Podcast Club ONLINE: Identity Vigilance & Solutions for a Better Society

About this event

According to this week's podcast guest, Claude Steele, our actions and abilities shift according to the social situations we find ourselves in. A person who is tied to a negative stereotype or identity can feel social judgment or threat in an interaction with others who lack that identity. But in that very same interaction, those others can experience social judgment and threat as well. These feelings of psychological threat or vigilance are what Steele calls "churn." He asserts that churn is the root of what divides us, whether a negative stereotype involves age, gender, race, religion, or anything else. In the podcast, Steele explains, among other things, what causes churn, what it does, why the framework of attacking prejudice and bias doesn't work, and how we can reduce churn in both individuals and institutions to create a better society for us all. This week's podcast is Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman. Claude Steele is a social psychologist and emeritus professor at Stanford University, where he is the I. James Quillen Endowed Dean, emeritus at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, and Lucie Stern Emeritus Professor in the Social Sciences. As one of America's most influential social scientists, his top career credits include serving as the Provost of Columbia University, Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Education, and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost at UC Berkeley. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, Steele has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He is the author of two books, including the recently-published book Churn: The Tension That Divides Us and How To Overcome It, which is the subject of this week's podcast. PLEASE NOTE: We require that attendees listen to the podcast below before attending the meeting to optimize discussion. https://omny.fm/shows/inner-cosmos-with-david-eagleman/ep164-why-do-we-act-differently-around-different-people (includes a link to a not-very-good transcript) or https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep164-why-do-we-act-differently-around-different-people/id1677842672?i=1000778522476 (1 hr, 11 min.) What's a podcast club? It's like a book club for podcasts. Each week we discuss an interesting and currently-relevant episode from podcasters like Ezra Klein, Michael Shermer, or Russ Roberts. We start off as a large group and spend most of the time talking in small break-out groups, which we remix 3 times during the course of the evening. Our conversations are casual and open. We ask that everyone speak respectfully at all times, and we encourage free and concise discussion relevant to the week's podcast topic. To do this, we try to adhere to Grice's Maxims: https://bit.ly/2p4uSQm Ultimately, the idea is to help each other think a little differently, learn a thing or two and have some fun.