Beilock, S. L., Jellison, W. A., Rydell, R. J., McConnell, A. R., & Carr, T. H. (2006). Causal mechanisms of stereotype threat: Can skills that don’t rely heavily on working memory still be threatened? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 1059-1071.
A number of recent studies suggest that stereotype threat (ST) harms performance by reducing the working memory capacity needed for successful skill execution. We ask whether reduction in working memory is the only mechanism by which ST can exert its impact. In particular, how might ST operate in a skill that does not rely heavily on working memory resources (e.g., high-level sensorimotor skills)? Three experiments examined ST’s impact on expert golf putting, which is not harmed when working memory is reduced but is hurt when attention is allocated to proceduralized processes that normally run outside working memory. Experiment 1 showed that well-learned golf putting is susceptible to ST. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that giving expert golfers a secondary task eliminates ST-induced impairment. That is, distracting attention away from the stereotype-related behavior in these cases eliminates the harmful impact of negative stereotype activation. These results are consistent with explicit monitoring theories of choking under pressure, which suggest that performance degradation can occur when too much attention is allocated to processes that usually run more automatically. Thus, ST alters information processing in multiple ways, inducing performance decrements for different reasons in different types of tasks.