Research is proposed to test a general theory of stereotype vulnerability and protective disidentification and to examine the role these processes play in mediating educational and mental health outcomes among women and black Americans. The thesis of this research is that the achievement problems faced by these groups stem, in significant part, from a sense of vulnerability to stereotype-based suspicions of inferiority in achievement domains-- for women primarily in math, the physical sciences and engineering, for black Americans in all academic domains. In the short run, this """"""""stereotype vulnerability"""""""" can produce performance- interfering distraction and anxiety. In the long run, it can produce a chronic, protective disidentification with the domain so that outcomes in it no longer affect one's self-evaluation. Three lines of research will examine this reasoning. In the first, laboratory studies will test the assumptions of the theory and identify parameters of the phenomenon that may help alleviate its effects in real life schooling situations. In the second, research will examine the mediation and physiological consequences of stereotype vulnerability. A focus of this research is on exploring the effect of stereotype vulnerability on cardiac reactivities that may link it to the high prevalence of essential hypertension among black Americans. And third, an ongoing field/intervention experiment at the University of Michigan, will test the applicability of this reasoning to real life, in particular, whether redesigning the first year of college life so as to reduce stereotype and other vulnerabilities can improve the achievement and mental health outcomes of otherwise vulnerable groups.
| Steele, C M (1997) A threat in the air. How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. Am Psychol 52:613-29 |
| Steele, C M; Aronson, J (1995) Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. J Pers Soc Psychol 69:797-811 |
