Stereotypes stereotype threat, and self fulfilling prophecy

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- Okay, so what do you think
about people who wear glasses?

I think people who wear glasses
look incredibly intelligent.

In fact, I think just
wearing a pair of glasses

can add ten points to your IQ.

What about people who live in cities?

I thought people who live
in cities to be abrasive,

to be rude, to be terribly impolite.

What am I doing by making these comments?

Well, what I'm doing is I am stereotyping.

And what stereotyping means
is that I'm attributing

a certain sorts, a certain cognition,

to a group of individuals.

I am over generalizing.

And stereotyping doesn't just
involve a pair of glasses,

not what people wear or where they live,

but it can also involve race,
gender, culture, religion,

even shoe size, so it can
be pretty all-encompassing.

Doesn't stereotyping
have some disadvantages?

Yeah and it should be somewhat obvious.

A major disadvantage is
that it's pretty inaccurate.

On the other hand, does
stereotyping have an advantage?

The answer is yes.

Stereotyping actually
allows us to rapidly assess

large amounts of social information.

So in that regard, it's
actually a useful tool,

even though it does have its drawbacks.

What I want to do now is to talk to you

about a different concept
and this is, again,

perhaps a negative
characteristic of stereotyping.

And this is the concept
of stereotype threat.

Let's take two groups of students.

One, the red students and
two, the blue students.

And these students are two equally capable

group of students.

And now let's make them sit in exam.

How do they score? How do they test?

When this situation,
their scores are equal.

They're the same, both red
and blue get the same score.

Now let's do something else.

Let's make them sit
their exam but this time,

let's expose the students
to some negative stereotypes

about the blue students
not being good at exams,

not being academic.

Well, what happens now?

Well, the red students score the same,

but this time we noticed the blue students

take a hit in their performance.

Their performance drops.

But this is what we see as
being the stereotype threat.

This is when the exposure
to a negative stereotype

surrounding a task can
actually cause a decrease

in the performance of an
individual when attempting a task.

So here the stereotype
actually threatens performance.

Now since I've been
talking about city folk,

city dwellers being so rude,
let's put that down here.

So when we put that down
here, what are we really--

What are we really thinking about?

So this is a thought
process or a cognition.

And what we've said before
is when we think about

cognitions, we're actually stereotyping.

So if I think city dwellers
are rude, then I may say that,

"Hmm, you know what. I don't like them.

"And you know what, if I
don't like a group of people,

"I'm probably not going to
spend a lot of time with them.

"I'm gonna probably avoid them."

Well, let's have a look at
these two other statements.

"I don't like them."

I'm attaching an affect,
which is an emotion

that can be positive or
negative to the city dwellers.

So now, there is an
affective component to this.

And when we have an affective component,

we move from stereotyping to prejudice.

And then moving from
the affective component,

we start to avoid them.

What happens there?

When we avoid them,

we are actually demonstrating
a behavioral component.

And when we demonstrate
a behavioral component,

we're actually moving from
prejudice to discrimination.

So as we can see here,
the difference between

stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination

is one of cognition, affect, and behavior.

Well, let's go back to
these city dwellers.

If I avoid them, what
do you think is gonna--

What do you think is gonna happen there?

Well, you know what, let's
take their viewpoint.

If I avoid them, maybe they're
going to start thinking

that I am rude,

So notice that may become
their cognition now.

And then if they think I am
rude, they might not like me.

And if they don't like me,
they may try to avoid me.

And if they avoid me,
then I may start to think

that they're rude.

This actually feeds back here.

This positively feeds back on itself.

And suddenly we have this circle that can

continuously feed back on itself.

And notice that they have done,

the same things that I did to them.

A cognition, in that they think I am rude.

An affective component,
in that they may start

to not like me.

And a behavioral component, in
which they start to avoid me.

Well, what are we actually seeing here?

Well, what we're seeing is a development

of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And that's to say that our
initial thought or cognition,

that city dwellers are
rude becomes more true

and more affirmed over time,

either directly or indirectly
because of our own actions.

To us, our initial stereotype
that city dwellers are rude,

becomes more true as
we perceive them to be

ruder and ruder over time in
response to our own behavior.

This is the positive feed back,

that we see in a self-fulfilling prophecy.