How African-American College Students Protect Their Self Esteem

Abstract

FRICAN-AMERICAN and other minority students face negative cultural stereotypes that portray members of their ethnic groups as less intelligent than European-American students. These stereotypes are compounded by statistics suggesting that, on average, members of these ethnic minority groups score lower on achievement tests, have lower grade point averages, and attain lower levels of education than their European-American peers. Although one might anticipate that these negative stereotypes and educational outcomes would pose a threat to African American st the self-esteem of ethnic-minoresteem and academic ity students, research consisaverage equal to or i tently finds that African-AmeriEuropean-Amet can and other minority students have levels of self-esteem and academic self-concepts that are on average equal to or higher than those of their European-American counterparts. One way in which members of negatively stereotyped ethnic-minority groups might cope with academic threats is by psychologically disengaging their feelings of self-worth from their academic outcomes. Psychological disengagement is a defensive detachment of self-esteem from one's outcomes so that self-esteem is not contingent upon one's successes or failures. As part of a larger class of self-protective strategies, psychological disengagement is more likely to be evoked in evaluative situations that threaten a person's self-view. Thus, by psychologically disengaging one's view of oneself, a person can maintain previous levels of self-esteem despite information that implies one's inferiority.