Stereotype Threat In Our Society

In August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King gave out his speech “I have a dream” to the public and this was the first time that an African American gave such a powerful speech 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. Two days ago, Love wins again in Taiwan and it became the first place in Asia that leads the way in LGBT marriage equality. People have fighting for stereotype all the time. It is not only worthy, but meaningful. However, stereotype still exists today and sometimes situations are even worser than 1980s which sounds impossible. In the book Whistling Vivaldi, the author Claude M. Steele proposed the idea of “stereotype threat”, which refers to “a standard predicament in which people have a pretty good idea of what other members of our society think about lots of things, including the major …show more content…
People seldom realize the negative influence of stereotype threat since it is not always reflect directly. Here, I want to analyze two significant experiments in the book in detail. Foremost, stereotype threats is one of the leadings reasons to destroy your confidence. According to the book, the author and some other psychologists did a famous experiment about stereotype threat. The experimenters divided black students into two groups and did the same to white students. The first thing they tested was about the athletic ability by playing the golf. One group of each side of students were told they were tested the athletic ability before the game started. Two groups of black students played the normal level, however, one group of white students that was told to be tested about the athletic ability did way worse than the other group that was told nothing. The second thing those experimenters tested was the mathematic ability. They repeated the procedures, but the result was totally different. Two groups of white students played the normal level, but one group of black students that was told before did pretty bad in math tests than the other group