Rydell, R. J., McConnell, A. R., & Beilock, S. L. (2009). Multiple social identities and stereotype threat: Imbalance, accessibility, and working memory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 949-966.
In four experiments, this work shows that concurrently making positive and negative self-relevant stereotypes available about performance in the same ability domain can eliminate stereotype threat effects. Replicating past work, we showed that introducing negative stereotypes about women’s performance in math activated participants’ female social identity and harmed their math performance (i.e., stereotype threat) by reducing working memory. However, we demonstrated that concomitantly presenting a positive self-relevant stereotype (e.g., college students are good at math) increased the relative accessibility of females’ college student identity and inhibited their gender identity, eliminating attendant working memory deficits and contingent math performance decrements. Further, subtle manipulations in questions presented in the demographic section of a math test eliminated stereotype threat effects that result from women reporting their gender before completing the test. Results are discussed in light of current process theories of stereotype threat and manipulations shown to eliminate stereotype threat related performance decrements.