Claude M Steele

Stanford University | SU · Graduate School of Education

Two studies tested whether environmental distraction (primarily noise) would cause people to make ill-considered judgements of others. The first study showed that distracted subjects made more extreme judgements of a target person and, while continuing to be extreme, changed those judgements across repeated administrations of the questionnaire. The...

Prior research suggests that people expect to be perceived negatively in interracial interactions but positively in intraracial interactions. The present research demonstrates that an interaction partner's racial network of friends can moderate these expectations in interracial interactions but not intraracial interactions. Across two experiments,...

The research presented in this article provides the first evidence that one's decision making can be influenced by concerns about stereotypes and the devaluation of one's identity. Many studies document gender differences in decision making, and often attribute these differences to innate and stable factors, such as biological and hormonal differen...

People can make decisions to join a group based solely on exposure to that group's physical environment. Four studies demonstrate that the gender difference in interest in computer science is influenced by exposure to environments associated with computer scientists. In Study 1, simply changing the objects in a computer science classroom from those...

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: Claude, what exactly is “stereotype threat”? And why does it matter for the intellectual performance of Black youth at school? Claude M. Steele: Stereotype threat is a very simple experience that everybody has, I believe, a couple times a day. It refers to being in a situation or doing something for which a negative stereoty...

The present research examines whether women burdened by stereotype threat, a threat of confirming negative ingroup stereotypes (Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 797–811), are less able to abandon old strategies and...

Three experiments investigated how perceived foreign threats to the United States can influence Americans' endorsement of assimilation and multiculturalism as models for foreign and domestic intergroup relations. The initial study, conducted during the 6-month anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks (9/11), discovered that a divers...

This research demonstrates that people at risk of devaluation based on group membership are attuned to cues that signal social identity contingencies— judgments, stereotypes, opportunities, restrictions, and treatments that are tied to one's social identity in a given setting. In 3 experiments, African American professionals were attuned to minorit...

Four studies investigate the role that stereotype threat plays in producing racial distancing behavior in an anticipated conversation paradigm. It was hypothesized that the threat of appearing racist may have the ironic effect of causing Whites to distance themselves from Black conversation partners. In Study 1, participants distanced themselves mo...

This study examined the cues hypothesis, which holds that situational cues, such as a setting's features and organization, can make potential targets vulnerable to social identity threat. Objective and subjective measures of identity threat were collected from male and female math, science, and engineering (MSE) majors who watched an MSE conference...

This research investigates the hypothesis that the mere suggestion of sexism can harm women’s experience of an instruction situation. Across three experiments, women exposed to the suggestion about the sexism of a male instructor reported a less positive experience, performed worse on a logic test, and rated the instructor as less competent than di...

A matched subjects design was employed to assess the effectiveness of an experimental program for the reduction of delinquent behavior in adolescent boys on probation. Youngsters in the experimental group (N= 19) were invited to participate in a series of small group sessions designed on the basis of principles drawn from the theory and research of...

Exposing participants to gender-stereotypic TV commercials designed to elicit the female stereotype, the present research explored whether vulnerability to stereotype threat could persuade women to avoid leadership roles in favor of nonthreatening subordinate roles. Study 1 confirmed that exposure to the stereotypic commercials undermined women's a...

Three studies explored women’s bifurcation of feminine identity as a response to threatening stereotypes in the domain of mathematics. Study 1 demonstrated that women in a math class who previously had completed a large number of math courses disavowed “feminine characteristics” strongly associated with stereotypes about women’s potential for math...

This comment notes that P. R. Sackett et al (see record 2004-10043-001) have raised a concern: that 29 mischaracterizations of an experiment from C. M. Steele and J. Aronson (see record 1996-12938-001) spread over 8 years of media reports, journal articles, and textbooks could mislead teachers, students, researchers, policymakers, and parents into...

This comment notes that P. R. Sackett et al (see record 2004-10043-001) have raised a concern: that 29 mischaracterizations of an experiment from C. M. Steele and J. Aronson (see record 1996-12938-001) spread over 8 years of media reports, journal articles, and textbooks could mislead teachers, students, researchers, policymakers, and parents into...

Submitted to the Department of Psychology. Copyright by the author. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Stanford University, 2004.

This article comments on Sackett, Schmitt, Ellingson, and Kabin's (2001) suggestion that stereotype threat may not generalize to employment testing, and the 4 articles of this issue following from it. We argue that each experiment lacked the no-stereotype threat control group needed to experimentally test stereotype threat effects; that sizeable st...

We examined the effect of stereotype threat on blood pressure reactivity. Compared with European Americans, and African Americans under little or no stereotype threat, African Americans under stereotype threat exhibited larger increases in mean arterial blood pressure during an academic test, and performed more poorly on difficult test items. We di...

