Stereotype Threat Among Black Men Following Exposure to Rap Music

Abstract

Stereotype threat theory argues that reminders of negative stereotypes about one’s stigmatized identity can undermine performance, but few studies have examined this phenomenon among Black Americans. Drawing from the literature on the impact of mass media on stereotype activation, we examine whether exposure to rap music induces stereotype threat among Black men. In two studies, incidental exposure to violent/misogynistic rap, but not conscious hip-hop or pop music, impaired Black (but not White) men’s cognitive performance (Experiments 1 and 2), but only when the artist was ostensibly Black (vs. White; Experiment 2). These effects were conditionally mediated by stereotype activation, such that listening to a Black (but not White) rapper activated negative stereotypes about Black people for both Black and White participants but only impaired performance among Black participants (Experiment 2). This suggests that exposure to some forms of artistic expression may activate culturally shared stereotypes and obstruct academic success among stigmatized groups.

Keywords

prejudice/stereotyping social identity media influence stereotypes self/identity racial identity

Negatively valenced stereotypes about Black men are deeply embedded in the sociocultural fabric of the United States (Curry, 2017). Many researchers have pointed to mass media as a particularly significant contributor to the dissemination of such stereotypes (Bennett & Plaut, 2018). Rap music is one type of media that can activate negative stereotypes (Neguţ & Sârbescu, 2014; Rudman & Lee, 2002). Because Black people have historically been negatively stereotyped (e.g., violent, unintelligent, hypersexual), rap music itself is often stereotyped negatively, as well (Dunbar et al., 2016). We argue that exposure to cultural anti-Black stereotypes that society associates with rap music creates a situational threat that can impair Black men’s cognitive performance.

Psychological Effects of Violent/Misogynistic Rap Music on Stereotype Activation

Exposure to rap lyrics, particularly lyrics that are violent/misogynistic, has been found to lead to stereotype activation and negative attitudes about Black individuals. Rudman and Lee (2002) found that exposure to violent/misogynistic rap increased participants’ automatic anti-Black stereotypic associations as measured by a stereotype Implicit Association Task. Participants demonstrated a stronger tendency to associate Black people with negative attributes and White people with positive attributes after being exposed to violent/misogynistic rap lyrics. J. D. Johnson et al. (2000) found that both Black and White individuals exposed to violent rap were more likely to make dispositional, versus situational, attributions for Black men’s (but not White men’s) violent behavior. Exposure to rap reduced feelings of empathy among White people for a Black (but not White) person in need (J. D. Johnson et al., 2009). Finally, after being exposed to rap, participants judged Black (but not White) targets to be less qualified for a job when it involved a stereotyped domain (i.e., a job relying on intelligence) but not a nonstereotypical domain (i.e., a job requiring spatial skills; J. D. Johnson et al., 2000). In sum, several studies have indicated that violent/misogynistic rap can activate negative stereotypes about Black people.

Stereotype Threat

Despite the pervasiveness of negative representations of Black men in contemporary mass media, to our knowledge, no published studies have investigated the impact of exposure to such stimuli on Black individuals specifically. In particular, stereotype threat theory argues that reminders of negative stereotypes about an individual’s group can lead individuals to underperform in stereotype-relevant tasks due to concerns about confirming group stereotypes (Steele, 1997). Therefore, it is conceivable that exposure to violent/misogynistic rap may negatively impact Black men’s performance on stereotype-relevant tasks. Indeed, a recent meta-analysis indicates that mass media—such as advertisements, video games, and television shows—reliably contributes to stereotype threat among stigmatized group members more broadly (Appel & Weber, 2017).

In their original studies, Steele and Aronson (1995) found that describing a verbal test as diagnostic of intellectual ability led to impaired performance among Black participants. White participants did not show impaired performance in the stereotype threat condition because they are not stereotyped negatively in this domain. Numerous experiments have subsequently replicated the stereotype threat effect with other stigmatized groups (e.g., immigrants, women, older adults; see Pennington et al., 2016; Spencer et al., 2016, for reviews). Although effect size estimates among ethnic and racial minorities tend to be moderate to large (Nadler & Clark, 2011; Nguyen & Ryan, 2008; Spencer et al., 2016), recent meta-analytic estimates of effects among women tend to be modest in size. Such findings have led some scholars to question the validity of stereotype threat theory as a whole (e.g., Finnigan & Corker, 2016; Flore & Wicherts, 2015; Ganley et al., 2013). Moreover, likely due to the relative difficulty in recruiting large numbers of African American participants (Cundiff, 2012), very few peer-reviewed studies have actually examined stereotype threat among Black people specifically, despite the prominence of this group in the original theorizing (Nadler & Clark, 2011; Nguyen & Ryan, 2008; Steele & Aronson, 1995).

