Whistling Vivaldi
Through dramatic personal stories, Claude Steele shares the experiments and studies that show, again and again, that exposing subjects to stereotypes--merely reminding a group of female math majors about to take a math test, for example, that women are considered naturally inferior to men at math--impairs their performance in the area affected by the stereotype. Steele's conclusions shed new light on a host of American social phenomena, from the racial and gender gaps in standardized test scores to the belief in the superior athletic prowess of black men. Steele explicates the dilemmas that arise in every American's life around issues of identity, from the white student whose grades drop steadily in his African American Studies class to the female engineering students deciding whether or not to attend predominantly male professional conferences. Whistling Vivaldioffers insight into how we form our senses of identity and ultimately lays out a plan for mitigating the negative effects of "stereotype threat" and reshaping American identities.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
5mentions
3people
2011–2024years
60% recommend40% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- It seems like those calling for removing speakers are often trying to set identity contingencies. That is, a rule like, "if you are Douglas Crockford, then you can't speak at a conference". However, like identity contingencies against people based on gender, race, etc.. this kind of rule is disappointing because it assumes there is something inherently limited or bad about being Douglas Crockford.
What seems better to me would be asking for an explicit behavioral contingency on being a conference speaker. For example, "if you are going to make sexist remarks, then you cannot speak at the conference".
This makes clear that if you think Douglas Crockford is not fundamentally broken as a human, but could learn and become better at following the contingencies set by the conference, then he is fine to speak. It also opens room to work with Crockford to create a plan for him to speak at the conference, such as going over his speech beforehand, or sitting down with him afterward to discuss ways in which he may have violated the conference's standards.
He can't stop being Douglas Crockford, but I don't think that means he can't stop producing behaviors conference organizers find offensive or harmful (if he wants to).
P.s. check out the book Whistling Vivaldi for an interesting introduction to some potentially harmful (or beneficial) effects of identity contingencies.
- Lets just take this one line
"Why is that? Because African Americans have an average IQ of 85 and only 11-16% have an IQ > 100 (the national average)."
As someone with an interest in this (both as an African and someone who measures freakishly high on IQ tests way beyond my actual abilities, joined MENSA on a lark), I’ve had this argument over and over again. Most of this goes back to the IQ statistics cited in “The Bell Curve” as applies to Africans. The “Bell Curve” was a Storefront tract dressed in respectable clothing (sadly, every 20 years it has a successor, the most recent is Nicholas Wade’s “A troublesome Inheritance". The statistic in question was quoted as an average IQ of 75 for Black Africans. If you read the citations, it comes from a study quoted by Richard Lynn (infamous racist, google ‘Mankind Quaterly’). It is based on a study done in South Africa in 1927 by the Boer Govt (it actually concluded that Bantu Africans has an IQ of 70 and was one of the intellectual foundations for Apartheid). I leave it as an exercise for people to figure out why that study might have been slightly biased.
Keep in mind that an IQ of 80 is borderline retarded. So to believe this you have to believe that almost every black person you run into is either borderline retarded or just above that.
Now, you’ve been down voted into the grey, which I think is good, but just in case people think you’re being down voted for being ‘politically incorrect’ rather than for being a racist, here are some recommended readings
Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do - Claude M Steele
The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America - Steven Fraser (Editor)
The Mismeasure of Man - Stephen Jay Gould
The “people are where they are because of some innate fault” is a very attractive argument that has been used time and time again (I know I used it growing up upper middle class in a country with a lot of poor people. If only those people were hard workers like me and pulled themselves by their bootstraps). It is used time and time again against African Americans, and it is ironic to see it argued here in an article that is one of 2 (with the linked ’The Case for Reparations’) that clearly lays out the case as to why African Americans are disadvantaged in the U.S.
There are None so Blind as those who refuse to see.
- Don't get jtheory confused with me. I deliberately brought in race because opinions on race are shaped by culture, not because I felt like ending things in a flamewar. Opinions on race and gender are the kinds of things that are shaped by where you are in history. That is, they are shaped by the culture you grew up in. The main I'm not a racist asshole right now is because I wasn't raised to be. The main reason I don't take studies that show women and minorities are stupider than white men for granted, honestly, is because I've been raised to be extremely skeptical of those studies. I am honest about why I believe what I do, and I am terrified of the cultural biases that I'm not aware of. I wanted to make a point that beliefs on what a group of people are or are not capable of are highly dependent on culture, and the time period you find yourself in. You're going to have to work extra hard to convince me that you are actually aware of your cultural biases and that you came to you conclusions about gender through a completely honest inquiry, and right now, you're failing really hard.
Anyway, there are plenty of cultural explanations for female underperformance:
1. Stereotype threat. People who are stereotyped negatively in one arena of life will do worse when reminded of that stereotype. I recommend reading Whistling Vivaldi, by Claude Steele. You can force white American men to underperform in sporting tasks if you remind them that white men are stereotyped as being less athletic than black men. This effect is, of course, extremely detrimental to women who are studying math and science or conducting business at a very high level. The extra stress of not wanting to live up to a negative stereotype has the ironic effect of causing underperformance. 2. Sexism is still strongly present in many countries. See this study, for example, that societies with greater equality have more even gender balance in representatives to the International Math Olympiad. http://www.pnas.org/content/106/22/8801.abstract
- Sounds like this study (published in 2008):
"The space between us: stereotype threat and distance in interracial contexts"
It mentions being run at Stanford, and was pretty popular (Claude Steele discussed in his book Whistling Vivaldi).
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0022-3514.9...
- That is a horrible and illogical assumption to make. Stereotype threat is shown to exist for white males. There is a stereotype that white people are less athletic than black people. If you prime white males by reminding them of the stereotype that they cannot perform well athletically, they will do worse.
Source: pages 8-11, Whistling Vivaldi, by Stanford professor and stereotype threat researcher Claude Steele.
Stereotype threat has been shown to affect any group subjected to a negative stereotype. Steele's book is rife with examples. Stereotype threat can also be dispelled with enough encouragement and the right kind of mentorship. You can, for example, decrease the performance of Asian female math students by first reminding them of their gender, but then you can improve their performance, too, by reminding them of them being Asian.
I am appalled that you made the leap from "women experience stereotype threat" to "they are inferior and have universally inferior psyches" without considering "hmm, do other groups experience stereotype threat too?"
