Understanding the Obama Effect

Throughout history stereotyping has been used to generalize a race class. Although when a race is being stereotyped it can be done in a positive way, in many cases it has also been done in order to keep a minority group inferior. In the article, “Thin Ice” by Claude M. Steele, Steele shows how African Americans who are stereotyped or have the mental image of being stereotyped negatively can affect their success in their academic success. In the other hand, in Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou’s “The Asian American Achievement Paradox” demonstrates when a stereotype is positive it can feed one’s ego and deliver better outcomes in a people’s academic achievements. Even though a large population of people can be stereotyped in a certain way through false concepts, it can affect the mindset of a single individual.

Furthermore, stereotypes are used to increase an individual’s self-esteem and strengthen their social identity. Social identity theory contributes largely to the formation of stereotypes, as it states that a person’s social identity is formed from being part of a group. To justify one’s own group, they often pick out real or imaginary differences and flaws in other groups and compare those to their own group (Ford & Tonander, 1998). This led Ford

Again, my results measured little to no automatic preference between the two. I found the results of past test takers to be worth noting, because Obama surpassed Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Lincoln, Jefferson and Presidents in general. He tied with Roosevelt and lost to Clinton and Kennedy, which I think has many implications. First the data could be illustrating that most people are not racist considering he beat out the majority of the other options, including Jefferson and Lincoln who are particularly celebrated in American History. Second, this test begs the question, are they looking to see if people are racist (since he is the only African American option) or is this measuring job performance? The triggers they used were photographs and adjectives. Both Obama and Reagan’s photos were professional headshots with equal number of happy and serious expressions. The words consisted of wonderful, glorious, awful, horrible etc. Neither trigger related to racial stereotypes, and could easily be used to assess performance. Perhaps if they used triggers associated with racial stereotypes that would then yield results that measure racism more accurately. Lastly, whether someone is a Democrat or Republican will also have an effect on this test. Obama beat all the Republican presidents and fell short when compared to JFK and Clinton (two revered Democrats.) It can also be assumed that most people taking this test are somehow related to world of Academia,

My attention was drawn when the actual topic of the “Obama Effect” was introduced and this happened when Abumrad referenced the second paragraph of an article in the New York Times newspaper (Horne, 2009). This article portrayed “new research” about the “Obama Effect” and based on the article, Abumrad states that “performance gap between African Americans and Whites on a 20 question test administered before Mr. Obama nomination all but disappeared after his acceptance speech and again after the presidential election” (Horne, 2009). It is mentioned in the podcast that blacks scored “poorly” on these

Clark’s work on identity and stereotyping has continued and has extended to not only minority groups, but to white-Americans and women as well. Research on prejudices and stereotyping has continued in the area of education. According to Steele (2004), the framework of one’s life can be controlled by their social identity and that individuals must contend to the prejudices and stereotypes that they socially must identify with. Further research suggests that those who are exposed to negative stereotypes are influenced either by believing or mimicking the stereotype or, both (Steele, 2004). Steele (2004) found that stereotypes have contributed to the underperformance of minority groups in the school setting. As suggested by Clark, Steele (2004) also believes that conforming to suggested stereotypes weakens the social identity and brings severe deficits to the ability of student to excel in the classroom. Clark’s ideas on stereotyping were elaborated in the notion that stereotype threat does not only affect minority groups, but can exhibit deficits in any group of individuals. For instance, Steele (2004) offers the example of white vs. black athletes and how in many sports (e.g. basketball or football) white athletes have shown to feel less competent in comparison to black athletes because of

Even though the word positive sounds like a good thing, positive stereotypes have the opposite effect on the victim. It can sabotage “the process of forming a realistic and accurate perception” (Koppelman) and are often used as a distraction to shield acts of discrimination experienced by the victim. The Model Minority Myth is an example of a positive stereotype because it “diverts attention away from serious social and economic problems that affect many segments of the Asian American population, detracts from both the subtle and overt racial discrimination encountered by Asian American, places undue pressure on young Asian Americans to succeed

Many theories have been suggested to try to explain the low performance of Hispanic and African American students compared to their white peers. Stereotype threat theory proposes that the possibility of being judged in terms of a negative stereotype in a particular domain negatively affects one’s performance. African American students are even more vulnerable to this social-psychological threat that occurs when students anticipate the possibility of fulfilling a negative stereotype. Some of the effects of stereotype threat include anxiety, low academic standards and low test scores. (Steele,

When he gets offered a job at the University of Washington he develops a special interest in stereotype threat when he sees the minority students underperforming despite have equal or higher SAT scores upon entering the college. This is when he really develops his interest in stereotype threat and with fellow colleagues develops a group of experiments to explore more about this topic. In the first three chapters of this book Steele sets the stage for the coming experiments, and delves into the process of showing us how stereotype threat negatively affects our lives.

Obama went to high school at Punahou Academy. While in school, he played basketball and was academically very achieved. He graduated from Punahou Academy in 1979 with honors.

In one article it informs that “Whiteness” corresponds with intelligence, and giftedness. This is apparent in not only high school, but elementary as well. White teachers also rated black students as have less scholastic aptitude and Asian students as having more scholastic aptitude than white students. Relative to white students taught by white teachers, black students have twenty three percent lower odds of being rated as using good grammar, and similar differences exist for white teachers’ views of black 10th graders’ abilities to clearly organize ideas in their English classes or level of difficulty with their math classes. When assessing Asian students, white teachers’ reports suggest they have better grammar, have better conceptual organization, and are less prone to fall behind compared to white students (McGrady and Reynolds,

These test scores do not reflect that American students are not as intelligent or as able to compete as Asian students are. Instead, they reflect a difference in attitudes that

As to Bobby’s knowledge, the Obama administration has weakened our economy. Flooding the markets with printed dollar bills is a recipe for short-term gains, followed by losses.While there are always ups and downs in the markets, Obama’s policies will crash our economy; it’s only a matter of time. If we don’t change course, our economy will eventually crumble. Why? It’s because we have doubled our national debt, increased our taxes, and intensely grown the size of the federal government.

Weaknesses: The weaknesses of this test are that the majority of the people tested were only in two different races. In the Midwest there are a lot more races than just African

There have been many studies on stereotype threat and self-esteem and their negative effects on task performance. These studies have focused primarily on minorities such as women, blacks, Latinos and Asians and have found that stereotype threat and self-esteem have influenced negatively in task performance. Steele (1997) investigated how self-esteem and stereotype threat affects task performance and has found that most of task failures have to do with the individual social environment. For instance, a study was conducted in which black students completed a difficult task with either a black or white experimenter. The task was described as intelligent test (Steele & Aronson, 1995). When the experimenter was white, the student performed more

The first effect of stereotyping is a phenomenon known as “stereotype threat” that occurs in a situation where a person is in fear of unintentionally confirming a negative stereotype. Several studies have been conducted to discover the effects of stereotype threats. For example, I discovered that Toni Schmader, an assistant professor of the UA psychology department, and Michael Johns, a UA graduate (ethos), conducted studies that showed, “college women score lower on tests of mathematical ability, and Hispanic students might score lower on tests of intelligence, not because they have less ability, but because reminders of negative stereotypes temporarily decrease their ‘working memory capacity’ (UA News Services, “Exploring the Negative Consequences of Stereotyping”, UANews.Arizona.edu).” This demonstrates that the students did not do worse on the test due to their lack of skills, but rather due to negative stereotypes. In a similar study by professors Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson, African American and White college students took the same intelligence test under two conditions. In the stereotype threat condition the students were told the test would evaluate their intelligence, and in the