Stereotype Activation as a Mechanism of Stereotype Threat

Previous work has indicated that one mechanism through which stereotype threat may impact performance is the activation of negative stereotypes about one’s stigmatized identity (Spencer et al., 2016; Steele & Aronson, 1995; Steele et al., 2002). For instance, when under threat, Black participants have been shown to complete word fragments in more stereotype-consistent ways (e.g., LA_ _ as “LAZY” compared to “LACE”; Steele & Aronson, 1995; Study 3). Stereotype activation also mediates stereotype threat for women in math (Davies et al., 2002, 2005). In contrast, other studies suggest that stereotype threat may operate via a process of stereotype suppression (Macrae et al., 1994). That is, when their stigmatized identity has been made salient, individuals may actively attempt to suppress thoughts about the negative stereotypes about their group in order to protect their performance, which ironically ultimately leads to task underperformance (Logel et al., 2009).

In both studies that have observed stereotype activation and those that have found evidence of suppression, exposure to negative stereotypes generally leads to performance detriments only among individuals for whom the stereotype is self-relevant. Individuals who are not stigmatized in the task domain are not impacted by the social identity cue (e.g., Davies et al., 2002; Steele & Aronson, 1995). For instance, Davies et al. (2005) found that both men and women exhibited greater female stereotype activation after exposure to female stereotype-consistent advertisements, but only women’s math performance was impaired.

Other scholars, however, have argued that purported stereotype threat effects are merely the result of priming. That is, activating cognitive schemas related to some social category should increase stereotype-consistent behavior among all individuals primed with the stereotype (Appel, 2011; Dijksterhuis et al., 1998; Wheeler & Petty, 2001). For instance, participants performed more poorly on a general knowledge test after reading about an unintelligent character than after reading about a character who was not portrayed as unintelligent (Appel, 2011). This perspective argues that stereotype threat effects are independent of social identity.

Taken as a whole, some studies have provided evidence that stereotype threat exists, is mediated by stereotype activation, and only leads to impaired performance among individuals for whom the stereotype is self-relevant. However, competing theories suggest that impaired performance may instead result from stereotype suppression or may not be limited to individuals for whom the primed stereotype is self-relevant. Given the strength and prevalence of negative stereotypes about Black men in the United States but the paucity of research examining the impacts of these stereotypes on Black men themselves, additional experimental research is critical to investigate whether stereotype threat occurs (and may be more pronounced) in the context of Black men’s cognitive performance and to distinguish its mechanisms from general priming effects (Ryan & Nguyen, 2017).

Hypotheses

We hypothesize that (1) rap activates stereotypes about Black people, (2) rap affects Black individuals’ (but not White individuals’) cognitive performance, and (3) stereotype threat induced by exposure to rap is mediated by stereotype activation. We predict that these patterns will only obtain when (a) lyrics are violent/misogynistic rap (rather than socially conscious hip-hop or pop) and (b) when the artist is ostensibly Black (rather than White). We examine these predictions in two experiments.

Experiment 1

Method

Participants

A power analysis of the predicted omnibus interaction on cognitive performance, conducted in GPower (Faul et al., 2007), indicated that 158 participants would be required to have 80% power to detect a medium effect size (f = 0.25). We recruited 155 men students (76 Black, 79 White M _age = 19.71) who were compensated US$10 or received course credit for their participation. White participants, and some Black participants, were recruited from a university psychology research pool in Greater Boston. Most Black participants were recruited from Black campus groups at nearby universities. A 2 (race of participant: Black, White) × 3 (music type: violent/misogynistic rap, social conscious, pop music) between-subjects design was used for this experiment.

Materials

Music

Participants were exposed to three songs in each condition. All three songs from each condition were from each respected genre and performed by Black American men artists. The songs were matched as closely as possible in terms of duration and were pretested on perceived violent/misogynistic lyrical content.

