title: Twenty Years of Stereotype Threat Research: A Review of Psychological Mediators.
abstract: This systematic literature review appraises critically the mediating variables of stereotype threat. A bibliographic search was conducted across electronic databases between 1995 and 2015. The search identified 45 experiments from 38 articles and 17 unique proposed mediators that were categorized into affective/subjective (n = 6), cognitive (n = 7) and motivational mechanisms (n = 4). Empirical support was accrued for mediators such as anxiety, negative thinking, and mind-wandering, which are suggested to co-opt working memory resources under stereotype threat. Other research points to the assertion that stereotype threatened individuals may be motivated to disconfirm negative stereotypes, which can have a paradoxical effect of hampering performance. However, stereotype threat appears to affect diverse social groups in different ways, with no one mediator providing unequivocal empirical support. Underpinned by the multi-threat framework, the discussion postulates that different forms of stereotype threat may be mediated by distinct mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Charlotte R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Pennington
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Derek
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Heim
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Andrew R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Levy
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Derek T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Larkin
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology; D013240:Stereotyping