Basic textbooks in Social Science courses often highlight the concept of stereotyping. And the discussion about the concept will often address the value of stereotyping, the negative aspects, or suggest that stereotyping is just a natural part of human nature—neither good nor bad. Of course these textbooks will also hurry to add that when our stereotypes lead us to be prejudiced or to discriminate it is bad.
So what is stereotyping? I heard it described once as being descriptive of the printing press where images are reproduced so that each copy looks like the original. The idea was borrowed by scholars in the social science disciplines to refer to what humans do in mentally categorizing people. From one perspective, stereotyping is just part of human nature that is neither good nor bad. Women have standard images of men and men have standard images of women. People of one ethnicity standardize people from other ethnicities.
I can see the value of humans having the ability to anticipate what may happen in a social encounter. By categorizing the elements of a social context based on past similar experiences, we are able to avoid potential dangers and pursue potential opportunities. Stereotyping helps us survive.
However, there is a downside to this ability and practice which is very well described in the recent book by Claude Steele called Whistling Vivaldi and Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us. Steele begins his book talking about Brent Staples, a young African American college student, who lived with the stereotype of being a black man in Chicago. Because of the black male stereotype he noticed that white people would often cross the street to avoid being near him. And even worse, as a person who liked to smile and greet people, he found that he would avoid white people so they wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable.
The title for the book came from a story where Staples decided to whistle Beatles tunes or Four Seasons music by Vivaldi when he approached people on Chicago sidewalks. People recognized the music and their fears melted away. Throughout the book, Steele discusses stereotype threat and identity threat. Stereotype threat is rooted in how people think about people groups. For example, Asians are good in math, men are more logical than women, blacks are better in athletics. Because people think these things, there are stereotype threats for non-Asians in math, women studying computer science, and whites trying to be successful in sports. Steele says identity threat occurs when whites fail in sports or blacks do poorly in school. He explains that we are conditioned to live according to the stereotype. So much energy and focus is expended in contradicting the stereotype that people often end up proving the stereotype true.
So how do we minimize or eliminate stereotype threat or identity threat? Steele suggests several things that can help. There were a couple of tools that I thought were particularly helpful in the fight against the threats. First, awareness of the threats can help people in the dominant group create non-threatening contexts for members of minority groups who struggle. Also, Steele found that if members of a threatened group can have a critical mass of others like them, the threat is lessened.
Steele suggests some interesting ideas about how stereotyping negatively affects society. And I don’t want to be someone who gives up because of a stereotype…or even worse, promotes threatening environments where people will struggle because of a stereotype. We can all promote peace and even help solve conflicts by being a voice against these threats. And being a peacemaker is a good thing.
Steele, Claude (2010). Whistling Vivaldi And Other Clues About How Stereotypes Affect Us. W. W. Norton & Company: New York.
Pursuing Peace 