Nick Brown | for The Phoenix

BY JACQUELINE SMALL

In print | Published October 1, 2009 — Updated October 07, 2009 17:04

At the invitation of the Department of Psychology, Joshua Aronson, professor of applied psychology at New York University, spoke Tuesday afternoon in the Scheuer Room of Kohlberg Hall about “Stereotype Threat and the Nature and Nurture of Intelligence.”

He showed that certain factions of the population perform poorly, especially academically, when they are aware of society’s conceptions that their race or gender inhibits them from success. These self-fulfilling prophecies are known as stereotype threats. His research, which has been highly influential in his field, focused specifically on the gap in achievement between African Americans and Caucasians.

Aronson pointed to some particularly disturbing statistics, such as the fact that one million black males are currently missing, including two percent of African American boys below the age of 14. “Nothing is being done about this, but imagine what we would do if one million white women just disappeared from the population,” Aronson said. “Our country would be ready to wage a war. And the worst part is, these kids are getting lost in our schools, too.”

He went on to argue that intelligence, rather than being fixed, is both fragile and malleable, able to be crushed and to be stretched.

While children of all races test equally well from birth to pre-school, the difference between blacks and whites increases with every year of school, with blacks falling further and further behind in each grade. Furthermore, depending on a person’s social context, the way that they act may vary. He stated that in his own experience, being in the presence of one of his own professors made him too nervous to speak clearly.

More seriously, he said that people who are reminded of negative stereotypes regarding their gender or race ultimately will not perform well. For example, in one study done by the Educational Testing Service, girls who were instructed to mark their gender after taking the AP Calculus Exam scored significantly higher than girls who had to mark their gender before. This is just one example of the harm these stereotype threats can cause.

The roots of these poor performances may lie in “anxiety, reduced memory capacity, and impaired self-regulation,” but Aronson stressed that it “is not the result of reduced effort. The test takers don’t just give up.” Interestingly, when given a positive role model from their own race or gender to keep in mind, minorities and women perform better. This may mean that the election of President Obama will help reduce the achievement gap.

After the talk, there was a question and answer period, during which many students asked what could be done to prevent these situations. Aronson stressed that it is important to give children a “growth mindset,” which allows them to see their potential to increase their knowledge. “The goal of education should be to improve intelligence, not to prove it,” he said.

Students responded positively to the lecture. “That was definitely the best psych colloquium I’ve ever been to,” Cecelia Osowski ’10 said. “I mean, Professor Andrew Ward sets a really high standard for psych lectures — they’re really entertaining, and the fact that Aronson could pass that standard is really impressive. It was also really interesting being able to attach his face to the studies that I’ve read for my classes.”

Alejandro Sills ’13, who also attended the lecture, said, “I thought the professor’s insight was very informative and it showed how important it is to understand how the smallest nuances can make the biggest differences. The solution to a large portion of the problem, as he portrayed it, is really within our reach.”

“I loved it; you could tell that he has known Andrew Ward, because they have a really similar way of presenting,” Katie Becker ‘10 said. “The way he tied it into its practicality was really interesting, and so was the way he provided ideas for how it can be eliminated.”

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