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Claude Steele is a social psychologist and a professor of psychology at Stanford University. I was very impressed by his book Churn: The Tension That Divides Us and How to Overcome It. This is a really short book and yet I found Claude’s framework and guidance to be both nuanced and helpful.

Churn refers to the mental agitation and physical stress we can experience in diverse settings in everyday life. It’s the psychological reaction to being under identity threat—which is something that we can all experience based on any myriad number of identity factors.

Claude explains how churn can be an insidious and debilitating force in our personal lives, and he explains why the most effective way to approach churn is by building trust in a given situation. While obviously Claude isn’t in support of prejudices of any kind, I think you’ll find it interesting hearing from him why he doesn’t think the antidote here is to eliminate prejudice.

Churn: The Tension That Divides Us and How to Overcome It

Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do

ELISE:

I'm thrilled to have you. And because one of my favorite things is when people name something that's actually quite obvious in the way that it operates in us, and yet it largely goes unspoken.