Reddit reviews Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do (Issues of Our Time)
We found 16 Reddit comments about Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do (Issues of Our Time). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
W W Norton Company
It's an interesting phenomenon. People often mirror the people around them to fit in. People will amplify any stereotypes they have about a social group they want to belong to and downplay attributes that do not belong to a certain group.
For instance, black kids will perform worse on a test when they're told it is to measure their academic ability. They do better when they're told it's a strategic test. Student athletes do worse on an exam when they're told all of their jock peers did worse on this exam than non-athletes.
Source: Whistling Vivald: How Stereotypes Affect Us by Claude Steele. The second is from this paper from Stanford. This analysis on the self is very broad overview.
In case anyone ever wants to refute these arguments--which, I hope no one has any doubts how BS it is, but if you want to know just HOW bs it is, I recommend:
1.Intersectional Inequality by Ragin & Fiss
A very small book, from 2017, it details how only the addition of a small number of variables totally undercuts notions of race & ethnicity being related to test scores, shows how social aspects class, gender, race, education etc. all combine.
2.What's the Use of Race ed. Whitmarsh & Jones
A summative book that details all the contemporary debates on race in science and the critique thereof, including the American Anthropological Associations public statement that race is a social construct, the population genetics of it, the bias inherent in research, the role of race in forensics, the role of race in medicine, and the like. In basically shows in sum nothing explanatory is added by the addition of race to any of these (and, indeed, often reduces explanatory power) and the sheer number of analytic, empirical, moral, political & rhetorical issues with the concept should force us to abandon it entirely (except as an analytic social & political category--i.e. in discussions of racism, discrimination, racial policy, nationalism, etc.).
2a.Here's the intro.
3.Inequality by Design, ed. Fischer et al.
An earlier book, this one throws in a massive number of variables to totally quash the Bell Curve. It shows how inequality reproduces itself and affects academic achievement., how "intelligence" is already culturally laden, how intelligence differences even within that are artifactual, about zero sum contests over scarce resources & services, about structural imperatives to reproduce inequality, about the policy choices which continue to do this, about educational solutions, about public investment solutions & a statistical analysis of the Bell Curve.
3a.Intro Chapter on Ethnicity & IQ
3b.Chapter published elsewhere
3c.Related Paper
4.Whistling Vivaldi, a popular press book by the Claude Steele
This popular press book shows how cultural conceptions, frames, roles & priming explain a TON of variance in education & other things. Less sociological, it explains the social psychological micro underpinnings of racial inequality. I also have a source for the same thing but for gender.
We basically know the following:
There's more than that but you get the point.
Hi carbuyer throwaway, a lot of people have mentioned that it's hard to get racist people to stop being racist. I agree. However, you might want to read a book called Whistling Vivaldi - It is a book about racial stereotyping in the Unites States and small steps you can take to overcome them. Truly enlightening book. Also, I'm so sorry about your experiences - from one American to another. It's important to remind yourself that you are not defined by what other people say and do to you. Much support.
Whistling Vivaldi by Claude Steele is a really good book on the topic of stereotype threat.
I guess that's what I wanted to know about. You say that stereotype threat is fallacious/biased reasoning. I attend a pretty liberal university, and the new students are all given a required reading over the summer. This year's book is Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do, written by Claude Steele the Dean of Education at Stanford University.
Stereotype threat isn't just another biotruth, it's something that's extensively studied in the social sciences. The size of its effects are a matter of debate, but I don't see how stereotype threat could be based on fallacious/biased reasoning.
And if you want to focus on real, actionable solutions like whistling Vivaldi down the street, that would be an admirable MO to have. Sticking up for the anti-gov't, doomsday prepper by insulting us, and showing it off to... the current crowd here. That's... pretty sketchy.
The experiment was not an actual measure of ability (which the WSJ doesn't seem to understand), it was about student responses to perceived expectations, in this case based on their gender. The concept of "stereotype threat" is undergoing an enormous amount of study in the field of psychology and has profound implications for educators. The book Whistling Vivaldi is a great layman's introduction to the concept.
