If stereotypes would have been studied two …show more content…
One major threat that causes the society to change drastically is the lowering in performance (Inzlicht 6). Many stereotypes revolve around the fact that a certain group of people are not as good at a specific task. This causes the stigmatized members to try and disprove it and then actually end up performing worse. When stereotype threat is high, members of stereotype groups do more poorly on standardized test than non stereotyped group members (Blascovich 225). But when stereotype threat is low, there are no performance differences (Blascovich 225). Stereotypes are linked to poor performance in a variety of domains, including races link to poor intelligence and genders relation to poor math performance (Lambert 22). The lowering in performance is a major threat that has become very common. Not only is it a threat to the society and everyone in it, but this threat creates many effects as well. A stereotype threat effect is “performance decrements in domains associated with the negative stereotype” (Simon 235). Stereotype threat effects can occur because affected groups expect to perform worse, causing low confidence and the using of too much or too little effort on a task (Simon 236). It is bad enough that these group members are performing worse because of other people’s judgements, but there are much worse threats that have developed in this world. A major threat that is directly related to lower performance is a decrease in working memory capacity. Working memory capacity is essential to someone's ability to remember and perform. A decrease in this leads to a decrease in performance and vice versa. One’s working memory capacity consists of their temporary storage of information and their attention capability (Schmader 441). When group members try extremely hard to dispel stereotypes, decreased working memory capacity can occur (Mason 137). Not only do these group members perform worse, but they also