Stereotype threat occurs when stigmatised group members receive information about the group’s expected behavior, potential, and outcomes.
Typically, stereotype threat reduces performance among stigmatised group members.

Stanford’s Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson of NYU, substituted a positive shared identity for typical stereotypes of women and African American participants in academic tasks. 
This intervention was associated with improvee performance compared with the control group of volunteers.

Stereotypes can be invoked by “implicit primes” even when people explicitly disavowed stereotypes, found University of Washington’s Anthony Greenwald and Mahzarin Banaji, then at Yale.
However, when volunteers focused on tasks rather than beliefs, participants were less likely to render discriminatory decisions.

Women and men resisted stereotypic negotiation behaviour when they activated a shared identity.
Participants maintained these less-biased behaviours despite receiving explicit stereotype primes, reported University of California, Berkeley’s Laura Kray, Leigh Thompson of Northwestern, and Columbia’s Adam Galinsky.
This finding suggests that vulnerability to stereotype threat can be modified and sustained.

People can distance themselves from stereotypes with contrast primes that provide alternatives to a stereotype, noted Lehigh University’s Gordon B. Moskowitz and Ian W. Skurnik of University of Utah.

Even members of dominant groups can be affected by stereotype threat:  Men from majority groups can perform less effectively after receiving a positive stereotype prime.
University of Oklahoma’s Ryan P. Brown and Robert A. Josephs of University of Texas suggested that this performance suppression among members of dominant groups can occur when participants sense a “pressure to live up to the standard”.

People can manage stereotype threat by mentioning the stereotype to activate stereotype resistance.
Another mitigation strategy is to focus on a shared identity that transcends the stigmatized group identity, and provide examples that contradict the stereotype.

• How do you manage stereotype threat for yourself and others?
• How effective have you found activating stereotype reactance?

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©Kathryn Welds