People often cling to beliefs even in the face of disconfirming evidence and interpret ambiguous information in a manner that bolsters strongly held attitudes. The authors tested a motivational account suggesting that these defensive reactions would be ameliorated by an affirmation of an alternative source of self-worth. Consistent with this interp...

Two studies demonstrate that self-image maintenance processes affect the acceptance of personally relevant health messages. Participants who completed a self-affirmation were less defensive and more accepting of health information. In Study 1, female participants (high vs. low relevance) read an article linking caffeine consumption to breast cancer...

Two studies examined the response of Black and White students to critical feedback presented either alone or buffered with additional information to ameliorate its negative effects. Black students who received unbuffered critical feedback responded less favorably than White students both in ratings of the evaluator’s bias and in measures of task mo...

Research on “stereotype threat” (Aronson, Quinn, & Spencer, 1998; Steele, 1997; Steele & Aronson, 1995) suggests that the social stigma of intellectual inferiority borne by certain cultural minorities can undermine the standardized test performance and school outcomes of members of these groups. This research tested two assumptions about the necess...

When women perform math, unlike men, they risk being judged by the negative stereotype that women have weaker math ability. We call this predicamentstereotype threatand hypothesize that the apprehension it causes may disrupt women's math performance. In Study 1 we demonstrated that the pattern observed in the literature that women underperform on d...

Replies to comments by A. L. Whaley (see record 1998-02607-012) regarding C. M. Steele's (see record 1997-04591-001) discussion of stereotype threat theory and domain identification as extra pressures that affect the test performance and academic identities of African Americans and women in math. Steele describes and responds to Whaley's 3 major...

A general theory of domain identification is used to describe achievement barriers still faced by women in advanced quantitative areas and by African Americans in school. The theory assumes that sustained school success requires identification with school and its subdomains; that societal pressures on these groups (e.g., economic disadvantage, gend...

Stereotype threat is being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one's group. Studies 1 and 2 varied the stereotype vulnerability of Black participants taking a difficult verbal test by varying whether or not their performance was ostensibly diagnostic of ability, and thus, whether or not they were at risk of fu...

It was predicted that high self-esteem Ss (HSEs) would rationalize an esteem-threatening decision less than low self-esteem Ss (LSEs), because HSEs presumably had more favorable self-concepts with which to affirm, and thus repair, their overall sense of self-integrity. This prediction was supported in 2 experiments within the "free-choice" dissonan...

It was predicted that high self-esteem Ss (HSEs) would rationalize an esteem-threatening decision less than low self-esteem Ss (LSEs), because HSEs presumably had more favorable self-concepts with which to affirm, and thus repair, their overall sense of self-integrity. This prediction was supported in 2 experiments within the “free-choice” dissonan...

set forth a theory of individual differences in resiliency to self-image threat based on the idea that such resiliency may be related to self-esteem / reason that high self-esteem people have more resources (i.e., positive aspects of their self-concepts) with which to affirm their overall sense of self-integrity present research testing this form...

Three experiments tested the idea that a motive to protect self-esteem (SE) from the threat of regret can influence decision making. Threat to SE was manipulated by varying whether people expected to know the outcome of their decisions. Study 1 showed that when Ss expected feedback about their decisions, only Ss low in SE made regret-minimizing cho...

describes [the author's] despair at watching talented African-American college students fall by the wayside as the full weight of racial stigma becomes evident to them / more than half of African-American college students fail to complete their college degrees for reasons having little to do with ability / draws on empirical findings and examples t...

This article explains how alcohol makes social responses more extreme, enhances important self-evaluations, and relieves anxiety and depression, effects that underlie both the social destructiveness of alcohol and the reinforcing effects that make it an addictive substance. The theories are based on alcohol's impairment of perception and thought--t...

This article explains how alcohol makes social responses more extreme, enhances important self-evaluations, and relieves anxiety and depression, effects that underlie both the social destructiveness of alcohol and the reinforcing effects that make it an addictive substance. The theories are based on alcohol’s impairment of perception and thought—th...

Two studies provided evidence that alcohol's relationship to psychological stress is indirect and is mediated by the allocation of attention. Study 1 found that, as the attentional demands of a distracting activity increased, so did alcohol's reduction of anxiety. Study 2 replicated this effect and found that a highly demanding activity could reduc...

Intentional self-restraint may play an important role in the control of potentially addictive behavior. Unfortunately, for some individuals, efforts to reduce substance use may prove not only temporary but to increase the likelihood of a later "binge." An experimental study examined the relationship between prior self-restraint efforts and drinking...

