Stereotype Threat as a Stress Induced Cognitive Deficit

描述（由申请人提供）：先前关于刻板印象威胁的工作（参见斯蒂尔，斯宾塞和阿伦森，2002，回顾）表明，被负面刻板印象针对的压力可能会导致被污名化的个体在复杂的认知任务中表现更差，当他们做任何事情来提醒他们在一个负面刻板印象群体中的成员身份时。虽然研究已经建立了这些刻板印象的威胁效应的普遍性，一个精确的和综合的模型的过程中，负面的刻板印象干扰性能仍然需要。该应用程序借鉴了现有的文献研究压力如何影响认知处理，并概述了一个理论模型，该模型集成了认知，生理和情感过程，通过降低个人的工作记忆容量来介导刻板印象威胁对测试性能的影响。该模型认为，消极刻板印象会降低测试情境中的表现，因为它们会给个体带来不一致的自我观点，从而诱导：a）试图调和不一致的认知过程，B）涉及增加应激激素和交感神经激活的生理应激反应，以及c）试图抑制焦虑感。这些过程中的每一个都被假设对个人的工作记忆能力有负面影响，工作记忆能力是任何复杂心理任务不可或缺的认知过程。三个初步实验的结果报告提供证据表明，工作记忆容量是刻板印象威胁对性能的影响的关键调解人。11个实验，建议将扩大这些发现，以确定刻板印象威胁干扰工作记忆容量和性能的过程。本研究的一个重要影响是，在获得更好的理解的压力相关的过程中，刻板印象的威胁，它变得更加可行的发展战略，使个人能够成功地科普社会耻辱。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Prior work on stereotype threat (see Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002, for a review) suggests that the stress of being targeted by negative stereotypes can cause stigmatized individuals to perform more poorly on complex cognitive tasks when anything is done to remind them of their membership in a negatively stereotyped group. Although research has established the generalizability of these stereotype threat effects, a precise and integrated model of the processes by which negative stereotypes interfere with performance is still needed. This application draws on existing literatures examining how stress impacts cognitive processing and outlines a theoretical model that integrates cognitive, physiological, and affective processes that mediate stereotype threat effects on test performance by reducing an individual's working memory capacity. This model proposes that negative stereotypes reduce performance in testing situations because they present the individual with inconsistent views about the self that induce, a) cognitive processing in an attempt to reconcile the inconsistency, b) a physiological stress response involving increased stress hormones and sympathetic activation, and c) attempts to suppress felt anxiety. Each of these processes is hypothesized to have a negative effect on an individual's working memory capacity, a cognitive process integral to any complex mental task. The results of three preliminary experiments are reported to provide evidence that working memory capacity is a key mediator of stereotype threat effects on performance. The 11 experiments that are proposed will expand upon these findings to identify the processes by which stereotype threat interferes with working memory capacity and performance. A significant impact of the present research is that in gaining a better understanding of the stress-related processes that are affected by stereotype threat, it becomes more feasible to develop strategies that will enable individuals to cope successfully with social stigma.