The contributions of stereotype threat research to social psychology

Stereotype threat describes the experience of being viewed through the lens of a negative stereotype. This social psychological phenomenon demonstrates the deleterious effects that negative societal stereotypes can exert on performance. The current article provides a general overview of the past two decades of stereotype threat research, and highlights the generality of these effects across a diverse range of tasks and populations. This article also appraises critically the mechanisms that have been proposed to moderate and mediate stereotype threat effects, interventions developed to ameliorate it, and provides future avenues for research. This theory showcases the importance of recognising how our social world, and not inherent differences between groups, may underwrite social inequality. In addition to its contribution to the field of social psychology, this theory has far-reaching implications for schools and educational reform, particularly in reducing achievement gaps among minority groups

Generalised inhibitory impairment to appetitive cues: From alcoholic to non-alcoholic visual stimuli.

Background: Prior research demonstrates that individuals who consume alcohol show diminished inhibitory control towards alcohol-related cues. However, such research contrasts predominantly alcoholic appetitive cues with non-alcoholic, non-appetitive cues (e.g., stationary items). As such, it is not clear whether it is specifically the alcoholic nature of the cues that influences impairments in inhibitory control or whether more general appetitive processes are at play. Aims: The current study examined the hitherto untested assertion that the disinhibiting effects of alcohol-related stimuli might generalise to other appetitive liquid stimuli, but not to non-appetitive liquid stimuli. Method: Fifty-nine participants (Mage = 21.63, SD = 5.85) completed a modified version of the Stop Signal Task, which exposed them to visual stimuli of three types of liquids: Alcoholic appetitive (e.g., wine), non-alcoholic appetitive (e.g., water) and non-appetitive (e.g., washing-up liquid). Results: Consistent with predictions, Stop-signal reaction time was significantly longer for appetitive (alcoholic, non-alcoholic) compared to non-appetitive stimuli. Participants were also faster and less error-prone when responding to appetitive relative to non-appetitive stimuli on go-trials. There were no apparent differences in stop signal reaction times between alcoholic and non-alcoholic appetitive products. Conclusions: These findings suggest that decreases in inhibitory control in response to alcohol-related cues might generalise to other appetitive liquids, possibly due to evaluative conditioning. Implications for existing research methodologies include the use of appetitive control conditions and the diversification of cues within tests of alcohol-related inhibitory control

The effects of stereotype threat and contextual cues on alcohol users' inhibitory control

Aim: Previous research indicates that users of illicit substances exhibit diminished cognitive function under stereotype threat. Advancing this research, the current study aimed to examine the effects of stereotype threat on alcohol users' inhibitory control. It also examined whether drinkers demonstrate a greater approach bias towards alcohol-related relative to neutral stimuli. Method: Fifty-five participants were assigned randomly to a stereotype threat condition, in which they were primed with a negative stereotype linking drinking behavior to cognitive decline, or a non-threat control condition. All participants then completed a modified version of the Cued Go/No-Go Association Test that exposed participants to alcohol-related and neutral pictorial stimuli and sound cues. Results: Stereotype threatened participants demonstrated a speed-accuracy trade off, taking significantly longer to respond to go-trials with equivalent accuracy to the control condition. They also showed reduced response accuracy to both alcohol-related and neutral stimuli in reversed instruction trials. Participants in the control condition were both more accurate and quicker to respond to alcohol-related stimuli compared to neutral stimuli. Conclusion: These results suggest that awareness of negative stereotypes pertaining to alcohol-related impulsivity may have a harmful effect on inhibitive cognitive performance. This may have implications for public health campaigns and for methodological designs with high levels of procedural signaling with respect to not inadvertently inducing stereotype threat and impacting impulsivity

Alcohol belongs here: Assessing alcohol-related inhibitory control with a contextual Go/No-Go Task.

There is a growing awareness of the need to explore the social and environmental milieus that drive alcohol consumption and related cognitions. The current study examined the extent to which alcoholcongruent and incongruent drinking contexts modulate alcohol-related inhibitory control using a novel go/no-go task. One hundred and eight participants (M age = 20 years; SD = 4.87) were instructed to inhibit their responses to visual alcoholic (alcohol/no-go condition, n = 50) or nonalcoholic stimuli (alcohol/go condition, n = 58) depicted in an alcohol-congruent (pub), incongruent (library), or context-free (control) condition. Participants in the alcohol/go condition exhibited higher false alarm rates (FAR) toward nonalcoholic stimuli and faster reaction times (RTs) to alcoholic stimuli depicted in the alcohol-congruent and incongruent context compared with the alcohol/no-go condition. In contrast, FAR toward alcoholic stimuli (alcohol/no-go condition) were not significantly affected by drinking context, but RT was faster when nonalcoholic stimuli were presented in alcohol-incongruent (i.e., library) compared with alcohol-congruent (i.e., pub) contexts. The discussion turns to potential explanations for these findings, suggesting that social drinkers might exhibit approach tendencies toward alcoholic images that translate into errors toward nonalcoholic stimuli, and that image complexity influences response inhibition

Beer? Over here! Examining attentional bias towards alcoholic and appetitive stimuli in a visual search eye-tracking task

