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Show notes

This episode is really all about priming, the idea that you can be subtly reminded of a concept without being aware of it and that subtle reminder can then affect your behaviour.

The main examples given are that a group of young people reminded of the concept of old age walked slower than a control group who just read random words and two groups of Asian women performed differently on a maths test depending on whether they were reminded that they were Asian (stereotyped as good at maths) or women (stereotyped as bad at maths).

The research in this episode is all described in Dan Ariely’s book “Predictably Irrational” in the chapter called “The Effect of Expectation”.

Priming with stereotypes is an area of psychology that has struggled with reproducibility, so we’ll be keeping an eye on it.

N.B. when we’re discussing our experiences of feeling stereotyped, Martha talks about westerner stereotypes in Japan. The experience of feeling stereotyped as a white European travelling in Japan is very different from being stereotyped as a non-white British person in Britain. It’s frustrating, but it’s not comparable with experiencing racial stereotyping in your home country.

Our tips:

be aware of stereotypes, you may be less affected when you notice they’re there;
if you feel uncomfortable with a stereotype that’s being applied to you and how it’s affecting your behaviour, try to get out of that environment, or away from that person if you can;
consider whether you might like a product or service that isn’t aimed at you. If you think that the product in itself might be useful or enjoyable, why not try it?;
work to develop a growth mindset. Stereotypes are fundamentally about thinking in a fixed mindset way, outgrow them.