Stereotype activation

Participants completed a lexical decision task (LDT; Davies et al., 2002) in which they were asked to identify as quickly as possible whether letter strings flashed in the center of a computer screen were words or nonwords. The premise behind the LDT is that participants for whom a stereotype is activated should be quicker to recognize words related to that stereotype than participants for whom the stereotype is not activated. Each letter string remained on the screen until the participant responded. The letter strings were words related to stereotypes about Black people (e.g., lazy, unintelligent), neutral words (e.g., table), and nonwords (e.g., ginks). The order of presentation of the letter strings was randomized for each participant, and just more than half of all letter strings were nonwords. Consistent with previous research, trials in which the participant responded incorrectly and/or had response trials quicker than 200 ms and/or slower than 2,000 ms were excluded (<5% of trials; e.g., Davies et al., 2002). The mean response time for stereotypical words was then calculated. Data from 15 participants were missing due to computer and human errors and two individuals with a lower than 70% accuracy rate were excluded from analyses, leaving reaction time data for 139 participants (M = 635.81, standard deviation [SD] = 135.56).

Cognitive performance

The task format resembled a standard Graduate Record Exam (GRE) verbal section. On the cover of the electronic test booklet was the name of a fictitious testing center “Massachusetts Aptitude Assessment Center.” The exam consisted of 20 problems drawn from the verbal section of actual GREs pre-August 2011. The format was identical to cognitive performance tasks used in the past (e.g., Marx & Goff, 2005) and consisted of three sections: reading comprehension, analogies, and sentence completions. Participants were given 25 min to complete the exam. Scores were divided by 20 to obtain a percentage correct (M = 0.69, SD = 0.14).

Procedure

Participants completed all portions of the experiment individually. Upon arrival to the lab, participants were greeted by a Black research assistant and told that that they would be participating in an experiment investigating long-term memory for music lyrics. Before listening to the music, participants were told that they would complete a personality questionnaire. The questionnaire was a filler task used to help disguise the true nature of the experiment. After completion of the personality questionnaire, participants completed demographic and music preference filler questionnaires. Participants were asked how important music was to them and how often they listen to music, how much they liked listening to a particular genre of music, and to rank order their favorite to least favorite genres of music. After the music rankings, participants were told that they were now going to hear three songs from one genre of music that may or may not be selected from one of their top three favorite music genres; however, all participants were exposed to violent/misogynistic rap, socially conscious hip-hop, or pop music. When participants had finished listening to all three songs, they were told that approximately 30 min would have to elapse in order to accurately test their long-term memory for music lyrics and that they would complete two other tasks (i.e., the LDT and GRE) to pass the time before the remainder of the memory study. After completion of both tasks, participants completed the task difficulty and motivation items (see Online Supplemental Material) and were thanked and debriefed.

Results

Cognitive Performance

A two-way between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to examine cognitive performance. The expected race by condition interaction was significant (Table 1).¹ As expected, White participants did not differ significantly based on music condition, ts < 1.39, ps > .16 (see Table 2). However, among Black participants, cognitive performance was significantly worse among those who listened to violent/misogynistic rap lyrics than among those who listened to either pop lyrics, t(149) = −4.36, p < .001, d = 1.22, or socially conscious lyrics, t(149) = −4.40, p < .001, d = 1.22.² Black participants in the pop and socially conscious conditions did not differ from each other, t(149) = 0.01, p = .991. Moreover, although Black and White participants did not differ from each other after listening to either pop or socially conscious lyrics, ts < 0.74, ps > .46, among participants randomly assigned to the violent/misogynistic lyric condition, Black participants performed significantly worse than did White participants, t(149) = 5.11, p < .001, d = 1.39. Together, these findings indicate that exposure to violent/misogynistic lyrics led to a significant detriment in GRE performance, but only among Black participants (Figure 1).

Table 1.
Summary Table of the Effects of Listening to Violent/Misogynistic Rap Music on Graduate Record Exam Performance Among Black and White Men (Experiment 1).

Source Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F p $η_{p}^{2}$

Participant race 0.12 1 .12 7.51 .007 .05

Music type 0.15 2 .07 4.88 .009 .06

Participant Race × Music Type 0.29 2 .14 9.37 <.001 .11

Error 2.28 149 .02

Total 2.84 154

Table 2.
Means, Standard Deviations (SDs), and Ns for All Conditions (Experiment 1).

Violent/Misogynistic Pop Socially Conscious

M SD n M SD n M SD n

Cognitive performance

Race

Black 0.56 0.10 27 0.71 0.10 24 0.71 0.12 25

White 0.73 0.15 27 0.73 0.13 26 0.68 0.12 26

Stereotype activation

Race

Black 605.33 180.27 21 619.41 106.82 22 717.08 167.87 25

White 604.32 94.72 25 621.83 123.92 23 639.22 94.58 23

Figure 1.
Effect of listening to violent/misogynistic rap music on Graduate Record Exam performance among Black and White men (Experiment 1). Note. Error bars indicate standard errors.

