They tested this idea in a simple way. They told new groups of black and white Princeton students that the golf task they were about to begin was a measure of “sports strategic intelligence.” This simple change of phrase had a powerful effect. It now put black students at risk, through their golfing, of confirming or being seen to confirm the ancient and very bad stereotype of blacks as less intelligent.
White students told this vs not told this performed equally as well in this experiment, but the black participants had an even wider gap than the white students did in the “natural athletic ability” experiment.
