When stereotype threat makes me more or less intelligent: The informative role of emotions in effort mobilization and task performance

Abstract

Studies have shown that affective states could be used as diagnostic information for the assessment of situational demands and that, as such, they can regulate resource mobilization. Accordingly, it was found that negative feelings cause overestimation of situational demands, which then leads to effort mobilization during performance on easy tasks but disengagement on difficult tasks. The present research investigated whether this emotion–motivation link could explain the usual differences in achievement on easy and difficult tasks under stereotype threat (ST). In Study 1, participants in ST, no‐ST, and no‐ST with fear induction conditions had to resolve a series of easy logical problems. As expected, ST and no‐ST‐fear groups reported higher effort investment and achieved better performance than the no‐ST group. In the following two studies, the no‐ST‐fear condition was replaced by an ST condition in which the informative potential of threat‐related feelings was prevented before the task performance. Although participants under ST reported similar elevation in anxiety, the expected increase in easy task performance (Study 2) and decrease in difficult task performance (Study 3) were observed only in the standard ST groups. Taken together, our findings suggest that threat‐related feelings could govern motivational processes and account for the effect of ST.

[Retracted] Effective Strategies to Promote the Cultivation of Public Legal Consciousness from the Perspective of Social Psychology

“…Although China has made some achievements in legal awareness [ 6 , 7 ], there are still many problems. Compared with the development of other fields of consciousness, the development speed of legal consciousness is relatively slow, and there is a certain gap between legal consciousness and the pace of development of the times.…”

Does Stereotype Threat Affect Men in Language Domains?

“…Aronson et al, 1999). Because stereotype threat increases the cognitive load of a task by forcing the person to attend to both the task and the pressure of the stereotype, stereotype threat is thought to affect performance only on difficult tasks and tests (Drace, Korlat, & Đokić, 2019;Nguyen & Ryan, 2008). In a classic example of stereotype threat, female university students performed more poorly on a challenging math test when reminded of the stereotype that males are better than females at math compared to when the stereotype was not salient (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999).…”

The effect of overweight stereotype threat on children’s motor learning

“…Another mechanism that explains the detrimental effects of stereotype threat is the emotional-based approach (Drace et al, 2019). In this context, the mood behavior model (Gendolla, 2000) suggests that emotional states such as mood can affect the extent and severity of a particular behavior.…”

“…In a stereotype threat condition, focus on specific components of the movement consciously will put more pressure on one's working memory resulting in decreased motor performance (Deshayes et al, 2019). However, other theories such as the emotional-based approaches (Drace et al, 2019) have also partially described these negative effects.…”