Claude Steele, in his book “Whistling Vivaldi,” sheds new light on how pervasive
stereotypes can influence individual’s behavior and academic performance, and how they
perpetuate in different social groups. Stereotype threat, as defined by Steele, is “being at risk of
confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about a social group one identifies with.”
(Steele, 1997) It is a general phenomenon – standard predicament of life – that springs from
intersubjectivity. (p.5) We tend to spontaneously categorize and label people according to their
social groups. Whenever someone is placed in a situation where a certain stereotype can be
applied to themselves, they can be judged and treated accordingly. When individuals are aware
of this, they may become conscious of their identity and do not perform as well as they could.
Research has clearly shown the consequences of stereotype threat on academic
performance. Steele and other researchers presented studies testing the theory of stereotype
threat by confirming its negative effect on African American students’ performance on verbal
reasonings test. When told prior to the test that it measures intelligence, the students
underperformed. When race was not emphasized, there was no discernible difference in
performance compared to the white students. (p.50) The underperformance was caused by
stigmatization; the students were pressured to disconfirm the negative stereotype because they
felt that their abilities are under suspicion, (p.31) distracting them from focusing entirely on
solving the given questions.
One of the largest breakthroughs of his research was providing a better understanding of
who is vulnerable to such threats. Experiences of T...
... middle of paper ...
... Steele has clearly shown that performance in academic circumstances can be
impaired by sentience of one’s identity viewed through the social lens of stereotypes.
Ju Hee Lee (20426432) PSYCH 253 Book Review March 24
th
, 2014
References
Esch, C. v. (2012). Weatherhead School of Management. Stereotype Threat: Implications for the
Organizational Sciences. Retrieved March 21, 2014, from
http://weatherhead.case.edu/departments/organizational-behavior/workingPapers/WP-12-04.pdf
Steele, C. M. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: and other clues to how stereotypes affect us. New York:
W.W. Norton & Company.
Steele, C. M. (1997). A Threat In The Air: How Stereotypes Shape Intellectual Identity And
Performance.. American Psychologist, 52(6), 613-629.
Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2003). Stereotype Lift. Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, 39(5), 456-467.
One of the problems with this argument is that not everyone in society identifies with these stereotypes. If the audience does not find the characteristics to be true they could shut off thought, thereby defeating his purpose for writing the article. There are no statistics presented in this article. The lack of statistics or other evidence, such as results of surveys, could lead Mr. Leo’s audience to believe that these are his own perceptions. In the seventh paragraph, Leo makes references to Catholics, Asians, Republicans, and Africans.
In the essay The Way We Lie, Stephanie Ericsson writes that “All the ‘isms’-racism, sexism, ageism, et al.-are founded on and fueled by the stereotype and the cliché, which are lies of exaggeration, omission, and ignorance. They are always dangerous. They take a single tree and make it a landscape.” This quote is important due to the fact that stereotypes play a major role in many aspects of our society. In American society we have a tendency to pass judgment on people just because of a pre-existing stereotype that our society has formed on particular groups over the years. American Society tends to create stereotypes because of the simplicity it adds to our lives, but stereotypes can cause us to oversimplify the characteristics of others, encourage prejudice, and can even create many more severe dangers.
A stereotype is an exaggerated generalization used to describe a group of people. Discrimination is the unequal treatment of different categories of people. An example of a stereotype would be the generalization that a majority of African American youth are gangbangers or criminals. An example of discrimination would be the mocking of an Asian student’s accent each time they spoke in class. Stereotyping and discrimination still take place today whether in minority communities or in the communities of those who hold the majority, though these incidents are not as prevalent in non minority
Steele, C. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American Psychologist, 52, 6, 613-629.
"Stereotypes, Identity, & Belonging Lab." Stereotypes, Identity, & Belonging Lab (SIBL). n.d. n.p. Web. 04 Feb. 2014. .
