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Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues To How Stereotypes Affect Us (2010)

by Claude M. Steele(Favorite Author)

3.83 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

039306249X (ISBN13: 9780393062496)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

W. W. Norton & Company

review 1: Just finished reading "Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do" (2011) by Claude M. Steele. This is a severely underrated book that highlights a major problem everywhere, especially in light of globalising world.Everyone is a victim or prepetrator of a stereotype or two, intentional or not, and in many cases it inadvertantly affects our performances and conducts. Stereotype threat happens when one is casted under a negative stereotype (perceived or imposed) in a given setting and that leads to underperformance. And the book also highlights identity threat, the flip side of prejudice: it's a paradox that people can be classified as prejudiced or afraid to be seen as prejudiced (but his resultant action would still otherwise be judged as prejudiced).A... mores Steele would say, one doesn't sense his identity when he's surrounded by people like him; he senses it the most when he's not with people like him and gets viewed under a negative stereotype.
review 2: Social psychologist Claude M. Steele is the author of Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do. The book provides a description of the research and findings by Steele and his colleagues on stereotypes and identity and explains the “performance gap” between stereotyped and non-stereotyped groups. Their work has illuminated the phenomenon of “stereotype threat” - a fear that one’s behavior may in fact confirm the stereotypes related to one’s social category, e. g. race, sex, age, nationality, mental status, sexual orientation, religious/political affiliation, etc. When we care about our performance, a stereotype threat causes physiological and cognitive changes. Our blood pressure rises, we sweat, and the fear of confirming the stereotype causes our minds to race. As we monitor the threat, consider how likely our chances are of avoiding the threat and try to suppress thoughts about not performing well, our attention is diverted from the task at hand. This thought pattern adversely impacts our working memory, which will undermine our performance. Basically, the negative beliefs held by others about the social groups to which we belong cause us to sabotage our own performance. The threat has the largest impact on highly motivated people who are performing on the frontier of their skill level. The good news is that experiments have shown that reducing or eliminating the stereotype threat eliminates the performance gap. Steele provides suggestions about creating a safe environment:1. Within a community, create a “critical mass” of people from the stereotyped group; 2. Make it clear that you value high standards and you expect the individuals in the stereotyped group to live up to them;3. Provide opportunities for inter-group conversations that are framed as a learning experience so that people will free to share opinions, experience and feelings free of the possibility of being labeled;4. Provide opportunities for individuals in the stereotyped group to write self-affirming statements;5. Help individuals in the stereotyped group to express their frustrations about their setting while exposing them to individuals from their group who have had positive experiences and outcomes; and 6. Make it clear that the community values diversity.At times, the writing is repetitive, but this is an important book, especially for educators. less

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