Rationale: Experimental tasks that demonstrate alcohol-related attentional bias typically expose participants to single-stimulus targets (e.g. addiction Stroop, visual probe, anti-saccade task), which may not correspond fully with real-world contexts where alcoholic and non-alcoholic cues simultaneously compete for attention. Moreover, alcoholic stimuli are rarely matched to other appetitive non-alcoholic stimuli. Objectives: To address these limitations by utilising a conjunction search eye-tracking task and matched stimuli to examine alcohol-related attentional bias. Methods: Thirty social drinkers (Mage =19.87, SD = 1.74) were asked to detect whether alcoholic (beer), non-alcoholic (water) or non-appetitive (detergent) targets were present or absent amongst a visual array of matching and non-matching distractors. Both behavioural response times and eye-movement dwell time were measured. Results: Social drinkers were significantly quicker to detect alcoholic and non-alcoholic appetitive targets relative to non-appetitive targets in an array of matching and mismatching distractors. Similarly, proportional dwell time was lower for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic appetitive distractors relative to non-appetitive distractors, suggesting that appetitive targets were relatively easier to detect. Conclusions: Social drinkers may exhibit generalised attentional bias towards alcoholic and non-alcoholic appetitive cues. This adds to emergent research suggesting that the mechanisms driving these individual’s attention towards alcoholic cues might ‘spill over’ to other appetitive cues, possibly due to associative learning

Los estímulos contextuales visuales y auditivos impactan de manera diferenciada el control inhibitorio relacionado con el alcohol

Representing a more immersive testing environment, the current study exposed individuals to both alcohol-related visual and auditory cues to assess their respective impact on alcohol-related inhibitory control. It examined further whether individual variation in alcohol consumption and trait effortful control may predict inhibitory control performance. Method: Twenty-five U.K. university students (Mage = 23.08, SD = 8.26) completed an anti-saccade eye-tracking task and were instructed to look towards (pro) or directly away (anti) from alcohol-related and neutral visual stimuli. Short alcohol-related sound cues (bar audio) were played on 50% of trials and were compared with responses where no sounds were played. Results: Findings indicate that participants launched more incorrect saccades towards alcohol-related visual stimuli on anti-saccade trials, and responded quicker to alcohol on pro-saccade trials. Alcohol-related audio cues reduced latencies for both pro- and anti-saccade trials and reduced anti-saccade error rates to alcohol-related visual stimuli. Controlling for trait effortful control and problem alcohol consumption removed these effects. Conclusion: These findings suggest that alcohol-related visual cues may be associated with reduced inhibitory control, evidenced by increased errors and faster response latencies. The presentation of alcohol-related auditory cues, however, appears to enhance performance accuracy. It is postulated that auditory cues may re-contextualise visual stimuli into a more familiar setting that reduces their saliency and lessens their attentional pull

Alcohol-related attentional bias in a gaze contingency task: Comparing appetitive and non-appetitive cues

Background: Non-problem drinkers attend automatically to alcohol-related cues compared to non-alcohol related cues on tests of inhibitory control. Moreover, attentional bias for alcohol-related cues varies between problem and non-problem drinkers. Aim: To examine attentional bias towards alcoholic and non-alcoholic appetitive cues between problem and non-problem drinkers. Method: Forty-one university students (9 male, 32 female; Mage = 21.50) completed an eye-tracking gaze contingency paradigm, measuring the number of times participants looked at peripherally and centrally located stimuli (break frequency) when instructed to maintain focus on a target object. Stimuli consisted of appetitive alcohol-related (e.g., wine), appetitive non-alcohol-related (e.g., cola) and non-appetitive (e.g., fabric softener) stimuli. Participants were split using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) into non-problem (M AUDIT = 3.86) and problematic drinkers (M AUDIT = 11.59). Results: Problematic drinkers had higher break frequencies towards peripheral appetitive stimuli than towards non-appetitive stimuli, while break frequency was equivalent between appetitive cues presented centrally (alcohol and non-alcohol-related). In contrast, there were no differences in break frequency across stimuli type or cue presentation location (central or peripheral) for non-problem drinkers. Conclusion: In contrast to non-problem drinkers, people displaying more problematic consumption practices may find it more difficult to inhibit eye movements towards appetitive stimuli, particularly when in peripheral vision. This may suggest that attentional biases, as measured in terms of overt eye movements, in problem drinkers may be most powerful when the alcoholic and appetitive stimuli are not directly in field of view. An uncertainty reduction process in the allocation of attention to appetitive cues may help explain the patterns of results observed

Do Gender Differences in Academic Attainment Correspond with Scholastic Attitudes? An Exploratory Study in a U.K Secondary School

Research has examined how standardized tests give rise to gender differences in English and STEM attainment, but little research has explored gender differences in classroom-based attainment and the degree to which these correspond to differences in school-related attitudes. To explore the extent to which gender-achievement gaps in classroom-based performance parallel differences in self-perceptions and scholastic attitudes. An independent sample of first (n = 187, age 11–12, Study 1) and second-year students (n = 113, age 12–13, Study 2) from a UK comprehensive secondary school completed a questionnaire measuring academic mindset, self-efficacy, self-concept, competence beliefs, personal and social self-esteem, and endorsement of gender-subject and career stereotypes. Responses were then matched to their respective classroom grades in English, mathematics, science, and computing. Girls outperformed boys in English in their first year but reported lower global self-esteem and greater endorsement of science-career stereotypes. Conversely, girls outperformed boys in mathematics in their second year, but paradoxically reported lower self-concept and competence beliefs in mathematics and science, and higher competence beliefs in English. Across both studies, mindset, self-efficacy, competence beliefs, and social self-esteem were positively related to English attainment; academic self-efficacy was positively related to mathematics attainment; and mindset, self-efficacy, self-concept, and competence beliefs were positively related to science attainment. Gender-achievement gaps in classroom-based academic attainment are complex and highly nuanced; they appear to vary between school subjects across years and may not correspond with similar differences in self-perceptions and scholastic attitudes