CHURN

How building trust can alleviate social problems.

Social psychologist Steele (Whistling Vivaldi, 2010) draws on a wide range of experiments he and other scientists have conducted—as well as his own experience growing up in Chicago in the ’40s and ’50s in a biracial family—to analyze with care and compassion the pressures of living in a diverse society and to propose solutions that both individuals and institutions can implement. Living with others of different “racial, ethnic, gender and sexual orientation identities” can, Steele writes, create a condition he labels “churn”: an “anxious, ruminative” state that is the result of “the threat of being judged and treated badly based on negative feelings or stereotypes about our identities.” It’s a state of mind that has been proven to make students function less successfully and adults push back against engaging with those with different identities. Broadly, he suggests that even the smallest gestures toward increasing trust pay off in reducing churn, and offers evidence that this trust is most effective when it starts from the individual with the most power. It’s easier to build trust, he says, “than it is to rid people of lifelong prejudices.” More specifically, he suggests a strategy of three goals: seeing, welcoming, and supporting. Many of the examples Steele gives come from the world of education, but he also includes some from industry, including the success of 3M in building diversity. From a practical point of view, Steele’s recommendations show the benefits of lending a helping hand to all students who need one, not just those who fall into certain categories, since “targeting programs at certain groups could stigmatize those groups and alienate other students.”

A pragmatically hopeful remedy for interpersonal tensions.