Stereotype Activation

Results for stereotype activation are presented in Table 3. We expected that exposure to the violent/misogynistic lyrics would activate negative stereotypes about Black people for both Black and White participants. Although the effect was in the predicted direction, the pairwise comparison of response times between participants in the violent/misogynistic and pop lyric conditions was not statistically significant, t(133) = −0.57, p = .570, d = 0.12 (see Table 2).³

Table 3.
Summary Table of the Effects of Listening to Violent/Misogynistic Rap Music on Stereotype Activation Among Black and White Men (Experiment 2).

Source Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F p $η_{p}^{2}$

Participant race 22,481.90 1 22,481.90 1.29 .258 .01

Music type 140,065.21 2 70,032.60 4.02 .020 .06

Participant Race × Music Type 48,418.53 2 24,209.26 1.39 .253 .02

Error 2,315,894.48 133 17,412.74

Total 2,535,993.14 138

Discussion

Experiment 1 provides evidence that exposure to violent/misogynistic rap can influence Black individuals’ cognitive performance. Black participants exposed to violent/misogynistic rap reported no less motivation to perform well and did not perceive the exam to be more difficult (cf., Fryer & Torelli, 2010). Because White participants’ performance was not similarly undermined, it is unlikely that the performance decrement among Black people is attributable to negative stereotypes about men in general, priming (cf., Appel, 2011; Wheeler & Petty, 2001), or another aspect of the lyrics.

Exposure to violent/misogynistic rap led to only a small and nonsignificant increase in stereotype activation (as measured by the LDT). Not only did exposure to violent rap fail to impact responses on the LDT, idiosyncratic stereotype activation did not predict performance. The results of Experiment 1 were not consistent with a stereotype suppression hypothesis. This suggests two possibilities: stereotype threat may operate via another mechanism (see Spencer et al., 2016, for a review) or rap exposure may increase stereotype activation but the LDT may not be sufficiently sensitive to capture it (Heyman et al., 2015). Indeed, the LDT is frequently used to induce stereotype activation rather than measure it (Wheeler & Petty, 2001) and has not previously been validated as a measure of stereotype activation about Black people. Moreover, stereotype activation following music exposure may not be the same for everyone. Participants likely varied on baseline exposure to the music chosen for Experiment 1, which may have led some to be more sensitive to the manipulation than others.

Experiment 2 measured stereotype activation using a more commonly validated measure, particularly in the context of activation of anti-Black stereotypes, that is, a word-fragment completion task (e.g., Steele & Aronson, 1995). To control for previous exposure, lyrics were selected from lesser known artists and we varied whether participants were led to believe the artist was Black or White. Violent lyrics are evaluated more negatively when they are believed to be rap versus lyrics from other genres. Nonrap genres, which are not strongly associated with Black stereotypes, may produce identical violent lyric content without being judged harshly (Dunbar et al., 2016). We argue that effects of rap on stereotype threat are due specifically to cognitive schemas about Black rappers, and not mere exposure to violent/misogynistic language, nor to rap in general. Thus, we hypothesized that rap exposure would increase stereotype activation (for both Black and White participants) only* when the rap lyrics were ostensibly performed by a Black rapper. However, because activation of negative stereotypes about Black people should not threaten White people, this stereotype activation should only impair cognitive performance among Black people.

Experiment 2

Method

Participants and Design

To estimate power to observe a three-way interaction on cognitive performance, we conducted a power analysis in SAS Version 9.4 (Lane & Hennes, 2018). We simulated data using the results of Experiment 1, using the results in the pop condition to estimate means and SDs for the White artist condition. This analysis indicated that 64 participants would be required to observe the three simple effects of interest with 80% power (i.e., the simple effect of participant race in the Black rap artist conditions, the simple effect of artist in the Black participant rap conditions, and the simple effect of music type among Black participants in the Black artist conditions). The analysis further indicated that 272 participants would be required to observe the omnibus three-way interaction with 80% power. Due to challenges recruiting large numbers of Black members of the target population, we ultimately chose to collect data from 200 men students from the Greater Boston area (100 Black, 100 White, M _age = 19.87) using the same recruitment strategy as in Experiment 1. This resulted in 99% power to detect simple effects and 70% power to detect the omnibus three-way interaction. A 2 (race of participant: Black, White) × 2 (race of artist: Black, White) × 2 (music type: violent/misogynistic rap, pop music) between-subjects design was used for this experiment.

