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The stress you may feel being otherized or stereotyped can take a significant toll on your health and well-being. In this thoughtful conversation, social psychologist Valerie Purdie-Greenaway reveals the true source of this anxiety (hint: it isn’t the individual) and shares strategies on building resilient systems of support for ourselves and others — so that we can build a more inclusive, empathic and just world. (This conversation, hosted by TED curator Cloe Shasha Brooks, is part of TED’s “How to Deal with Difficult Feelings” series.)

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Transcriber:

[How to Deal with Difficult Feelings]

Cloe Shasha Brooks: Hello, welcome.

You are watching a TED Interview series

called “How to Deal with
Difficult Feelings.”

I’m Cloe Shasha Brooks,
your host and a curator at TED.

Now I will be speaking with
Valerie Purdie-Greenaway,

social psychologist
and Columbia University professor.

She directs the Laboratory of Intergroup
Relations and the Social Mind,

where she researches
the us-versus-them mindset

with the goal of fostering
understanding between groups.

And she has wisdom to share

about the relationship
between feeling like an outsider

and anxiety.

So let’s bring on Valerie.

Hello, Valerie, thank you for being here.

One of the things I’ve been excited
to ask you about is just, you know,

you talk about how there’s two ways
of seeing anxiety, right?

Chronic anxiety and context-based anxiety.

So can you define the two for us?

Valerie Purdie-Greenaway: There’s two ways
of thinking about anxiety.

I think the first way that people
traditionally think about anxiety

is chronic anxiety.

We are still in the midst of a pandemic.

People are anxious.

Some others might think of anxiety
in terms of their personality,

you know, their micromanagers,

and these kinds of anxieties
are sort of everyday anxieties

that are with us
for a long period of time.

What I study is another kind of anxiety

that other people may not be aware of.

And this is the anxiety that comes from
being part of a social group,

whether it’s your race, your ethnicity,
your gender, your sexual orientation,

your size,

and walking around the world

and sort of bumping up to environments
where you’re stereotyped,

where you’re “otherwise-d,”

and that context
makes you feel different.

And in that moment,

you can feel it’s the same
biological kind of anxiety and stress,

but it comes from the context.

So I study the kind of stress,
anxiety, frustration

that stems from being a member
of a group that can be stereotyped,

and I study the kinds of contexts
that make that happen,

whether it’s at work, at school,
church, in your synagogue, you know,

all of the types of contexts that can
either intentionally or inadvertently

make us feel otherwise,
which causes that anxiety.

CSB: Yeah. And so, let’s say
someone’s dealing with anxiety

in association with a specific context,

like being the only
person of color in a classroom

or the only woman on a team at work.

What would you suggest as strategies
for managing that anxiety?

VPG: The first thing
is to just recognize that it’s not you.

If you feel stress, you feel anxiety,

it’s not you.

There’s not something wrong with you.

There’s something wrong with the context.

The second thing is sort of deciding:
Is it really worth it?

Do you actually care?

Because not every environment
really matters.

Once you contextualize,
once you understand it’s not you,

you have to create
a system of support around you

to kind of fact-check your experiences.

For instance, do you have a mentor
who is in a similar situation,

who came some years before you?

When you talk to them, they can help you
to understand that it’s not you.

They can help you fact-check.

They can help you navigate
what’s happening.

I think the other thing which comes
out of some research that I have done

is when you situate that moment

relative to who you are more broadly —
I am bigger than this moment —

sometimes those kinds of affirmations
can be incredibly helpful in that moment

for sort of reducing that stress.

CSB: Well, let’s take
one of our audience questions.

So from LinkedIn, someone asks,

“What can we do to best support
people in our lives

who are suffering
from context-based anxiety?”

VPG: Oh, that’s a great question.

The question of what we can do
to support others in our lives

that are experiencing
context-based identity

is important because oftentimes,
it’s undetectable.

One of the most challenging aspects
of a context-based stress —

the scientific term is called
“stereotype threat” —

the challenge with that is you have
this physiological feeling.

You might feel stressed, you might feel
anxious, you might be overworking.

Are you working at two and three
in the morning,

like, overworking on a presentation?

But the problem is, you might not be able
to actually detect it in others.

You can oftentimes understand

what situations a partner or person
or friend is going into ahead of time

and sort of sharing this idea

that when you’re in contexts
where you are a solo status,

you’re the only one,

this is something that could happen,

this is an experience you could feel.

It’s not you; it’s a common situation.

I have found over and over and over again,

just taking the heat off of an individual

to sort of place it back
where it’s supposed to be in the context

is incredibly helpful.

