“Whistling Vivaldi” by Claude Steele

This book seeks to explain how stereotypes of groups we belong to affect our performance. Why do minority students do worse in college? Why are women less represented in math and sciences? What do these stereotypes do to us? And ultimately, how can we lessen their effects?

Steele was part of the team that coined the term “stereotype threat” which is what happens when you remind someone of a negative stereotype of themselves and they subsequently perform worse. Remind African-American students that they are seen as less intelligent, and they will fare worse on a test. It’s been shown across demographics and throughout all sorts of situations. Here Steele takes you through his thought process and how he designed his experiments step-by-step, which is a really cool insight. He breaks it all down into terms that we can all understand in see within our lives, which makes it very relatable and applicable work.

Steele also shows that in trying to overcome these stereotypes, we tend to hinder ourselves in the process. Our brain gets so tied up in thinking about the stereotype that we cannot focus on the task at hand and subsequently do worse. So what can we do if we cannot simply overcome the stereotype with brute force?

Steele gives several suggestions. What has been shown to be very effective is a self-affirmation of values. Just thinking about what you value highly and affirming your sense of self has been proven to raise performance for an extended period of time. There is also how we give feedback. Instead of praising or discouraging, simply have faith in others to meet high expectations. This brings the focus away from them as an individual, and keeps it on the task at hand.

One of his findings that I thought was very important for white people to take into consideration, was that most white people aren’t prejudiced against African-Americans, they just are afraid of being seen as racist and instead avoid them. Which in itself is a form of bias. However, when they were encouraged to see their interactions as a learning process, the unwillingness to interact went away. I find this insight critical, since that’s what all white people (or people of any majority) really need to keep in mind. We are all in the middle of a learning process about each other and of different cultures; we cannot let the fear of messing up keep us from improving. Now more than ever, we need to make reaching out to each other a priority, rather than closing ourselves off out of fear.