Materials

Music

Participants were exposed to three songs performed by a single artist in each condition. Unlike Experiment 1 where all songs were performed by popular mainstream artists (e.g., Lil Wayne), Experiment 2 used songs performed by indie artists who were unfamiliar to participants. Using these artists’ songs ensured that participants had no familiarity with any of the artists or song lyrics beforehand. This also allowed the race of the artists to be manipulated without raising suspicion. Because these artists were unknown to participants, we were able to pair one of the four pretested images of adult men (two White and two Black) with the music audio. Because voice cues can result in accurate determination of the race and ethnic identity of a speaker (e.g., F. L. Johnson & Buttny, 1982; Newman & Wu, 2011), we chose songs that were all performed by Asian-American men YouTube indie artists (i.e., one rapper and one pop singer) that were matched as closely as possible in terms of song duration and popularity.

Stereotype activation

Participants completed a previously validated word-fragment completion task (Steele & Aronson, 1995). The task was made up of 22 word fragments with missing letters specified as blank spaces (e.g., _ _ _ _ KEN; CHICKEN or THICKEN), 10 of which were fragments that could be completed with words stereotypically linked to Black people and which have been used in previous research (e.g., chicken, poor, dangerous, welfare). Participants were instructed to work as quickly as they could on this task. Two participants failed to follow instructions when completing the word-fragment completion task (e.g., they copied the word fragment as is) and thus were not included in the analysis, leaving 198 participants for analysis (M = 2.15, SD = 1.33).

Cognitive performance

Participants completed the same 20-problem GRE test used in Experiment 1 (M = 0.69, SD = 0.14).

Procedure

The procedure for Experiment 2 was identical to that of Experiment 1.

Results

Cognitive Performance

A three-way between-subjects ANOVA was used to examine effects on cognitive performance (Table 4). Of note, we observed the predicted three-way interaction. There was a detriment to GRE performance only among Black participants who were exposed to violent/misogynistic lyrics attributed to a Black artist (see Table 5). Those participants performed significantly worse than (a) White participants in the same experimental condition, t(192) = −4.84, p < .001, d = 1.37; (b) Black participants who listened to pop lyrics attributed to a Black artist, t(192) = −2.93, p = .004, d = 0.83; and (c) Black participants who listened to violent/misogynistic lyrics attributed to a White artist, t(192) = −3.26, p = .001, d = 0.92. In contrast, White participants were generally not impacted by condition. In fact, White participants performed marginally better after listening to violent/misogynistic lyrics attributed to a Black artist than when listening to pop lyrics attributed to a Black artist, t(192) = 1.79, p = .075, d = 0.51, and nonsignificantly better than White participants who listened to violent/misogynistic lyrics attributed to a White artist, t(192) = 1.36, p = .176, d = 0.38. Together, these findings indicate that exposure to violent/misogynistic lyrics ostensibly performed by a Black artist leads to a significant detriment in GRE performance, but only among Black participants (Figure 2).

Table 4.
Summary Table of the Effects of Listening to Violent/Misogynistic Rap Music Performed by Black Men on Graduate Record Exam Performance Among Black and White Men (Experiment 2).

Source Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F p $η_{p}^{2}$

Participant race 0.13 1 .13 7.53 .007 .04

Artist race 0.01 1 .01 0.33 .569 .00

Music type 0.00 1 .00 0.04 .849 .00

Participant Race × Artist Race 0.08 1 .08 4.84 .029 .03

Participant Race × Music Type 0.09 1 .09 5.33 .022 .03

Artist Race × Music Type 0.03 1 .03 1.77 .185 .01

Participant Race × Artist Race × Music Type 0.10 1 .10 5.85 .017 .03

Error 3.25 192 .02

Total 3.69 199

Table 5.
Means, Standard Deviations (SDs), and Ns for All Conditions (Experiment 2).

