People afflicted by stereotype threat don't just give up. (If anything they try harder.) It's a physiologically measurable effect. Think of it as an added level

People afflicted by stereotype threat don't just give up. (If anything they try harder.) It's a physiologically measurable effect. Think of it as an added level of anxiety that non-afflicted people don't have to face. Studies have shown that it for examples results in lowered short-term memory capacity. No-one is immune to this effect. A study was done on white male engineering students on a math test. The ones that were told that the purpose of the test was to figure out why "Asian students are better at math" systematically underperformed compared to those who were not. Some people may want to brush this effect away and just claim that the disadvantaged groups don't "have it" or that everyone has advantages and disadvantages, but remember that this strikes disproportionately at members of some groups of people, through no fault of their own. Regarding research results, it was a popular article. The numbers exist and are closer to 15% than 1%. If you want to learn more, check out http://www.reducingstereotypethreat.org/ http://www.reducingstereotypethreat.org/, it has an extensive bibliography.