similarly, Kang and
Chasteen (2009) observed that threat-related
decrements on memory performance were
worst among the older adults who identi-
fied with the stereotyped group. Although
most research with older adults has focused
on memory, stereotype threat effects have
also been observed with math performance
(Abrams et al., 2008) and in the workplace
(Buyens, Van Dijk, Dewilde, & De Vos, 2009;
Von Hippel, Kalokerinos, & Henry, 2013).
There are at least two important implications
of this work for the study of aging. The first
relates to the potential long-term consequences
that negative aging stereotypes and exposure
to threat can have on older adults. Prolonged
exposure to threat may have negative effects
in terms of both exposure to stress (e.g., in
the workplace) and the consequences of non-
participation in contexts or activities in which
threat might occur. For example, reducing
involvement in activities involving memory
may not only serve to avoid threat, but may
also negatively impact cognitive health. The
second major implication of this research
relates to assessment, and the possibility that
age differences observed in performance on
memory and other types of cognitive tasks
may not just reflect normative age changes in
ability. Specifically, inadvertent introduction
of stereotype threat in testing contexts may
result in an overestimation of age differences
in ability. Although it is highly improbable that
researchers would explicitly remind partici-
pants of aging stereotypes, subtle cues, such
as having older participants indicate their age
before a test or labeling tests as diagnostic of
memory ability, may prime aging stereotypes
and thus activate threat at a subconscious
level. As mentioned previously, subtle stereo-
type cues can operate beneath awareness to
influence physical and cognitive outcomes
in older adults (Bennet & Gaines, 2010).
Thus, it is advisable that memory researchers
attempt to minimize stereotype cues in order
to assess the full extent of older adults’ memory
abilities.
Mechanisms Underlying Stereotype
Threat
What are the mechanisms underlying stereo-
type threat effects? The social psychology
literature includes an abundance of studies
examining this question and two reliable
findings have been reported. First, stereotype
threat leads to evaluative concerns, which set
in motion self-regulation processes such as
monitoring one’s behavioral expressions and
regulating worrisome task-related thoughts
(Schmader, Johns, & Forbes, 2008). Such
self-regulation processes require cognitive
resources, thereby depleting the availability of
resources that are needed for performing well
on the task at hand. Schmader and Johns (2003)
have found threat-related decrements in young
adults’ working memory. Thus, it appears that
the diversion of resources to processes other
than the task at hand is a primary mechanism
of threat effects in younger adults. Interest-
ingly, evidence regarding a similar mechanism
underlying threat effects in older adults is weak.
For example, Hess, Hinson, and Hodges (2009)
and Popham and Hess (2015) found no evi-
dence of working memory impairment in older
adults subjected to threat (but see Mazerolle,
Régner, Morisset, Rigalleau, & Huguet, 2012).
Emotion regulation abilities have also been
found to moderate threat effects in younger
adults, but not older adults (Popham & Hess,
2015). That is, younger adults who reported
low levels of emotional control were vulnerable
to threat effects on working memory, whereas
younger adults who reported high emotional
control did not experience working memory
decrements under threat. Given that older
adults tend to report higher levels of emotional
control, this suggests the possibility that age
differences in the underlying mechanisms are
rooted in age-related improvements in emotion
regulation.
A second mechanism hypothesized to
underlie stereotype threat effects relates to

regulatory focus (Higgins, 1997). Nega-
tive stereotypes engage prevention-focused
motivation to not confirm the self-relevant
stereotype. Threat-induced prevention focus
translates to task performance that is slow
and cautious. This approach is maladaptive
for many cognitive tasks that are structured
to reward the number of gains rather than
the number of losses averted, which helps to
explain why a prevention focus may lead to
apparent threat-based decrements in some
tasks. A series of studies by Seibt and Förster
(2004) supported this hypothesis in younger
adults. Recent research with older adults is also
consistent with a regulatory focus account of
threat effects. For example, Hess, Emery, and
Queen (2009) demonstrated that threat was
associated with more conservative respond-
ing in older adults. Popham and Hess (2015)
expanded on this by demonstrating that threat
resulted in older adults adopting a more cau-
tious approach to a task that resulted in slower
responding but also reduced errors, both of
which are reflective of a prevention-focused
approach to task. Although younger adults
exhibited a tendency toward a similar type
of response, their behavior was more char-
acterized by the aforementioned working
memory account of threat effects. Barber and
Mather (2013) found similar results when
they examined older adults’ working mem-
ory under threat versus no-threat conditions.
They manipulated the reward structure of the
working memory test so as to differentiate the
working memory and regulatory focus mech-
anisms: Half of the participants were given a
gain-based reward structure, whereas the other
half were given a loss-based reward structure.
Older adults’ performance was impaired when
the task had a gain-based reward structure, but
their performance was enhanced when the task
had a loss-based reward structure, indicating
that regulatory fit was achieved. This latter
result is interesting in suggesting that threat
may not always result in performance deficits.
STEREOTYPE THREAT 3
Conclusions
While stereotype threat research continues to
explore the different situations under which
threat degrades cognitive performance in
older adults as well as the moderators of threat
effects, there is also increasing interest in exam-
ining the real-life and long-term implications
of aging stereotypes.
Stereotypes about age can become embedded
in a person’s worldview at an early age before
the stereotype applies to oneself (Bennet &
Gaines, 2010), and this can have negative con-
sequences on cognitive and physical outcomes
with age (Levy, 2009). In an examination of
longitudinal data, Levy, Zonderman, Slade,
and Ferrucci (2009) observed that people
who had internalized negative aging stereo-
types at midlife had increased probability of
experiencing a cardiovascular event nearly 20
years later. The behavioral pathway leading
to greater cardiovascular risk appears to be
that people who endorse aging stereotypes
believe that debilitating health problems are
inevitable in older adulthood. Such negative
perceptions of aging manifest themselves in
unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, and therefore
become a self-fulfilling prophecy (Levy, 2009).
The physiological pathway may be related to
the finding that older individuals have exag-
gerated cardiovascular responses to stress after
negative versus positive age stereotype primes
(Levy, Hausdorff, Hencke, & Wei, 2000).
Given the implications of internalizing aging
stereotypes on health and functioning, further
research is needed to examine other real-world
effects of aging stereotypes and interventions to
mitigate the detrimental effects of stereotypes
on older adults. In fact, Levy and colleagues
(2000) have recommended that intervention
programs aimed at improving cardiovascu-
lar health and cognitive functioning among
older adults would benefit from emphasizing
behaviors that help reinforce older individuals’
positive self-stereotypes and reduce harmful
negative aging stereotypes. Certainly, educa-
tion about the impact that negative stereotypes
and beliefs about aging can have on one’s own
4 STEREOTYPE THREAT
behavior and that of others will help reduce the
impact of threat in everyday life. In addition,
characteristics of one’s environment may also
have an important impact on experiences of
stereotype threat. For example, Abrams and
colleagues (Abrams et al., 2008; Abrams, Eller,
& Bryant, 2006) found that threat effects in
older adults were attenuated when older adults
had high levels of contact with individuals
of younger generations. Such findings have
important implications for understanding
both the mechanisms of stereotype threat
and the factors that may help reduce its
impact.
SEE ALSO: Ageism; Memory
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STEREOTYPE THREAT 5
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