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Stereotype Threat And Self-Affirmation: Reconsidering The Protective Influence Of Value Affirmation Interventions, Christopher L. Thomas, Jerrell C. Cassady

Journal of Research Initiatives

The current study was designed to examine the influence of self-affirmation on the executive attention and mathematical performance of learners confronted with stereotype threat. Participants (N = 206) were exposed to self-affirmation and stereotype threat manipulations, completed operation-span and letter memory tasks, and a series of high-difficulty modular subtraction problems. Our results revealed that self-affirmed participants demonstrated lower mathematical performance when problems were completed under high stereotype threat conditions. Further, our data revealed the self-affirmation and stereotype threat manipulations had no impact on components of executive attention hypothesized to underlie stereotype threat effects. These findings add to recent literature calling …