Violent/Misogynistic Pop

M SD n M SD n

Cognitive performance

Black artists

Race

Black 0.58 0.12 25 0.69 0.13 25

White 0.76 0.10 25 0.69 0.13 25

White artists

Race

Black 0.70 0.13 25 0.67 0.13 25

White 0.71 0.15 25 0.68 0.15 25

Stereotype activation

Black artists

Race

Black 2.92 1.44 25 1.96 1.46 25

White 2.72 1.17 25 1.92 1.32 24

White artists

Race

Black 1.84 1.25 25 1.83 1.24 24

White 1.96 1.17 25 2.00 1.23 25

Figure 2.
Effect of listening to violent/misogynistic rap music performed by Black artists on Graduate Record Exam performance among Black and White men (Experiment 2). Note. Error bars indicate standard errors.

Stereotype Activation

A three-way between-subjects ANOVA was used to examine effects on stereotype activation as measured by a word-fragment completion task (Table 6). We observed the predicted two-way interaction. As expected, the three-way interaction was not significant. Stereotype activation was observed among both Black and White participants who were exposed to violent/misogynistic lyrics attributed to a Black artist. Participants who listened to violent/misogynistic lyrics attributed to a Black artist were more likely to complete word fragments using words stereotypically linked to Black Americans than were participants who listened to pop lyrics attributed to a Black artist, t(190) = 3.41, p = .001, d = 0.68, or participants who listened to violent/misogynistic lyrics attributed to a White artist, t(190) = 3.57, p < .001, d = 0.71 (see Table 5). Black and White participants did not differ from each other in any condition, ts < 0.55, ps > .58. Together, these findings indicate that exposure to violent/misogynistic lyrics ostensibly performed by a Black artist leads to a significant increase in stereotype activation among both Black and White participants (Figure 3).

Table 6.
Summary Table of the Effects of Listening to Violent/Misogynistic Rap Music Performed by Black Men on Stereotype Activation as Measured by a Word Completion Task Among Black and White Men (Experiment 2).

Source Type III Sum of Squares df Mean Square F p $η_{p}^{2}$

Participant race 0.01 1 0.01 0.00 .953 .00

Artist race 10.97 1 10.97 6.61 .011 .03

Music type 9.26 1 9.26 5.58 .019 .03

Participant Race × Artist Race 0.87 1 0.87 0.52 .470 .00

Participant Race × Music Type 0.13 1 0.13 0.08 .782 .00

Artist Race × Music Type 9.98 1 9.98 6.02 .015 .03

Participant Race × Artist Race × Music Type 0.04 1 0.04 0.02 .881 .00

Error 315.33 190 1.66

Total 346.75 197

Figure 3.
Effect of listening to violent/misogynistic rap music performed by Black artists on stereotype activation as measured by a word fragment completion task among Black and White men (Experiment 2). Note. Error bars indicate standard errors.

Mediation

To test whether stereotype activation mediated the effect of exposure to violent/misogynistic rap lyrics ostensibly performed by a Black artist on Black and White participants’ cognitive performance, we conducted a doubly moderated mediation analysis using Model 21 of the SPSS PROCESS macro (Darlington & Hayes, 2016). We hypothesized that exposure to violent/misogynistic lyrics would activate negative stereotypes about Black people among all participants, but only when the artist was believed to be Black. Moreover, we hypothesized that this stereotype activation would influence GRE performance, but only among Black participants. As expected, the overall doubly moderated mediation was significant (95% confidence interval [CI] = [−0.09, −0.01]). In particular, stereotype activation only significantly mediated the effect of violent/misogynistic lyrics when both the artist and the participant were Black (95% CI [−0.06, −0.005]). In other words, among both Black and White participants, exposure to rap lyrics only activated negative stereotypes about Black people when the lyrics were ostensibly performed by a Black artist. However, this stereotype activation only negatively affected Black participants (Figure 4).

Figure 4.
Effect of listening to violent/misogynistic rap music performed by Black artists on stereotype activation as mediated by stereotype activation among Black and White men (Experiment 2). Note. Numerical entries are unstandardized regression coefficients for the full model. Dashed lines indicate nonsignificant paths. p < .01. p < .001.

Discussion

Experiment 2 provides further evidence of rap’s influence on Black men’s cognitive performance. This effect was mediated by stereotype activation as measured by a word-fragment completion task. Exposure to purportedly Black rappers (but not White rappers nor Black or White pop artists) activated stereotypes about Black people among both Black and White participants. However, stereotype activation only led to stereotype threat among Black people. The design of Experiment 2 eliminates alternative explanations and suggests that it is specifically the cognitive representation of Black rap artists that leads to stereotype activation and subsequent performance detriments for Black individuals.

