Claude Steele
American social psychologist known for stereotype threat
Social psychologist who, with Joshua Aronson, reported in 1995 that the threat of confirming a negative stereotype can lower test performance, and who developed self-affirmation theory in the 1980s.
Why this person matters
Stereotype threat offered a situational account of group differences in test performance, and led to experiments and interventions in schools. The size and generality of the effect are now debated, so it is best taught with its replication history. Joshua Aronson was Steele's co-author on the 1995 studies.
Main contributions
Stereotype threat
Steele and Aronson (1995) gave African American and European American students a difficult verbal GRE section described either as diagnostic of ability or as a nondiagnostic task. After adjusting for earlier SAT scores, the nondiagnostic-challenge group did better. The race-by-condition effect was marginal in the first study and significant in the second.
Self-affirmation theory
Developed in the 1980s, it holds that people can ease threats to their self-image by affirming an important value in an unrelated area.
Whistling Vivaldi
His 2010 book Whistling Vivaldi and Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us summarises his stereotype threat research and its application to the academic performance of minority students in higher education.
Context and limits
Replication is contested, and the large tests concern gender stereotype threat in mathematics rather than the 1995 design. A meta-analysis of 47 effect sizes for girls (Flore and Wicherts, 2015) found a mean effect of -0.22 with several signs of publication bias. A registered report with 2,064 Dutch students aged 13 to 14 found no effect on girls' mathematics scores (Flore, Mulder and Wicherts, 2018). Sackett and colleagues argued that removing stereotype threat would not remove the Black-White test-score gap, a reading Steele and Aronson accepted.
In your introductory course
Social psychology.Steele appears in stereotyping and prejudice and in intelligence testing. Students learn stereotype threat as an example of situational influence, with the replication caveats.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 12.1. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1971
Received his PhD in social psychology from Ohio State University.
- 1991
Joined Stanford University.
- 1995
Published Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African-Americans with Joshua Aronson.
- 2010
Published Whistling Vivaldi.
Sources
- Stanford Department of Psychology, Claude SteeleUniversity. Institutional biography inspected.
- Tilburg University, Flore and Wicherts, Does stereotype threat influence performance of girls in stereotyped domains? A meta-analysis (2015), abstractUniversity. Abstract inspected.
- Tilburg University, Flore, Mulder and Wicherts, The influence of gender stereotype threat on mathematics test scores of Dutch high school students: a registered report (2018), abstractUniversity. Abstract inspected.
- Wikipedia, Stereotype threatReference work. Reference article inspected.
- Wikipedia, Claude SteeleReference work. Reference article inspected.