Considering how modest these interventions were, their impact was dramatic. They show that, at least in these samples, even modest attempts to reduce this threat totally eliminated the classic pattern of minority student underperformance—a strong indication that this underperformance was being caused by stereotype threat. They also suggest that the earlier-taken measures of potential used to predict later performance (such as the SAT in the college-level interventions and prior grades used in Geoff, Julio and Valerie’s middle school intervention) were themselves biased;
Good news: stereotype threat is fragile and can be overcome with minor but deliberate interventions. Bad news: stereotype threat is everywhere and effects pretty much every tool we have of measuring performance (almost by definition: the threat arises when there is the opportunity to ‘conform’ to the negative stereotype...that is when we are measured).