General Discussion

The experiments presented here provide evidence that exposure to violent/misogynistic rap lyrics can induce stereotype threat for Black men. Exposure to violent/misogynistic rap (but not socially conscious hip-hop or pop) lyrics performed by Black (but not White) artists impaired Black (but not White) participants’ performance on a cognitive task. The results were not consistent with a priming nor a stereotype suppression effect. Notably, Black participants exposed to violent/misogynistic rap music reported no less motivation to perform well on the exam than did Black participants in the other conditions and did not perceive the exam to be more difficult (cf., Curran & Kellogg, 2016). Furthermore, the experimental design of Experiment 2 eliminates alternative explanations such as baseline differences in rap exposure, a general association between violent language and Black people, or a general association between rap and Black people. Due to pervasive negative stereotypes about Black people in the United States, exposure to rap appears to have the unintended negative consequence of activating negative beliefs about one’s social group and intellectual ability among Black men.

Limitations and Future Directions

There are several avenues for future research. First, it is not known whether the effect of exposure to violent/misogynistic rap lyrics extends to Black women, who are also commonly stereotyped as aggressive and unintelligent (Goff, Thomas, et al., 2008; Smith et al., 2016). It is possible that any misogynistic lyrics, regardless of genre, will impair the performance of not just Black women, but women in general. Given that much of the media is both violent and misogynistic (Bushman & Anderson, 2001; Lizardi, 2010; Schooler & Flora, 1996), future research should explore whether exposure to any misogynistic content could lead to decrements in women’s cognitive performance. Previous research on the detrimental effects of gender-stereotypical television commercials on women’s quantitative ability suggests that misogynistic music may lead to similar outcomes (Davies et al., 2002).

Second, although rap exposure had no effect on White participants’ cognitive performance, this does not imply that this type of music has no effect on White individuals. Exposure to violent/misogynistic rap led to stereotype activation among White people, which previous research has demonstrated can lead to negative evaluations of Black individuals (J. D. Johnson et al., 2009). Additionally, individuals for whom the primed negative stereotype is not relevant to their social identity (e.g., men, White people) often experience a counterstereotypic boost in their performance known as stereotype lift* (see Walton & Cohen, 2003). Indeed, although not statistically significant in our data, White participants performed their best in stereotype threat conditions across both experiments (i.e., violent/misogynistic rap lyrics ostensibly rapped by a Black artist).

Third, exposure to other genres of music more stereotypically associated with White people (e.g., country, Southern rock, heavy metal; Wooten, 1995) may result in social identity threat for White people in relevant domains. For instance, White people’s concerns about appearing prejudiced may lead them to perform poorly in intergroup interaction domains (e.g., Bergsieker et al., 2010; Goff, Steele, et al., 2008; Shelton et al., 2010). In addition, White men have been shown to experience stereotype threat when compared to Asian men in math domains (Aronson et al., 1999). Future research should examine whether exposure to other genres of music may also impact attitudes and behavior.

Fourth, participants in the current research were recruited from selective 4-year research universities and were likely to be highly identified with academia and motivated to perform well academically. Individuals with these characteristics are particularly susceptible to stereotype threat (Steele, 1997). The effects found here may be weaker for individuals who are less strongly identified with the domain of academia. Future experiments should also explore other individual differences that may moderate rap-induced stereotype threat effects, such as strength of identification with one’s racial group (Davis et al., 2006).

Because a number of rappers have overcome adversity (e.g., Kendrick Lamar), graduated college (e.g., J. Cole), and become successful entrepreneurs and investors (e.g., Jay-Z), many are seen as role models for Black individuals. When Black individuals are reminded of role models who are perceived as members of the in-group and successful in domains where the group is negatively stereotyped, their cognitive performance is buffered from stereotype threat effects (Marx et al., 2009). Thus, exposure to rappers viewed as role models may be another resource for Black people to use as a buffer for stereotype threat, especially those who are strongly identified with both hip-hop and academia (Davis et al., 2006).

Conclusion

In light of the current results, Black individuals may choose to be more conscious of the music they listen to before evaluative situations (cf., Lewis & Sekaquaptewa, 2016). That said, we caution those who may erroneously conclude that exposure to rap lyrics makes Black people unintelligent or that rap is to blame for anti-Black stereotypes. Indeed, much of the media in the United States is violent and misogynistic (Anderson & Bushman, 2002; Carter & Weaver, 2003) and anti-Black stereotypes existed long before the emergence of rap music in 1973. We argue that exposure to cultural anti-Black stereotypes that society associates with rap music and Black rap artists creates a situational threat that can impair performance. Indeed, our findings indicate that identical lyrics performed by non-Black individuals do not lead to academic performance gaps. Ideological White supremacy traces back to the U.S. early foundations and continues to function consciously and unconsciously (Adams et al., 2008; Feagin, 2014). The experiments presented here contribute to the understanding of the theoretical and practical consequences that exposure to media, specifically hip-hop, can have on cognitive performance and indicate that this omnipresent “threat in the air” may be activated by even incidental exposure to stereotype-consistent cues (Steele, 1997).