A stereotype can have multiple meanings, but one of the most prevailing definitions is that it assumes that groups are representable through a consolidated
In many circles of the world, various groups of people distinguish themselves from one another through religion, language, culture, and sometimes gender. People also develop stereotypes about a particular group of people in order to identify them. However, most of the time, these stereotypes hold true for only some members of a group. Sometimes, these stereotypes are just plain misconceptions that do not even apply to the group it claims to. Stereotypes are placed on people because it is a way to easily identify what type of person or ethnicity an individual is. At one point in time, these stereotypes may have been true; however, in today’s modern society, most of these stereotypes are outdated and false, which leads them to turn into misconceptions. Usually, stereotypes are utilized to humiliate and degrade the person or group; they also do not provide any beneficial outcomes. Stereotypes focus on how a particular group acts because of the radical ideas and actions of the few, how a particular group looks, or how that group is physically lacking in some way. These stereotypes often lead to conflicts because the group does not appreciate the way it is being perceived. Seldom are the stereotypes placed on a group of people truthful and accurate. Some hardly even apply to the particular group people it claims to. It is true that how people are perceived has a big impact on how other individuals interact with them; however, people are not perceiving these groups correctly.
Inzlicht, Michael. Stereotype threat: theory, process, and application. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.
Stereotypes can be defined as sweeping generalizations about members of a certain race, religion, gender, nationality, or other group. They are made everyday in almost every society. We develop stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all the information we would need to make fair judgments about people or situations. By stereotyping, we assume that a person or group has certain characteristics. Quite often, we develop these ideas about people who are members of groups with which we have not had firsthand contact. Stereotyping usually leads to unfair results, such as discrimination, racial profiling, and unnecessary violence, all behaviors which need to be stopped.
"The Impact of Stereotyping on Young People." MediaSmarts. National Film Board of Canada, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
Stereotype threat is present in our everyday lives and it prevents people from doing things to their fullest abilities. It is the fear of confirming a negative stereotype about you resulting in weaker performance. An example where stereotype threat exists is in the case where African Americans do poorly on tests compared to Caucasian individuals. This occurs because the stereotype is that African Americans are intellectually inferior to Caucasian people. In a setting where the negative stereotype is brought to mind, African Americans will perform poorly on tests when in fact they are able to perform equally as well if not better than Caucasian individuals. (Article 1) Stereotype threat limits individuals in their performance in academics, sports or even something like driving. By reducing stereotype threat, performance in many areas can improve and people can perform tasks to their fullest potentials. Stereotype threat leads to underachievement in academic and work related situations. People may feel they cannot rise above the stereotype and become limited in their successes. (article 1 I think) The purpose of this paper is to inform on stereotype threat and how to reduce it, as well as to introduce my own investigation aimed at reducing stereotype threat.
In the text, we talked about during the course of this class is stereotypes, which the text defines as “widely held beliefs about a group of people (Intercultural Communication).” In my life and in my community,
Sparknotes.com, (2014). SparkNotes: Social Psychology: Stereotypes and Prejudice. [online] Available at: http://www.sparknotes.com/psychology/psych101/socialpsychology/section2.rhtml [Accessed 5 May. 2014].
Our social identities come from our race, our sex, our age, and our ethnicity and each of those identities comes with a set of stereotypes or expectations. There is not one group that does not have a negative stereotype about them. Not only are we not immune to the stereotype threat; we all commit acts of racial discrimination and prejudice. We start to stereotype a person. They stereotype us. We react to the stereotypes by allowing emotions and feelings of anger to take over. We are capable of doing terrible things in order to protect
Prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping are important topics at the cause of debating within social psychology. A stereotype is a generalization about a group of people, in which certain traits cling to all members, regardless of actual individual variation (Akert, Aronson, & Wilson, 2010). As humans, people assign objects and individuals into categories to organize the environment. Individuals do this for not only organization, but also survival. Is stereotyping inevitable? That is the question; according to Devine (2007), it is, but Lepore and Brown (2007) have to disagree. Devine believes that “stereotyping is automatic, which makes it inevitable.” On the other hand, Lepore and Brown are not convinced that stereotyping is automatic, and have claimed, after observation, that it depends on the individual.