Essay Questions

What precipitated Steele's lifelong interest in the effects of stereotyping?

Steele had no concept of stereotyping, or of what a minority was, until he was with friends at a municipal pool as a child in the late 1950s; the kids were turned away and told that the pool was for "whites only" except for on one day of the week. This was the first time Steele had been aware that being black meant something other than a skin tone, or that it meant anything more than having brown eyes, or long legs. He came to realize that minorities had fewer rights than other people because of the stereotypes about them that others used to judge their behavior, character and potential, without going to the trouble of ever actually meeting them. This was the epiphany for him and the point at which he realized stereotyping dictated the way in which most of society was treated.

Steele contends that stereotyping oneself is more insidious than being stereotyped by others. Why does he feel this to be the case?

Allowing oneself to conform to a stereotype effectively takes away the ability of the individual to control her own destiny. For example, a Harvard president expressed the view that female students are less able in math subjects than their male counterparts. Knowing this, a female student becomes agitated and nervous and underperforms in a test that she knows is not just a test of her mathematical ability but also of the validity of the stereotype. By contrast a female student taking a test at a university where no such gender-bias has been verbalized is able to confidently rely on her hard work and aptitude for the subject without worrying about perpetuating an invalid stereotype. After research and testing this hypothesis, Steele found that fear of conforming to a negative stereotype affected minority students more than the stereotype itself.