Claude Steele
Research Summary
Stereotype threat: the experience of performing under the threat of possibly confirming a negative stereotype about your group. Its role in intellectual performance and social functioning (e.g. women in math; minority students on academic tasks, interracial relationships, etc.) Social psychological interventions that reduce the impact of this threat, and other interfering identity pressures in schools, workplaces and relationships.
A theory of self-affirmation that interprets a variety of psychological motives--such as cognitive dissonance and reactance--as reflecting an underlying need to perceive integrity of the self.
Current research focuses on how affirmations of self-integrity allows people to accept useful but threatening information such as that in health messages.