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

by Claude M. Steele

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 on the Raven’s Progressive Matrices IQ test, totally eliminating the typical racial gap in IQ scores; or why 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; or why 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; or why describing a conversation with two African American students as a learning opportunity could get white male students to move their chairs closer for a conversation on racial profiling.