Abstract
We provide evidence that stereotype threat, a phenomenon that causes stigmatized individuals to experience group-based evaluative concerns (Steele in Am Psychol 52:613–629, 1997; Whistling Vivaldi and other clues to how stereotypes affect us, W.W. Norton, New York, 2010), impacts affective aspects of Black identity as a function of majority versus minority ecological contexts. Black/African-American students, enrolled in either Africana Studies (Black ecological majority) or Psychology (Black ecological minority), completed private and public regard subscales from the Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity (Sellers et al. in Pers Soc Psychol Rev 2:18–39, 1998) at baseline (Time 1) and after being randomly assigned to a stereotype threat or no-threat/control condition (Time 2). In threat, participants were introduced to a ‘puzzle’ task as diagnostic of intellectual abilities, whereas in no-threat the same task was introduced as culture fair, such that people from different racial/ethnic groups had performed similarly on this task in the past. In Psychology, students under threat exhibited a simultaneous decrease and increase in private and public regard, respectively, a pattern shown in the literature to be associated with discrimination-based distress and lesser well-being in Black ecological minority environments. In contrast, Africana Studies students’ racial identity under threat remained intact. We discuss the protective effects of Africana Studies on racial identity and implications for educational reform.
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Notes
Black students enrolled in Psychology and Africana studies at SF State were comparable on several factors such as gender (78.5% female and 65.5% female, respectively), modal age range (18–24 in both), enrollment status (89.2 and 86.2% full time, respectively), and regional origin (100% from CA in both) (retrieved from, http://air.sfsu.edu/enrollment_reports, 8. 8. 2017).
The logistics of conducting a laboratory study at a commuter university in which most students hold at least one job proved prohibitive. We thus shifted to an online format. There were no statistically significant differences between the first 12 participants and the rest, all ps > .12.
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Oliver, A., Andemeskel, G., King, C.R. et al. ‘I’m Black and I’m Proud’: A Majority Ecological Context Protects Affective Aspects of Black Identity Under Stereotype Threat. Race Soc Probl 9, 313–320 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-017-9216-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-017-9216-y