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The goals of this study were to contrast stereotype threat and self-stereotyping accounts of behavioral assimilation to age stereotypes and to investigate the role of identity in that process. Based on random assignment, 89 adults in late middle-age (48-62 years; M = 54) were told that their memory performance would be compared to that of people over 70 (low threat condition), people under 25 (high threat condition), or they received no comparison information (control). Results showed that participants primed with the presumably non-threatening category "older adults" performed significantly worse on a word recall test than participants primed with the category "younger adults" and participants in the control condition. The results were moderated by implicit age identity-only participants who had begun making the identity transition into older adulthood were affected by the manipulation. These findings offer evidence that self-stereotyping and stereotype threat are distinct explanations for stereotype assimilation and offer support for a self-stereotyping account of behavioral assimilation to stereotypes.
Negative stereotypes impugn the competence of older adults, women, African Americans, and many other groups (Fiske, Cuddy, Click, & Xu, 2002). Ironically, negative stereotypes can create the very behaviors that define them. The present paper focuses on two theoretical perspectives that offer an explanation of behavioral assimilation to stereotypes: stereotype threat (Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002) and self-stereotyping (Levy, 1996).
STEREOTYPE THREAT
Stereotype threat is a situationally based fear that one will be judged on the basis of or confirm negative stereotypes about one's group (Steele et alv 2002). Stereotype threat can harm performance on difficult tasks and has been documented among African Americans, women, older adults, and other negatively stereotyped groups (e.g., Hess, Auman, Colcombe, & Rahhal, 2003; O'Brien & Crandall, 2003; Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999; Steele & Aronson, 1995; see Steele et al., 2002, for a review). Stereotype threat is not limited to low status groups. For example, the performance of White males on math tests can be harmed when they are threatened with stereotypes of Asian superiority in math (Aronson et al., 1999). Stereotype threat is a situational phenomenon: People only experience stereotype threat when a negative stereotype about their group is relevant to performance on a specific task.
Individuals who are highly identified with the group may experience greater susceptibility...