Stereotype threat theory as an explanation for the depressed performance on cognitive ability measures by African Americans

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of stereotype threat elicitors on the cognitive performance of African-Americans and to examine whether the stereotype threat effect can account for the discrepancy in performance between African-American students and Caucasian-American students on standardized cognitive tests. Unlike many previous studies, this study used no covariate for the primary analysis and employed a control condition that simulated a standardized testing environment. Participants were 60 Black and 60 White college students. The report also presents a balanced and critical review of the literature, along with a discussion on sources of bias. Results indicate that stereotype threat theory cannot account for the racial gap in cognitive performance. It is suggested that the interpretations of previous studies which support stereotype threat theory are predicated on statistical misuse, unrepresentative samples, and disregard for previous research on racial differences. Data were analyzed using ANOVA and ANCOVA to demonstrate the effect of the covariate.