The Psychology of the Victim of Prejudice and Discrimination 531explorations of mediators for White participants implicated
performance anxiety and lowered expectations when the
task’s difficulty became apparent.
In sum, accumulating evidence suggests that the stereotype
threat effect is real and that its effects can be demonstrated
among historically stigmatized groups such as Black
Americans and White women as well as nonstigmatized
groups. Also, apart from the obvious importance of a person
being engaged and identified with the domain (e.g., math,
athletics, etc.), the precise mechanisms responsible for
the stereotype threat effect remain somewhat ambiguous.
The preceding studies have assessed an array of potential
mediators—such as self-handicapping and situational and
trait anxiety, as well as test anxiety, evaluation apprehension;
self-concept, and so on—with self-report measures. Weak
evidence of potential mediators has emerged, though not the
same ones across studies and groups. Perhaps different
mechanisms will ultimately be shown to be important for dif-
ferent target groups. What seems clear at present is that the
stereotype threat effect is not due to a lowering of effort, as
stereotype-threatened individuals typically work or try harder
than their nonthreatened counterparts. On the other hand,
stereotype threat seems to act as a distractor and an additional
pressure that reduces one’s effectiveness for successfully
completing challenging tasks at the limit of one’s ability in a
given domain.
Advocates of stereotype threat theory suggest that their
perspective is optimistic in that it points to a situational stres-
sor as a key factor in underperformance by negatively stereo-
typed and stigmatized groups, in contrast to dispositional
interpretations of innate inferiority in ability, genetic factors,
and so on. Stereotype threat theory also provides a viable ex-
planation for why academic achievement tests have lower
criterion validity for stigmatized groups in the U.S. and else-
where than for nonstigmatized ones. Once the deleterious ef-
fects of stereotype threat are identified and understood, steps
to counteract them in standardized testing and in academic
learning environments can be developed—a process that
Steele and his colleagues have already begun with some no-
table success (see Aronson, Quinn, & Spencer, 1998; Steele,
1997; see also the chapter on reducing prejudice by Dovidio
in this volume).
Relative Deprivation, Perceived Discrimination,
and Desire for Corrective Action
Paradoxically, members of oppressed groups do not always,
or even often, respond to stereotypes, disadvantage, de-
privation, and discrimination by seeking redress or social
change. Relative deprivation theory (RDT) is one conceptual
framework that tries to predict when and why members of an
oppressed group will respond to their disadvantage with
attempts to instigate social change, such as political protest.
As its name implies, RDT assumes that one’s feelings of de-
privation are not absolute but instead depend on the individ-
ual or group with whom one compares.
RDT proposes different types of deprivation as defined by
two dimensions. One dimension concerns the focus of com-
parison and defines the distinction between egoistic and fra-
ternalistic relative deprivation (RD). Egoistic RD occurs
when an individual feels deprived relative to others in their
membership group. Fraternalistic RD (also called collectivis-
tic RD by those of us preferring a gender-neutral label) oc-
curs when one’s group is perceived to be at a disadvantage to
one or more out-groups. The second dimension concerns the
cognitive-affective distinction. Cognitive RD concerns the
perception of inequality, whereas affective RD refers to re-
sentment over inequalities. Taken together, these two dimen-
sions define four types of RD. Reviews of RDT (e.g., Dion,
1986) indicate that of these four types, it is primarily affec-
tive, collectivistic RD (i.e., resentment over poorer treatment
of one’s group compared to other groups) that best predicts
desires and attempts at social change.
In a series of studies, I and my colleagues have pitted per-
ceived discrimination against measures of RD types to assess
their relative efficacy at predicting attitudinal measures of de-
sires to take corrective action (Dion, 2002). With groups in
Canada such as lesbians and gays, Chinese university stu-
dents, and women, we have consistently found that perceived
discrimination is a more powerful and consistent predictor of
reported desires to corrective action than are the different RD
types, with the notable exception of affective, collectivistic
RD (e.g., Birt & Dion, 1987; Dion & Kawakami, 2000). To-
gether, perceived discrimination and affective, collectivistic
RD predict desires to take corrective action in response to
group disadvantage quite well. Relatedly, Foster (2000) has
shown that global attributions of gender discrimination (i.e.,
seeing gender discrimination as affecting many situations in
one’s life) was also associated with greater proneness to sup-
port collective action in U.S. college women. Thus, the vic-
tim’s perceptions of discrimination—whether it is seen as
being global in its effects, whether it affects one’s group, and
whether it evokes a negative affective response—make a dif-
ference in stimulating desires to take corrective action and to
mobilize one’s efforts with others to create social change.ConclusionPerceived prejudice and discrimination are pivotal in the psy-
chology of ethnic and intergroup relations. The literature on