People are greatly affected by social stereo type. For example, "what the social psychologists Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson have described as 'stereotype threat,' which hampers the performance of African-American students. Simply reminding blacks of their race before they take an exam leads them to perform worse, their research shows."In this article, psychologists provide analyzed evidences from their experiments with students. It is very interesting if certain intervention is provided to those who are under control of their stereotype, they can get over the situation and do better. It is about mental control and mind control. When I was a young child my father told me that if one person keeps blaming himself such as 'I am stupid' then he will be really stupid even if he was a talented person. We also can find same type of examples in our daily school life. In school, students talk with their classmates without any obstruction or frustration. However, if they have to talk in front of their classmates as a certain form of academic presentation, most students can't talk as well as usual even though they are in a full of knowledge about the academic issue they have prepared to present. They are just informed and requested to talk in different format with the same audiences. I had the same problem when I was in elementary school but I got over it by explaining and informing myself that sudiences are my friends and I don't have to worry anything about what I am speaking to them. I trained myself in this way. I heard that people use less than 5% of their brain capability in their lives. Followed by the psychological factor that was proven by the article, state of one's mind can be one of the reasons of restrain her or his brain ability.
Link: NY TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/opinion/08nisbett.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
3 comments:
Good job, David. Check out this website and tell us what you think:
http://reducingstereotypethreat.org/
As I was reading your response to this article I noticed that you stated that students may be outspoken and comfortable talking to their classmates when there is no academic presentation involved. When students are under pressure for example speaking in front of the class, they may become nervous. I am a very outspoken person and I enjoy conversing with others and large groups when there is no academic work involved. I know most of my classmates well and Im never intimidated by them. But, for some reason when I have to present a project I become nervous and I dnt know why I become this way. I guess because I am under pressure.
Rebecca, the link is very helpful to understand about the issue deeply. "These results show that individuals under stereotype threat might reduce preparation, exhibit less effort, or invoke factors to create attributional ambiguity for potential failure. To the degree that individuals engage in self-handicapping, however, actual performance can suffer." As the researcher stated, "stereotype threat" definitely hampers one's ability to do something because stereotype builds a boundary into one's psychological status.However,there is a way of escaping from this stereotype threat. "Disengagement can produce 'disidentification' if an individual copes with long-term threat by avoiding the domain or detaching one's identity from a domain (Steele, et al. 2002). If, for example, a female math student ceases to think of herself as "a math person" in response to a series of less-than-desirable performances on math tests, she has disengaged her social identity from mathematics." This is very interesting how human mind leads their physical and mental ability as much far as their entire life. I think the life is all about learning and recognizing oneself through all the accidents and events he or she encounters.
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