Higher Self-Esteem is Linked to Greater Stereotype Threat Among Academically Low-Achieving Students

Abstract

As a stigmatized group, it seems likely that students whose level of academic achievement is low (LA students) would be vulnerable to stereotype threat. Therefore, we conducted a study on the role of stereotype threat and its possible interaction with self-esteem with 182 Chinese LA junior-high-school students. We developed a paradigm to induce stereotype threat about being LA and tested this in a pilot study, in which participants were asked to perform a mental rotation task while viewing stereotype threat information. In the main study, participants were randomly assigned to either the stereotype-threat condition or a control condition. Results showed that stereotype threat had a significant effect on LA students’ performance in that (a) participants in the stereotype-threat condition performed worse than those in the control condition did, and (b) the effect of stereotype threat was greater for high self-esteem individuals than for low self-esteem individuals. There are more aspects of the topic to be explored in future studies.