A group of social psychologists at Princeton University conducted a study in which they asked white male students who were “reasonably athletically inclined” to play ten rounds on a miniature putting course in a laboratory. Some were told nothing about the purpose of the test, while others were told that the test measured natural athletic ability. Those that were told the test measured their athletic ability performed much worse than those who were told nothing about what the test might mean.
In the second part of the test, black male students were given the same task, with the same instructions. Both groups of black students–the ones who were told it measured athletic ability and the ones who were told nothing–performed about the same. Only the white students were negatively impacted by the suggestion that their athletic ability was being measured.
The conclusion is clear.
White men can’t putt.
In all seriousness, this was just one of many studies designed to measure what is known as “stereotype threat,” or the reaction that people have to feeling at risk of confirming a stereotype about their race, gender, sexuality, etc. The black students in this study didn’t feel at risk of being perceived as non-athletic, whereas the white students did. To take the test a step further, the psychologists repeated it with a new group of students and a slight change in wording. Instead of saying it was a test of athletic ability, they told both the black and white experimental groups that the golf test measured “sports strategic intelligence.” The results were exactly the reverse of the first set-up. The black students who thought they were being measured on an intelligence scale performed worse than the control group, who received no such instruction; for the white students, both the control and the experimental group performed the same. In this case, with intelligence on the line, the black students were under the stereotype threat of confirming what they thought the conductors of the test already believed: that the black students weren’t as intelligent as their white counterparts, even though they all went to the same (highly competitive) university.
I first learned about stereotype threat in a diversity and inclusion course at my job, and this book was mentioned. I was curious to learn more, so I put it on my TBR list. The title of the book comes from a story told by New York Times columnist Brent Staples about his experience as a young African American psychology student. Walking the streets of Chicago, he couldn’t help but notice that white couples reacted to him with fear. They were responding to the stereotype that young, African American males are violent, and Staples’s efforts to defuse the situation by smiling at them only made matters worse. Out of nervousness, he started whistling tunes, including Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. To his surprise, this completely changed people’s reactions. He had neutralized the negative stereotype by changing the situation, essentially saying “your preconceived ideas about black people don’t apply to me, because I’m aware of white culture.” Kinda sad, really, but fascinating.
We are all prone to stereotype threat, although to what degree is impacted by how much you care about your performance. The higher performing an individual is, the more likely their performance will suffer. For example, Steele discusses experiments designed to measure stereotype threat as it pertains to women’s math scores on standardized tests. In one experiment, women’s math scores suffered just by showing the participants images reminding them that they are women. Nobody had to say “Girls suck at math,” because American women are already aware of that stereotype. Just reminding them of their double-X chromosomes was enough to negatively impact their performance. But here’s the catch: Say you’re a woman who doesn’t care about math and has no career ambitions in that field. You’re less likely to be impacted by the stereotype, because you aren’t as invested in the results. This seems to explain why the negative impacts of stereotype threat are seen at the highest levels, at the most competitive schools. The more an individual is invested in the result, the greater the pressure they feel to perform, the greater the negative impact.
At this point, you may be wondering, “How do we know that the negative performance is due to stereotype threat, as opposed to some other cause?” For example, maybe underperformance is simply caused by a subject being told so often that they can’t do something that it causes them to choke (a subtle difference, but a difference nevertheless)? Steele goes into great detail about studies that anticipate a variety of other possible causes and eliminate them from the experiments. The level of detail is this book’s strength if you are trying to convince a skeptic. For me, who was on board by the mid-point, it felt a bit repetitive. I only mention this to say the book does get somewhat dry at points.
Thankfully, Steele’s conclusion isn’t that we’re all doomed to underperform because of stereotypes, but to highlight ways that the threat can be eliminated. For example, the way a teacher gives feedback to students can drastically alter performance when they are at risk of stereotype threat. You may be surprised to learn that a touch-feely, “You can do it!” attitude isn’t always as good a motivator as simply expecting the student to do as well as everyone else. By confirming that they belong in a classroom where they may feel out of place, the instructor may put those student at ease.
This book is overwhelmingly hopeful. A major point of Steele’s research is that contingencies and situations are as responsible for causing individuals to feel marginalized as attitudes are. Still, he points out that our society has been marching on a path towards less racism for decades. I paused and noted the publication date: 2010, just two years into the presidency of the first African American President of the United States. I’m curious about how Steele’s perspective has evolved over the past several years. The time is ripe for an update this important work.