Social Class is Dead. Long Live Social Class! Stereotype Threat among Low Socioeconomic Status Individuals

By Bettina Spencer, Emanuele Castano. 2007

222 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Stereotype threat effects occur when members of a stigmatized group perform poorly on a task because they fear confirming a negative stereotype that is associated with their ingroup. The present study investigates whether the observed achievement gap in standardized testing between high- and low-socioeconomic status (SES) American students can be due, in part, to this phenomenon. Participants were placed in one of four conditions that varied in level of “threat” related to socioeconomic status. Results show that when socioeconomic identity is made salient before taking a test, or when the test is presented as diagnostic of intelligence, low-SES students perform significantly worse, and report much lower self-confidence, than low-SES participants in the non-threatening conditions. When threatening conditions converge, performance of low-SES students is at its worst level. These results help us better understand the role stereotyping plays in the academic performance of low-SES students, and may partly explain the disparity on standardized test scores between low- and high-SES students.

Subfields: Gender Studies, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/429245cf79e9a08503acdfa19b025bf0fbe51344

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Citations in the corpus

Gender (mis)measurement: Guidelines for respecting gender diversity in psychological research (2019, background): “Including demographic measures after primary research instruments or procedures is also broadly recommended to avoid stereotype threat (see Steele & Aronson, 1995; Spencer & Cantano, 2007).”
The rich—love them or hate them? Divergent implicit and explicit attitudes toward the wealthy (2017, unknown): “…own status can influence both how they view themselves and their own behaviors (Johnson, Richeson, & Finkel, 2011; Kraus, Piff, & Keltner, 2009; Spencer & Castano, 2007; Stephens, Markus, & Fryberg, 2012), and how they relate to others (Fiske & Markus, 2012; Kraus, Côté, & Keltner, 2010; Piff,…”
Crowding Out Culture: Scandinavians and Americans Agree on Social Welfare in the Face of Deservingness Cues (2014, background): “Yet another mechanism could relate to self-reinforcing dynamics from the effects of so-called ‘‘stereotype threat’’ (see, e.g., Spencer and Castano 2007).”
Unpacking the inequality paradox: The psychological roots of inequality and social class. (2018, result): “…anxious about confirming negative competence stereotypes about their social class group and, as a result, performed worse than when the same test was framed as nondiagnostic (Croizet & Claire, 1998; see also Spencer & Castano, 2007; for a general argument about stereotype threat, see Steele, 1988).”
Tackling Educational Inequalities with Social Psychology: Identities, Contexts, and Interventions (2020, background): “…of social identity threat (especially stereotype threat; Steele & Aronson, 1995) and are thought to explain why a simple question about group membership can be enough to evoke stereotype threat and thus reduce performance only among low-status groups (Mello et al., 2010; Spencer & Castano, 2007).”
The Experience of Low-SES Students in Higher Education: Psychological Barriers to Success and Interventions to Reduce Social-Class Inequality (2017, background): “These negative stereotypes negatively influence low-SES students’ psychological functioning in terms of emotions and cognition in the college context (e.g., Croizet & Claire, 1998; Harrison, Stevens, Monty, & Coakley, 2006; John-Henderson et al., 2013; Spencer & Castano, 2007).”
A Road Map for an Emerging Psychology of Social Class (2012, unknown): “…framed as diagnostic of ability, students from lower social class backgrounds were presumably more anxious about confirming negative stereotypes about their social class, and as a result, performed worse than when the test was framed as not diagnostic of ability (see also Spencer & Castano, 2007).”
From social class to self-efficacy: internalization of low social status pupils’ school performance (2015, background): “This negative stereotype has been identified among adolescents and adults (Croizet and Claire 1998; Harrison et al. 2006; Régner et al. 2002; Spencer and Castano 2007) as well as among children (Désert et al. 2009).”
The magic of hope: Hope mediates the relationship between socioeconomic status and academic achievement (2018, background): “These studies suggest that an individual’s perceived SES is also related to academic achievement (Jebson & Moses, 2012; S. E. Johnson et al., 2011; Spencer & Castano, 2007).”