my article

BOOK REVIEW: Steele, C.M. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us (Issues of Our Time). New York, W.W. Norton & Company. By Coert Visser This review was first published on  Positive Psychology News Daily This book by social psychologist and Columbia University provost, Claude Steele, is a splendid example of how psychologists can make valuable contributions to society. In the book, Steele writes about the work he and his colleagues have done on a phenomenon called stereotype threat, the tendency to expect, perceive, and be influenced by negative stereotypes about one’s social category, such as one’s age, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, profession, nationality, political affiliation, mental health status, and so on. Experiments demonstrating the impact of stereotype threat When trying to understand certain performance gaps between groups, Steele and his colleagues did not focus on internal psychological factors.. Instead, they tried to underst...

© 2002, Coert Visser and Maarten Thissen Why are employees sent to training sessions? Why do they get coaching? What do 'areas of development' in appraisals usually refer to? Exactly, weaknesses and shortcomings! For much too long HR professionals, managers and employees have had an almost obsessive fixation on repairing weaknesses. What does this lead to? Insecurity, frustration, waste of time and feelings of being under-appreciated. An Example A CEO of a small company visited a management coach and told him that he seriously thought of quitting his job. The coach, who knew the director as a competent person, asked why. The CEO explained he had lately gotten the idea that a good CEO is always sociable and extraverted. And he wasn’t, no matter how much he tried. The management coach asked if he did his did job well, if he achieved good results and if others appreciated him. The wholehearted answer to each of these questions the answer was ‘yes’. After an hour of talking the di...