Mitigating the Impact of Stereotypes on Academic Performance: The Effects of Cultural Identity and Attributions for Success Among African American College Students‪.‬

Introduction Differences between African and European Americans' academic and intellectual abilities and performance has been a perennial issue in the social sciences (Guthrie, 1999). Notwithstanding historic explanations that attributed these differences, either implicitly or explicitly, to inferior genetic predispositions and/or environmental conditions among African Americans, more recent research in this area has attempted to account for these differences. This line of research has centered around the notion of not necessarily blaming (stigmatizing) the entire group for what may reflect the product of various intra-personal characteristics of a significant minority of individuals, a consequence of overwhelming social, political, and situational forces (Thompson, 1999), or an interaction of both.