The Causal Mechanisms of Stereotype Threat

刻板印象威胁发生在意识到对某一特定领域的社会群体的负面刻板印象时，该群体成员的表现不佳(见Steele，1997)。例如，刻板印象的威胁导致非裔美国人在被描述为评估智力的测试中表现更差，白人在被描述为评估天生运动能力的任务中表现更差，女性在数学上表现更差。事实上，陈规定型的威胁是广泛的，在各种危急情况下影响到许多社会群体。由于刻板印象威胁的影响是如此之大，而且往往是由社会中代表性不足的人群揭示的，因此了解刻板印象威胁如何导致表现不佳是很重要的。换句话说，为什么会出现刻板印象威胁？关于刻板印象威胁如何产生影响的一个假设是，一个人对确认负面表现刻板印象的担忧会减少成功执行技能所需的工作记忆容量。但工作记忆的减少可能并不是刻板印象威胁如何运作的唯一解释，尤其是程序化技能(即主要在工作记忆之外以多步骤程序运行的技能)，如高水平运动、外科手术或编写计算机编程代码。以前的研究已经证明，当表演者被提示注意技能执行时，程序化技能会失败，这种方式会扰乱自动行为的流畅执行，而不是通过减少可用于表演的工作记忆容量(Beilock&Amp；Carr，2001)。在目前的工作中，我们提出刻板印象威胁可以通过多种机制损害绩效，并且特定技能在记忆中的实施和认知表现方式(即，工作记忆密集型技能与程序化技能)决定了负面绩效刻板印象的意识将如何损害这些技能。具体地说，我们考察了刻板印象威胁效应是如何作为所执行技能的工作记忆需求、执行技能的个人的工作记忆容量以及表演者的技能水平的函数来实现的。通过重点了解刻板印象威胁背后的认知机制，可以开发出对这一有害现象的更全面的解释，这反过来又产生了关于如何、何时以及对谁将揭示刻板印象威胁影响，以及最终如何防止这些影响的新预测。

Stereotype threat occurs when the awareness of a negative stereotype about a social group in a particular domain produces suboptimal performance by members of that group (see Steele, 1997). For example, stereotype threat leads African-Americans to perform worse on tests described as assessing intelligence, Whites to perform worse on tasks described as assessing natural athletic ability, and women to perform worse in math. Indeed, stereotype threat is wide-ranging and affects many social groups in a variety of critical situations. Because the implications of stereotype threat are so considerable and are often revealed by members of underrepresented populations in society, it is important to understand how stereotype threat leads to less-than-optimal performances. In other words, why does stereotype threat occur? One hypothesis for how stereotype threat exerts its impact is that one's worries about confirming a negative performance stereotype reduce the working memory capacity necessary for successful skill execution. But reductions in working memory may not be the only explanation for how stereotype threat operates, especially for proceduralized skills (i.e., skills that run as multi-step procedures largely outside of working memory) such as high-level athletics, surgical procedures, or writing computer programming code. Previous research has demonstrated that proceduralized skills fail when performers are prompted to pay attention to skill execution in a manner that disrupts the fluent execution of automated behaviors, rather than by reducing the working memory capacity available for performance (Beilock & Carr, 2001). In the current work, we propose that stereotype threat can harm performance by multiple mechanisms, and that how particular skills are implemented and cognitively represented in memory (i.e., working-memory intensive skills vs. proceduralized skills) dictate how they will be harmed by one's awareness of a negative performance stereotype. Specifically, we examine how stereotype threat effects are realized as a function of the working memory demands of the skill being performed, the working memory capacity of the individual performing the skill, and the skill level of the performer. By focusing on understanding the cognitive mechanisms underlying stereotype threat, a more comprehensive account of this detrimental phenomenon can be developed, which in turn generates novel predictions about how, when, and for whom stereotype threat effects will be revealed, and, ultimately, how they may be prevented.