Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance of African-Americans

In this reading they talked about stereotype threat. If there is a negative stereotype about a group of people that someone is in, that person may conform to that group that people think they are in. They did experiments where African Americans participants had a negative stereotype about their intellectual skills and that affected their standardized test performance compared to white people. When African Americans took a verbal test and were told they were going to be compared to white's they did worse, then when they were told they would be compared to people of the same skin color.

African Americans who took the test were living up to the expectations that they thought those around them set for them. They were worried about what people would think of how they did, that their thoughts were not focused on the test. They had negative thoughts about how they were going to perform that it altered how well they could have done. I think there needs to be more people that show an interest in their learning and believes in what they are capable of doing. I think it was a good think that there is now an African American president because maybe that will make African Americans believe they can do just as well in life as anyone else. There needs to be more positive role models in their lives.