Abstract - Adele Greenberg

This paper investigates the hypothesis that academic test performance is not a reflection of intelligence and knowledge alone but can be affected by common stereotypes. Specifically, the findings presented in the paper suggest that academic achievement among immigrants is impeded not only by deficiencies in linguistic fluency, but also by the mere expectation that such deficiencies are a barrier. Social psychological research shows that people who belong to negatively stereotyped social groups can internalize common stereotypes, sometimes to the point that it is materially and psychologically costly (e.g., Cheung & Hardin, 2009; Sinclair, Hardin, & Lowery, 2006; Steele & Aronson, 1995). For example, in instantly classic experiments Steele and Aronson (1995) show that mere reminders of racial stereotypes cause African Americans but not European Americans to underperform on standardized tests. In this experiment, stereotype threat research was extended to non-native English speakers, and it was demonstrated that reminding non-native speakers of English of the stereotype that they have language problems causes them to underperform on a language task. Non-native English speakers completed an identical Stroop color-naming task in which the participant task was to judge the color of each word in a series as quickly as possible, either before or after answering questions about language barriers to non-native speakers. When participants completed a “verbal” task, performance was lower when non-native speakers were reminded of their language barrier than when they were not reminded of their language barrier, a performance decrement of almost 25%. However, when participants completed a “logic” task, performance was significantly better when they were reminded of their language barrier than when they were not reminded of their language barrier, a performance improvement of over 30%.

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