CSB: That’s interesting and valuable.

I mean, one of the things that
feels connected to that, too,

is obviously, being
in these context-based,

anxiety-producing situations

can create anger and frustration,

especially for those who have been
affected by violence or injustice.

Can you can you talk more about that flow
from anger and frustration to anxiety?

VPG: Violence, frustration is, these days,

far too familiar to many of us.

When we think about all that has
come out of George Floyd,

we think about the continuing challenges
that women face in the workplace,

we think about the trans community,

and what they’re dealing with
in terms of athletes and athleticism

and whether or not they’re considered
truly part of a sport,

particularly in women’s sports —

there are so many different identities
that are being challenged right now.

And what we find in our research

is that there’s a natural flow
from anxiety, stress,

questioning whether,
“Is it something about me?”

“What is it about my group?”

to the shift in understanding that society
is seeing and treating you differently,

and that causes anger,
and that causes frustration.

The problem with this is,
at the physiological level,

it’s still stress,

and stress is debilitating.

It keeps us up at night.

It keeps us overeating.

It keeps us undereating.

You look at the early onset
of cardiovascular disease.

The problem is, stress is debilitating.

So even though those moments of anger

may even make you feel like
you can do something,

you feel empowered as a group,

it still can erode our health.

And so when I think
about inclusive societies,

I think about it
from a justice perspective.

I also think about it
from a health perspective,

because it’s all linked together.

CSB: Absolutely. Yeah.

We have another question
from the audience. Let’s bring that up.

From Facebook: “Is it possible
to use anxiety in a positive way?”

VPG: It is absolutely a good idea.

And when you understand
that you can leverage the power of anxiety

in a positive way,

you can do a lot of different things.

So, for instance, there’s a relationship
between anxiety and performance.

There’s lots of research on this.

It’s sort of an old idea.

And the idea is that some anxiety is good.

My doctoral advisor, Claude Steele,

after giving thousands of talks
and writing books, I would ask him,

“Do you still get anxious
on the first day of class?”

And he said to me, “Valerie, when you stop
being nervous the first day of class,

it’s time to retire.”

CSB: (Laughs)

VPG: Because that’s
a good kind of anxiety, right?

But the problem is, that anxiety
can also shift to being debilitated,

where you’re just stressed,
you start to feel frazzled,

you start to feel like your brain
isn’t working properly.

And so some anxiety is good.

It’s sort of like
the sweet spot of anxiety.

And then if you keep going, it can become
debilitating and erode performance.

So it’s the back-and-forth
between some is good, too much is bad,

that we need to be thinking about,

both as ourselves as individuals

and also when we’re
part of organizations.

CSB: We have a new question
from the audience.

Let’s bring that one up, please.

Thank you.

OK, Kristin Sánchez Salas
from LinkedIn says,

“What can you do if your context-based
anxiety is provoked by a colleague,

client, superior or someone
you work with regularly?”

VPG: My strategy is:
first time, forgiveness.

Sometimes, fact-checking:

What is it that you actually heard?
What is it that someone said?

Trying to understand someone’s intentions,

that’s, I think, the first step.

The second step is,

this is something that is not
going to be tolerated,

because it impacts your ability to thrive,

and it impacts other people
who are members of their group.

So this becomes a manager issue.

This becomes a leadership issue.

And true inclusive leadership is taking
a stand and saying “We’re not doing this,”

and then setting the groundwork
so it doesn’t happen again.

CSB: Yeah, that’s really great advice.

But we’re almost at the end,

so I’m just going to ask you one final
question leading from that, which is:

If you’re told that you are the cause
of context-based anxiety,

what’s the first thing you should do?

VPG: If you’re told that you are the cause
of context-based anxiety,

remember my face: it’s not you,

it’s the situation that you are in.

Trust your judgment,

particularly if you have
experienced solo status once,

you’ve experienced it again.

If you’ve been stereotyped once,

you’ve probably had this experience

over and over.

So trust your intuition that it’s not you
bringing paranoia to the workplace,

that these kind of stereotypes
and otherisms are rife and alive.

I think that’s the first thing.

And then the second thing
is having these layers of support

around mentors and sponsors,

who can tell you
that you are doing just fine,

there’s something amiss
in this environment.

That layer of support
is incredibly important.

It’s important for everyone.

But if you’re a member of a social group

that contends with these kinds of
challenges in society,

that layer of support
that you can go after

in terms of creating
robust social networks,

that is a key.

CSB: This has been so valuable, Valerie.

Thank you so much
for taking the time to talk with me.

VPG: Thank you so much.