According to psychologist claude steele, negative societal expectations for gender and ethnic groups can produce a state of in which members of the group fear that their behavior will confirm social expectations.

stereotype threat

Explanation:

A stereotype threat is a situation where a notion based on a well-known stereotype will affect the performance or the attitude of anyone that can likely be included in that category.

To put an example a stereotype already posses a threat for almost any social activity and when measured in a laboratory or at an empirical basis it normally yields a negative effect:

If a stereotype threat is present normally a negative outcome will not favor any one of a gender or ethnic groups that is associated with:

In a study, some women were made to play chess against a male opponent, and since a stereotype assumes that women are less proficient, the study found out that the women played poorly (which reinforced the stereotype threat)

Later the same female players were told that their opponent was female performed and their performance was significantly high.

Female participants who were already aware of the stereotype of females performing worse at chess than males confirmed this by performing worse in their respective chess games.