Stone, Lynch, Sjomeling, and Darley (1999) created an interesting experiment about race and athletes. There were two hypotheses about this study. The first one was that most people “held a racial stereotype about athletes” (Stone et al. 1999, p.1213). Although this stereotype was overgeneralized and inaccurate, it was widely believed that Africans had better athletic abilities than Caucasians. The result indicated that African subjects had significant high scores compared to Caucasian subjects when they were noticed that the test was only related to athletic abilities. Consequently, the result supported the first hypothesis. The second hypothesis was that the performance of stereotype targets would be impaired dramatically when the situational cues of stereotype threat were given. The situational cue of stereotype threat in this study was the evaluation about the intelligent ability. Same as the athletic stereotype, the stereotype of low intelligence among Africans was inaccurate and overgeneralized. However, this stereotype was widespread. In the second condition, African students were noticed that the test was also related to intelligent ability even if the primary purpose of the test was still about athletic ability. The result indicated African students’ scores dropped dramatically, and became lower than Caucasian subjects. This …show more content…
This paper brief describes some possible solutions to help disadvantaged adolescents overcoming the negative influence of self-fulfilling prophecy and stereotype threat. It is noteworthy that the society has experienced some positive reformation to improve the existing unequal treatments towards disadvantaged groups. However, it is important to understand the inequality between advantaged and disadvantaged groups can be difficult to cope with. Improvement does not mean that unfair treatments towards disadvantaged groups are extinct. Furthermore, the solution of creating stereotype-safe environment also has its problems. If the enroll system approved the idea proposed by Logel et al. (2012), the new environment may become a stereotype threat environment to these advantaged adolescents. It is crucial to realize that the some unearned advantages such as being a Caucasian or being a member of an advantaged family are not individual faults. It can be unfair to create a stereotype-threat environment to them just because we want to help these disadvantaged adolescents. Further studies about these solutions are definitely