The curse of stereotype threats

This week, as part of our Dev Bootcamp curriculum, we were asked to research about stereotype threats and reflect on the impact it can have on us. When I started I felt like I was already familiar with such concepts, at least I could admit to situations where I was facing a bias of opinion myself (no judgment here, we all have). But after listening to a lecture given by cognitive science expert Claude M. Steele, I realized the notion of stereotype threats goes beyond that and is really a curse on our modern society.

Stereotype threats are self-imposed biased opinion that one as on their ability in a specific setting or abilities in general. This opinion bias then provoke frustration whenever the individuals have to use their abilities. By the way, I can only encourage you to check out professor Steele’s thought-provoking lecture online.

This led me to think about one stereotype threat I developed in high school. During my freshman year my physics professor kept telling me I was just not that good in physics. I wasn’t alone, several of my classmates also wondered why he ever went on to work with kids and teenagers. But the point is that I started developing a stereotype threat that followed me for the rest of my high school and every test would be accompanied with the thought that I wasn’t that good in physics anyway. Since high school my only contact with physics has been through watching Big Bang Theory with my girlfriend. So, yeah, I pretty much gave up.

Stereotype threats like these exist everywhere. One interesting one I’ve often come across at work is about Excel. Until recently I was working in the marketing team of a real estate website, part of the team were 8 women and myself, the only guy. Whenever we had to work with Excel during the everyday course of our work, some of my colleagues would repudiate the task, claiming they were not good with the software. I often ended up giving a hand but, once, I said something that changed my colleague’s attitude, I told her that this task was affordable to anyone and had nothing to do with analysis skills. This seemed like a game changer, she accepted to give it a try and actually felt comfortable once she got the hang of it. If you check out professor’s Steele lecture you will see that this kind of statement is actually a game changer and relieves individuals from their stereotype threats.

Once again, this thought-provoking lecture showed how we can help people around us break free from their stereotype threat, it should be our responsibility to be attentive to that and keep the curse at bay.