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To reach a high level of performance, say, to make it into the National Basketball Association, which is dominated by black players, the white athlete would have to survive and prosper against a lifelong gauntlet of performance situations loaded with this extra race-linked threat. No single good athletic performance would put the stereotype to rest. The effort to disprove it would be Sisyphean, reemergent at each important new performance.
example—there is a big difference between the “observer’s perspective”—the perspective of a person observing the behavior—and the “actor’s perspective”—the perspective of a person doing the behavior.
Thus the actor dominates our literal and mental visual field, which makes the circumstances to which he is responding less visible to us. In the resulting picture in our minds, the actor sticks out like a sore thumb and the circumstances to which he is responding are obscured from
We emphasize the things we can see. We emphasize things about the actor—characteristics, traits, and so on—that seem like plausible explanations for her behavior. And we deemphasize, as causes of her behavior, the things we can’t see very well, namely, the circumstances to which she is adapting.
“One’s reputation, whether false or true, cannot be hammered, hammered, hammered, into one’s head without doing something to one’s character”
self. This internalization damages “character” by causing low self-esteem, low expectations,
low motivation, self-doubt, and the like. And in turn, this damage contributes to a host of bad things, such as high unemployment, poor marriage success, low educational achievement, and criminality.
it.] I am a Stanford graduate (1998) who suffers from bipolar disorder. I related to a lot of the talk of contingencies and such in this way. Even when I am healthy, I worry that I will be thought of as crazy.
Mental health status was not mentioned in your list of race, religion, etc. It is often left out. However, I took that as a cue, as you called them, that I was not included, that my disorder was more than could even make the list. Please feel free to share my story with others without using my name….
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.
And sometimes, when a person doesn’t have the strength to defend that allegiance, he hides it.
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.
stereotype threat isn’t confined to particular groups, and if people have to have a susceptibility to experience it, that susceptibility doesn’t have to be more than a simple familiarity with the relevant stereotype—and a commitment to doing well in that area of performance.
