Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do (Issues of Our Time)

by Claude M. Steele

The first pattern is that despite the strong sense we have of ourselves as autonomous individuals, evidence consistently shows that contingencies tied to our social identities do make a difference in shaping our lives, from the way we perform in certain situations to the careers and friends we choose.

The second dimension of reality, long evident in our research, is that identity threats—and the damage they can do to our functioning—play an important role in some of society’s most important social problems.

Third, also coming to light in this research is a general process—involving the allocation of mental resources and even a precise pattern of brain activation—by which these threats impair a broad range of human functioning.

Over 85 percent of Americans, for example, get their jobs through acquaintance contacts. Racially homogeneous friendship networks can segregate people out of important networks, and thus out of important opportunities.

Education is not equal in this society, in either access or quality. Socioeconomic disadvantage, segregating social practices, and restrictive cultural orientations have all dampened the educational opportunities of some groups more than others, historically and in ongoing ways.

in the name of an identity that one sees as under siege, one can do things that one could never do as an individual, things that one could never do in one’s own name. In defense of one’s country, one’s religion, one’s region, one’s ethnicity, the image of one’s group in the world, one can do things that would otherwise be unimaginable.

So the kind of contingency most likely to press an identity on you is a threatening one, the threat of something bad happening to you because you have the identity. You don’t have to be sure it will happen. It’s enough that it could happen. It’s the possibility that requires vigilance and that makes the identity preoccupying.

They sacrificed profit for group advantage, even though the group they advantaged was made up on an essentially random basis.

our need for self-regard was powerful enough to make us care about even trivial group identities; that we could discriminate against other people about whom we knew nothing except that they weren’t members of a group we were part of, even when the group was trivial; and that all of this is true for virtually everyone on earth (although there is evidence that it is less true for people from collective societies).

All identities are local, I have been arguing, rooted in local contingencies.

Expatriation carries the risk of getting stranded in the new identity. Passing carries this risk too.

If you want to change the behaviors and outcomes associated with social identity—say, too few women in computer science—don’t focus on changing the internal manifestations of the identity, such as values, and attitudes. Focus instead on changing the contingencies to which all of that internal stuff is an adaptation.

when people with these identities are doing something, or are in a situation for which a negative stereotype about their group is relevant, they can feel stereotype threat; they can feel under pressure not to confirm the stereotype for fear that they will be judged or treated in terms of it. Identity threats like this—contingencies of identity—are part of everyone’s life.

Under limited circumstances, the motivation to disprove stereotypes can have constructive effects. But at precisely the point where performance and ease of functioning are most important—at the limits of one’s skills and knowledge as one tries to develop and grow at school and work—this form of motivation very often backfires.

Even though people don’t seem very consciously aware of it, an identity threat like stereotype threat is enough to cause anxiety as measured by blood pressure.

When we’re at risk of confirming a stereotype that we don’t like, and it’s about something we care about, our minds race.

if you continue for a long time to care and strive in an area where your group is negatively stereotyped, disadvantaged, and discriminated against, your acute reactions may turn into chronic health problems

a psychological intervention that leaves minority students less susceptible to negative stereotypes about their group’s abilities can significantly improve their performance in real schools for a long time.

Identity threat isn’t a passing threat that happens just on tests. It’s a cloaking threat that can feed on all kinds of daily frustrations and contextual cues and get more disruptive over time.

encouraging the view that abilities are expandable—could, by reducing the impact of stereotype threat in school, increase the grades and test scores of ability-stereotyped students.

But among students who focused on the expandability of intelligence, girls performed at the same level as the boys on this section—completely eliminating the usual sex difference on the test.

establishing trust through demanding but supportive relationships, fostering hopeful narratives about belonging in the setting, arranging informal cross-group conversations to reveal that one’s identity is not the sole cause of one’s negative experiences in the setting, representing critical abilities as learnable, and using child-centered teaching techniques.

when the effort to change identity-relevant cues and contingencies in a setting can go no further, helping people understand the safety they do have in a setting is immensely valuable—academically valuable.

When people are grouped or segregated on the basis of a characteristic like social class, race, or religion, it affects the resources and social capital that are available to them.

When explaining our good fortune, we may remember our hard work and may be a bit too forgetful about the advantages of our social capital network.

It wasn’t prejudice that caused them to sit farther from their black partners conversation. It was fear of being seen as racist

when they adopted a learning goal for their conversation, white participants no longer worried about being seen as racist.

We tried first to assure them that they wouldn’t be judged by what they said in the conversation, that they should feel free to speak their minds without fear of recrimination. It didn’t work.

Next, we assured them that differences in perspective were valued, that a range of perspectives was appreciated in these conversations. This didn’t work either.

When interactions between people from different backgrounds have learning from each other as a goal, it eases the potential tension between them, giving missteps less significance. Trust is fostered.

changing the conception of a test from being diagnostic of ability to being a puzzle that is nondiagnostic of ability brings black performance to the same level as white performance

changing the definition of a golfing task from its being a measure of “natural athletic ability” to its being a measure of “sports strategic intelligence” completely reversed the performance ranking of white and black participants;

reminding women math students about strong women role models just before they took a difficult math test could eliminate their typical underperformance on the test in relation to equally skilled men;

describing a conversation with two African American students as a learning opportunity could get white male students to move their chairs closer...

By changing the way you give critical feedback, you can dramatically improve minority students’ motivation and receptiveness. By improving a group’s critical mass in a setting, you can improve its members’ trust, comfort, and performance in the setting. By simply fostering intergroup conversations among students from different backgrounds, you can improve minority students’ comfort and grades in a setting. By allowing students, especially minority students, to affirm their most valued sense of self, you can improve their grades, even for a long time. By helping students develop a narrative about the setting that explains their frustrations while projecting positive engagement and success in the setting, you can greatly improve their sense of belonging and achievement—which if done at a critical time could redirect the course of their lives.