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material, Rap_Lyrics_and_Stereotype_Threat_Manuscript_Revision_(SOM) - Stereotype Threat Among Black Men Following Exposure to Rap Music

Supplemental Material, Rap_Lyrics_and_Stereotype_Threat_Manuscript_Revision_(SOM) for Stereotype Threat Among Black Men Following Exposure to Rap Music by Simon Howard, Erin P. Hennes and Samuel R. Sommers in Social Psychological and Personality Science

Source	Type III Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	p	$η_{p}^{2}$
Participant race	0.12	1	.12	7.51	.007	.05
Music type	0.15	2	.07	4.88	.009	.06
Participant Race × Music Type	0.29	2	.14	9.37	<.001	.11
Error	2.28	149	.02
Total	2.84	154

	Violent/Misogynistic	Pop	Socially Conscious
Cognitive performance
Race
Black	0.56	0.10	27	0.71	0.10	24	0.71	0.12	25
White	0.73	0.15	27	0.73	0.13	26	0.68	0.12	26
Stereotype activation
Race
Black	605.33	180.27	21	619.41	106.82	22	717.08	167.87	25
White	604.32	94.72	25	621.83	123.92	23	639.22	94.58	23

Source	Type III Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	p	$η_{p}^{2}$
Participant race	22,481.90	1	22,481.90	1.29	.258	.01
Music type	140,065.21	2	70,032.60	4.02	.020	.06
Participant Race × Music Type	48,418.53	2	24,209.26	1.39	.253	.02
Error	2,315,894.48	133	17,412.74
Total	2,535,993.14	138

Source	Type III Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	p	$η_{p}^{2}$
Participant race	0.13	1	.13	7.53	.007	.04
Artist race	0.01	1	.01	0.33	.569	.00
Music type	0.00	1	.00	0.04	.849	.00
Participant Race × Artist Race	0.08	1	.08	4.84	.029	.03
Participant Race × Music Type	0.09	1	.09	5.33	.022	.03
Artist Race × Music Type	0.03	1	.03	1.77	.185	.01
Participant Race × Artist Race × Music Type	0.10	1	.10	5.85	.017	.03
Error	3.25	192	.02
Total	3.69	199

	Violent/Misogynistic	Pop
Cognitive performance
Black artists
Race
Black	0.58	0.12	25	0.69	0.13	25
White	0.76	0.10	25	0.69	0.13	25
White artists
Race
Black	0.70	0.13	25	0.67	0.13	25
White	0.71	0.15	25	0.68	0.15	25
Stereotype activation
Black artists
Race
Black	2.92	1.44	25	1.96	1.46	25
White	2.72	1.17	25	1.92	1.32	24
White artists
Race
Black	1.84	1.25	25	1.83	1.24	24
White	1.96	1.17	25	2.00	1.23	25

Source	Type III Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	p	$η_{p}^{2}$
Participant race	0.01	1	0.01	0.00	.953	.00
Artist race	10.97	1	10.97	6.61	.011	.03
Music type	9.26	1	9.26	5.58	.019	.03
Participant Race × Artist Race	0.87	1	0.87	0.52	.470	.00
Participant Race × Music Type	0.13	1	0.13	0.08	.782	.00
Artist Race × Music Type	9.98	1	9.98	6.02	.015	.03
Participant Race × Artist Race × Music Type	0.04	1	0.04	0.02	.881	.00
Error	315.33	190	1.66
Total	346.75	197

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

Portions of this research were presented at the 17th Annual Society of Personality and Social Psychology Convention in San Diego, CA, and the 2017 Society for Experimental Social Psychology Conference in Boston, MA. Data and materials are available on the Open Science Framework ().

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships Program award (NS9003-A800001), the Deborah Greenwald Summer Fellowship at Tufts University, and the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at Tufts University, all awarded to the first author.

ORCID iD

Simon Howard

Supplemental Material

The supplemental material is available in the online version of the article.

Notes

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