Socio -economic status and verbal performance: Can stereotype threat help to explain the gap

This study explored if negative social stereotypes about the academic ability of students from low socio-economic backgrounds are provocative of stereotype threat. Research questions included if stereotype threat impacts students from low socio-economic backgrounds, if subjective socio-economic status was more strongly linked to stereotype threat than objective socio-economic status and if stereotype activation and self doubt activation are mechanisms through which social class related stereotype threat operates. Participants completed a measure of stereotype activation and self doubt activation and a challenging verbal task in two different types of stereotype threat provoking conditions. In one condition they completed a measure ostensibly of intellectual ability and in the other social class identity was primed. It was hypothesized that participants low in socio-economic status would show depressed verbal performance when exposed to either stereotype threat condition, that subjective socio-economic status would be more predictive of stereotype threat than objective socio-economic status and that participants in stereotype threat conditions would show increased levels of stereotype and self doubt activation. Data were analyzed using multiple hierarchical regression techniques and did not support experimental hypotheses. However, when race was considered as a moderating variable, significant findings emerged, some of which were supportive of the study hypotheses. When the task was described as diagnostic of intellectual ability, results for White participants with low level of objective socio-economic status weakly mirrored study hypotheses; subjective socio-economic status did not appear at all related to stereotype threat. In contrast, racial ethnic minority participants low in subjective socio-economic status showed depressions in verbal performance in the expected direction. When stereotype threat was considered as a function of objective socio-economic status, results were reversed from experimental predictions, such that racial ethnic minority participants high in objective socio-economic status underperformed in stereotype threat conditions. Race may moderate the relationship between subjective and objective socio-economic status and stereotype threat.