Hello friends! I'm very excited about this whole process and just trying to better myself. Every day seems to be a different struggle, but I really think it's worth it - seeing a whole community of people really pushing to better themselves every day is awesome!
Thanks for listening!
Edit: bit-->big
Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious by Timothy Wilson is personally one of my favorites
Anything by Malcolm Gladwell (I really enjoyed Blink)
Anything by Robert Cialdini (He was my social psychology professor and one of my favorite authors / public speakers)
Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do (Issues of Our Time) by Claude M. Steele (Who basically uncovered stereotype threat research)
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Phillip Zimbaro (famous for the Stanford prison experiment)
Older books:
Mindfulness by Ellen Langer (about automatic processes and how mindless we can be)
When Prophecy Fails by Festinger, Riecken, & Schachter (To understand how cults work, a group of researchers infiltrate a join a cult. Mainly about cognitive dissonance but details what happens to a cult when the world doesn't end like predicted)
Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View by Stanley Milgram if you want to know all about the Milgram experiments
Sorry that is all that comes to mind now. . . (edited for formatting)
"Whistling Vivaldi"
http://www.amazon.com/Whistling-Vivaldi-Stereotypes-Affect-Issues/dp/0393339726
neepuh wrote:
Hi carbuyer throwaway, a lot of people have mentioned that it's hard to get racist people to stop being racist. I agree. However, you might want to read a book called Whistling Vivaldi - It is a book about racial stereotyping in the Unites States and small steps you can take to overcome them. Truly enlightening book. Also, I'm so sorry about your experiences - from one American to another. It's important to remind yourself that you are not defined by what other people say and do to you. Much support.
Next time try whistling Vivaldi.
Here's an interesting book that is predicated on this very action.
http://www.amazon.com/Whistling-Vivaldi-Stereotypes-Affect-Issues/dp/0393339726
Yes, absolutely, I've had feelings like this!
An other perspective which you might find helpful is the idea of 'Stereotype Threat'. Here, the problem is that the self-consciousness and pressure you might be feeling could be distracting you from doing your true best.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat
http://www.amazon.com/Whistling-Vivaldi-Stereotypes-Affect-Issues/dp/0393339726
Claude Steele has been studying the phenomena for decades, in an effort to understand why minorities traditionally underperform despite equal credentials and clear talent. Stereotype threat experiments have repeatedly shown that when people are reminded of a negative stereotype related to a difficult task (one that requires focus), they perform worse on the task. For example, in an experiment with Asian women, they reminded half the participants that 'women are bad at math' before giving them a math test and the other half that 'Asians are good at math'. The participants reminded about the negative female stereotype performed significantly worse (in a p-value sense) than the other group.
Furthermore, in his studies of college students, he found that most minority students studied alone. As a result, they learned more slowly -- partly because they had to figure out everything on their own and partly because they missed the opportunity to explain things to others, which is a great way to solidify what you know. This also made them feel isolated, so they don't see how much everyone else is also struggling with the material. So my advice is to try to find some like-minded souls to program with; at minimum, try to do your homework in labs and libraries and strike up conversations with others. Nothing spots a bug like a fresh set of eyes.
And also, please try to keep a growth mindset about learning so you don't sweat every test grade and assignment. Practice makes perfect. Mistakes are opportunities to learn. None of the supposed 'naturals' at coding where born with that skill. Have you ever seen a baby try to the code? They suck at it. They can't even read.
PS - In countries where negative stereotypes about women and math/computing/science don't exist, women frequently outperform men, shown in the following graphic
https://mathbabe.org/2013/02/10/gender-bias-in-math/
Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do
I would argue that within the current system of CS there is implicit oppression of gender and racial minorities. Providing access points for girls to get exposed to computer science isn't sexist, it's an attempt to balance the gender inequities in CS.
If anyone is really interested in the racial imbalance there are some great books that deal with this topic, two of my favorites:
Stuck in the Shallow End is about disparities in CS.
Whistling Vivaldi is about strereotype threat (whose principles are directly related to these issues).
Edit: I should add that a potential error in these programs is that in effect they may feed into developing the stereotype of girls being inferior in CS.