Dr. Shellie

My hero of the week: social psychologist Professor Claude Steele of Stanford University, for his work on stereotype threat. Through carefully controlled lab experiments, Steele and coworkers have shown that people tend to underperform when they fear that their performance might reflect badly on the larger group with whom they identify. So, for example, when a group of math students take a very difficult math test, the female students may worry that their poor performance would be interpreted as evidence that women have less mathematical ability then men. Just worrying about this possibility deflates their scores. When that worry is eliminated, their scores equal men’s. In the experiments, the worry can be removed by telling all of the women and men that on the particular test they are taking, it is well known that women and men perform equally.

Stereotype threat can apply to all people– not just women and minorities– in any situation where someone feels that people "like them" suffer from a negative stereotype for the activity at hand. For example, says Steele, a white person talking to a black person about race is likely to worry that he or she might be seen as racist, and will be more likely to make conversational blunders as a result. Ironically, stereotype threat affects people most when they really care about doing well at what they are doing– e.g. not being racist, or acing at math tests.

The large, chain supermarket I go to has instituted a new policy: cashiers are supposed to address customers by name. So what happens? Each time I go, the person at the register looks for my last name on my credit card, looks at me, and then guesses whether to go for "Miss" or "Mrs.". One time I asked a cashier why she had selected "Miss." "Oh," she said, "that’s an all-purpose title, for when we don’t know if you’re married or not."

Wrong.

My sister put "PhD" on her credit cards for a while, but reports that it just got her dirty looks.

My sister, who has had chemotherapy, two stem cell transplants, open-heart surgery, and radiation, all in the last 2 1/2 years, has just swum 1.2 miles and biked 56 in a half-Ironman race.

Inspired?

Here’s another thing I like about martial arts: everyone wears a colored belt. The black belts are the best, and have been training since time immemorial. They have exemplary technique, speed, and power. The white belts are just starting out, and are akward and nervous. You need to stand back from them a bit so they don’t accidentally kick you in the head. Everyone in between (the colored belts) are working their way up the ranks, for example from yellow to green to blue to red (the exact order will depend on your sport).

Now even though the whole thing is about fighting, there’s no insurrection. People with higher-ranked belts than you are better–period. It’s part of their duty to help you learn, and they do so cheerfully. People with lower-ranked belts are less advanced than you, and it’s your duty to help them. Diligence is rewarded, but you can go at your own pace. No one is going to kick you out of the ranks due to an annual cap on yellow-belt promotions. There is no "up-or-out" rule.

Is this what academia would look like if there were enough academic jobs for everyone who paid their dues?

The sun is shining. I realize that polarizing sunglasses make the world look awesome. Each leaf on each tree stands out distinctly. So does each wood chip in the flower bed.