Is The Self-Help Industry for Black Folk?

The Science of Racial Differences in Personality

In a matter of days I begin my 23rd year teaching my Science of Well-Being college course. When I meet the students, there will be ample opportunity to stereotype them.

I’ve seen enough John Hughes movies and digested enough television and books during childhood to automatically generate beliefs about who someone is by how they look.

• The student who skateboards into class with a Bob Marley t-shirt who sits with legs splayed in the back row.

• The guy wearing a dress shirt with bowtie, carrying a stack of books on Ayn Rand and macroeconomics.

• The woman wearing a straw cowboy hat, thumbs buried in the front pockets of rugged denim shorts, held up by a metallic “don’t tread on me” belt buckle.

None of us are immune to constructing beliefs about individuals based on a thin slice of information. It starts with assumptions about groups based on a small amount of information that we then assign to individuals who are part of that group. We often think prejudices are harmless; a humorous trope.

Now the examples above intentionally focus on people’s interests (skateboarding, music, books), style (bowtie, cowboy hat), and values (science, “don’t tread on me” symbol) instead of controversial immutable characteristics such as sex, race, and age. But when making assumptions about an individual based on what is visible for a few seconds, your construction of stereotypes is no different than sexism, racism, or ageism.

Racial Judgments

Things get dangerous quickly upon switching from hobbies, fashion, and consumption habits to skin color.

Upon knowing the skin color of a student or worker, it would be ignorant, degrading, and insulting¹ to think you have knowledge about their personality traits, interests, values, and life goals. Striving toward personal growth isn’t a White thing. Being compassionate isn’t an Asian-American thing. Being curious about astronomy isn’t a Hispanic thing. Even if prestigious museums and public figures claim otherwise.

I raise this issue because someone shared a viral article on “The dangers of courage culture and why Brene Brown isn’t for Black Folk.”² The article perpetuates the idea that individuals of a particular race are a monolithic bunch. In this case, Black people.³ Consider this quote:

We as Black women have to read the courageous writings of white women through a different lens, understanding that this is her experience and yours, no matter how bad you want it to align, never will. When Brene Brown talks about vulnerability and courage, she isn’t talking to you or about you. 

I have an aversion to well-meaning efforts that treat any racial group as a set of interchangeable individuals. We allow for heterogeneous qualities in social groups and it only makes sense to allow for diversity within (not just between) demographic groups. One of my favorite maxims of cultural psychology is that there is more variability within a group than between groups, but we ignore this for our desire for simplicity.

Black people are no exception to this maxim. Of the 18,512,083 people⁴ who watched Brene Brown’s video on empathy there are people of different races who gained insight about their inner psychology. What a dangerous precedent to presume that certain helpful emotions or psychological strengths are limited to particular races.

Research on Race and Personality

A testable question exists: does knowledge about a person’s race tell us something important about their personality and interests? What we know is that in representative samples of thousands of working adults in the United States, there are no Black-White differences in the Big Five personality traits of extraversion, agreeableness, emotional stability, and openness to experience. No racial differences in curiosity, gratitude, forgiveness, nor inspiration. No racial differences in courage. No racial differences in assertiveness nor sociability. No racial differences in calmness nor restraint. No racial differences in happiness nor life satisfaction. In fact, there is a slight uptick of greater self-esteem in Black compared with White adults. Taken together, data suggest that race is a terrible proxy for who a person is and strives to become.

Then there is the question of whether having a particular personality renders greater benefits for one race compared to others. One researcher conducted 415 tests of whether the influence of personality traits on desirable life outcomes such as job performance and satisfaction, resilience, and physical and psychological health differs by race. In 93% of these tests of how relevant personality is to a fulfilling life, not even a trivial difference emerged between Black and White people (or other races). We cannot ignore evidence that the distribution of personality traits, interests, values, goals, and motivations rarely differs meaningfully between Black and White people. And when there are differences, they tend to be in degree, not kind.

Therefore, why would we expect someone’s race to be central to predicting whether an individual finds value in a self-improvement message about using emotions effectively or how to be courageous (the work of Brene Brown or similar thinkers)? The assumption that an entire racial group thinks, feels, and behaves similarly is a near perfect match with the dictionary definition of racism.

Provocation

We are cognitive misers. Strangers often elicit anxiety as we try to cope with the uncertainty of how to interact with them. As a result, we create rapid prediction models of what people think, feel, and do. This leads to stereotypes and biases. Know that you (like me) have biases. With this knowledge, pause and reflect on how much less you know less than you think. Put in the effort to try and understand the humanity of each individual, who is not there to represent any particular group. We do a disservice anytime we maintain the belief that a single individual can be understood by their immutable characteristics. Discover their interests and values by leading with curiosity and intellectual humility.

The same lessons are relevant to teams and groups. When someone speaks, train yourself to be more attentive to the message as opposed to the messenger. Put less weight on immutable characteristics such as race, sex, and age. Do anything less and your group will be weaker than the sum of its parts.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please leave a ❤️. Even better, share this and initiate a courageous conversation. And if you read The Art of Insubordination (with strategies, tactics, and habits on the Rules of Principled Dissent), send me thoughts, questions, or beefs. I love hearing from readers.

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Extra Curiosities

• THE PODCAST EPISODE - I had a great conversation about self-limiting thoughts and how they play a role in our tendency to hide and conceal thoughts. If we want to contribute to a more utopian society, we must know what internal barriers exist. Enjoy 45 minutes on this topic with The Simply Practically Human Podcast.

• The READ - People often claim the data are on their side without referencing the quality of the research cited. This is especially true in emotionally charged conversations such as race. How about some actual science in a free book chapter on the psychology of racism by Phia Salter, Glenn Adams, and Tuğçe Kurtiş.

• The LISTEN - I went on a road trip with only one of my three daughters. My 10-year-old could not stop laughing at the absurd, unnecessary sax solo in “Never Tear Us Apart” by INXS. She was right. I will never appreciate the song the same way. But it’s still incredible.

1. Thank you Nicole Kolesar for the wording of this trifecta reaction.

2. I rarely use the word “folk.” I only included it in the title to match the article by Dr. Yazeed. To me, the term folk is a bit dehumanizing. The word assumes overfamiliarity with the object of attention. This is the opposite of being curious and intellectually humble. So I am using the term but apologizing in advance.

3. I realize that some readers might believe critical commentary is only allowable if you match the race of the person who authored an article. Similar to the sentiments of Former United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, this belief reeks of the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” That is, the idea that people of particular racial demographics should be protected from commentary, criticism, debate, and conflict. But it doesn’t require much imagination to wonder how everyone who speaks on behalf of an entire group would be automatically correct, never holding erroneous or mistaken ideas. Some people have greater difficulty with cognitive biases such as motivated reasoning, all-or-nothing thinking, availability heuristics, anchoring effects, and status quo bias. Some people have mental health problems such as paranoia and symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder. Some people lack sufficient education and experience. After all, at what age does a race matching view take hold - is an 8-year old who speaks or writes about an entire racial group always correct? What happens when two people of a particular demographic group hold divergent views about the group? Before using racial status as a a criterion to accept or dismiss someone, there are a lot of quandaries that require consideration.

4. Accumulated views is as of this writing. A number that will increase because this is a powerful video. I don’t think my positive reaction is due to my whiteness or maleness or sexual orientation. But send me a message on social media if you hypothesize that my interest is due to immutable demographics.