The self-control processes governing the use of potentially addictive substances depend, at least in part, on the exercise of intentional self-restraint. Perhaps surprisingly, the extent of effort directed toward restraint may be associated positively, in some circumstances, with actual control failure. The present study examined the possible role...

Two experiments examined an attention-allocation model of alcohol’s effect on psychological stress (Steele, Southwick, & Pagano, 1986). On the basis of this model, it was hypothesized that alcohol’s impairment of information processing, coupled with the demands of distracting activity, would reduce anxiety over an upcoming stressful event by making...

132 college students completed drinking restraint and eating restraint scales along with the 4-factor impulsiveness scale developed by S. B. Eysenck and H. J. Eysenck (1977) and 3 Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) scales that measure aspects of self-control. Consummatory restrainers who attempt extreme intentional control over eati...

Conducted 2 experiments to examine whether the tendency to make more extreme attributions following control deprivation, observed by T. S. Pittman and N. L. Pittman (see record 1981-25822-001), stemmed from a motive to regain actual environmental control or to affirm an image of oneself as able to control (important outcomes). Study 1 varied contr...

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that alcohol's reduction of psychological stress depends to an important degree on whether the drinker is also engaged in distracting activity. In the first study, the factor of whether or not subjects had received alcohol (dose of 1 mg/kg) was crossed, in a 2 × 2 design, with the factor of whether they rated p...

Drinking alcohol clearly has important effect on social behaviors, such as increasing aggression, self-disclosure, sexual adventuresomeness, and so on. Research has shown that these effects can stem from beliefs we hold about alcohol effects. Less is known about how alcohol itself affects these behaviors. A cognitive explanation, that alcohol impai...

Can alcohol make people more helpful, and if so, how? We hypothesized that alcohol would increase helping when, if the person were sober, the helping response would be under high inhibitory conflict--that is, when it would be affected by strong instigating and inhibiting pressures. Alcohol's damage to inhibitory processing should then allow instiga...

Can alcohol make people more helpful, and if so, how? We hypothesized that alcohol would increase helping when, if the person were sober, the helping response would be under high inhibitory conflict—that is, when it would be affected by strong instigating and inhibiting pressures. Alcohol's damage to inhibitory processing should then allow instigat...

Drinking alcohol clearly has important effect on social behaviors, such as increasing aggression, self-disclosure, sexual adventuresomeness, and so on. Research has shown that these effects can stem from beliefs we hold about alcohol effects. Less is known about how alcohol itself affects these behaviors. A cognitive explanation, that alcohol impai...

Tested the hypothesis that an experience that simply affirms a valued aspect of the self can eliminate dissonance and its accompanying cognitive changes. Three experiments were conducted using the conventional forced-compliance procedure. In Study 1, some of the 76 college student Ss were allowed to affirm an important, self-relevant value (by comp...

Based on the fear appeal literature, it was predicted that a fear-arousing message opposing alcohol abuse would be more effective when it attributed alcoholism to maladaptive learning than when alcoholism was attributed to an incurable disease, while with a low fear message these causal attributions might have opposite effects. While this predictio...

Based on recent evidence supporting the assumption that cognitive dissonance is experienced as an unpleasant emotional state, and further evidence pertaining to the effects of drinking alcohol, it was predicted that among social drinkers, dissonance arousal would increase the amount of drinking and that drinking, in turn, would reduce dissonance an...

Assessed common expectancies concerning the effects of alcohol by eliciting expectancy dimensions from 20 undergraduates in a pilot study and then having 253 undergraduates rate the effects they expected from drinking alcohol along these dimensions. Results show that Ss expected moderate drinking (Phase 1) to result in relatively greater stimulatio...

It was hypothesized that subjects would prefer to blame a character assault on negative ability characteristics of a dissimilar attacker as opposed to negative motivational characteristics in order to escape responsibility for the attack. It was reasoned that because we generally think of ourselves as having less potential influence over the abilit...

Results of 2 experiments with a total of 221 housewives support the prediction that name-calling, by conveying a negative judgment, would enhance Ss' willingness to comply and their actual compliance with a later request for help. Negative names produced more compliance behavior than positive names. Also, whether or not the negative name was relate...

Conducted 2 experiments with 155 undergraduate psychology students which supported the prediction that a persuasion-induced reference scale shift for one attitude issue will mediate indirect attitude change toward issues sharing a comparable reference scale. Not only was indirect change produced by shifts in psychological perspective, but the magni...

Submitted to the Department of Psychology. Copyright by the author. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Stanford University, 2003.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1971. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [145]-146).

Submitted to the Department of Psychology. Copyright by the author. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Stanford University, 2005.