Whistling Vivaldi: How Sterotypes Affects The Stereotypes?

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There have been many instances where I have faced hardship in a classroom setting because of my identity. I had to face stereotypes of me being less capable both academically and socially because of my identity and this occurred mostly during high school. An identity can be what a person relates themselves to, such as but not limited to ethnicity and gender. The things that have a negative impact on someone’s identity are stereotype threat and identity threat. How a person sees their identity can greatly affect their performance in their everyday life. I am most susceptible to stereotype and identity threat when in a classroom setting because I am a quiet, dark skinned, male and this identity has been perceived to be less capable academically …show more content…

His book Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do is about his experience with learning what an identity is, the effects stereotype threat and identity threat have on the identities of individuals, how it affects their life and what can be done to get rid of such effects. The book highlights such terms as stereotype and identity threat and identity contingency. Where stereotype threat is a situation in which people feel they may confirm a stereotype about their particular social group. And identity threat is when a person feels pressured about negatively impacting the perception of their social group. These two terms go hand in hand and can be caused by identity contingencies which are situation in which environmental cues can affect how one perceives an identity, particularly one of their own. Like how an older person may enter a modern office space filled with younger employees, they might note how everyone is younger, the style of the office and the general ambience. This in turn could have this older person believe he is not a right fit for this job or that he may seem outdated which could later affect his performance in said job. These threats and contingencies happen all over the place and I am no

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