‘Our Society Has Always Benefitted from Our Diverse Population’.

“Every identity has some negative stereotypes about it,” says Claude Steele, a social psychologist and professor of psychology at Stanford University. As a result, he says, everyone encounters two situational predicaments of which he has become a foremost thinker and expert: stereotype threat and social identity threat.

Stereotype threat is a phenomenon in which people feel at risk of conforming to, or being seen to conform to, a negative stereotype about one or more of their social group identities, such as their race, gender, or sexuality. Identity threat is a situation in which a person feels at risk of being devalued based on one of their social identities, regardless of whether it is based on a particular stereotype.

While every person encounters some form of these threats at some point in their lives, Steele says his decades of research have shown that they can have important effects on minorities and women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)—effects that can impact their ability to succeed in a learning environment.

On Wednesday, October 10, Steele will explore these situational issues at a Public Health Forum titled “Stereotype Threat and Identity Threat: The Science of a Diverse Community.” Ahead of his talk, Steele spoke about his renowned research on stereotype threat, how this threat can affect public health professionals, and how growing up as an African American during the civil rights movement contributed to his interest in social identity.

You’ve conducted extensive research on stereotype threat and identity threat for almost 30 years. Can you expound on what each of these ideas mean and how they shape people’s thoughts and actions?

Stereotype threat occurs anytime you’re in a situation where a negative stereotype about one of your identities—whether it’s your race, gender, religion, or age—is relevant to that situation, and you believe that you could be judged or treated in terms of that stereotype. If the thing that you’re doing is important to you, then the prospect of being judged and treated stereotypically is upsetting and distracting, and it can interfere with your functioning in that immediate situation. It can make you avoid that area of life because you feel pressure from it on a regular basis.

Identity threat is a broader version of stereotype threat. Sometimes you know that people don’t like your identity. They may not have a particular stereotype against it, but they just don’t like your identity. If you’re in a situation where you know people feel that way, that also becomes stressful and upsetting.

To be clear: These are not self-beliefs or self-appraisals. Stereotype threat is a perception that somebody else could see you in a certain way. You don’t have to believe in the stereotype to experience the threat; you just have to know that people could see you in that stereotypical way. In fact, stereotype threat happens to people with the strongest opinions and strongest evaluations of themselves, because they are really committed in the domain. You’re contending with an external reality, which is that people could judge you in a certain way, and you’re trying to negotiate that.

You’ve said that certain groups of people, such as minorities and women in STEM, more frequently experience stereotype threat. Can you explain why?

Think of women in STEM who are very skilled and very invested. For them, the prospect of being seen or treated in terms of a negative stereotype about women’s math ability will likely be very upsetting—giving them something extra to contend with in this area. What makes the prospect of being negatively stereotyped in this way upsetting is that they care about succeeding in this domain, they’re invested in it, and will be frustrated by possibly being seen or treated in this diminishing way.

What inspired you to study these concepts?

I grew up in the era of the civil rights movement, and I benefitted from its achievements. I was probably the first generation of African Americans to attend integrated colleges and universities in significant numbers.

But I didn’t start out studying stereotype threat. For many years, my research dealt with alcohol addiction and the social-psychological account of how people become addicted to alcohol. I’ve also worked on the nature of the self and developed a theory of self-affirmation. About 20 years into my career, I became interested in understanding the ways in which our social identities might affect our achievement.  

In your talk, you will address how diverse learning communities can become successful environments, particularly for minorities and women in STEM. How does a diverse learning community lend value to individuals and to society?  

Diverse learning environments enable people to benefit from a variety of perspectives. In homogeneous environments, you see the world through one lens. That’s limiting, and it doesn’t lead to innovation or creativity. I think our society has always benefitted from our diverse population. From that, we’ve been able to form one of the strongest societies in history. It’s important to maintain that strength. Sometimes it can be challenging, and my hope is that our research will help remedy those challenges.

How does stereotype threat affect people in the field of public health?  

Stereotype threat can emerge in situations such as doctor-patient and nurse-patient relationships, and it can affect the degree to which different groups feel comfortable in medical settings. It can affect how minorities interact with medical practitioners—and make them worry that they might be seen in terms of negative stereotypes.

What are you most looking forward to sharing with students during your talk? 

I’m going to talk a lot about trust. One of the real challenges that we face as a diverse society is how to trust each other in diverse settings—such as classrooms and medical settings. I’m going to talk about ways of building that trust, and what the responsibilities are of individuals and institutions to achieve that trust. In managing diversity in our institutions, I have come to believe that recognizing the importance of building trust is of paramount importance.

—Jillian McKoy