The Obama Effect, Perhaps.

Summary

Radiolab: The Obama Effect, Perhaps.

Release Date: January 28, 2009
Hosts: Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich
Main Guests: Claude Steele (Psychology Professor), Ryan Brown & Eric Day (Researchers), Jeff Stone (University of Arizona Researcher)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores “the Obama Effect”—a surprising finding suggesting that Barack Obama’s rise to national prominence temporarily closed the academic performance gap between Black and white test-takers on standardized exams. Jad and Robert use the study as a springboard to discuss the psychological concept of “stereotype threat,” drawing on pioneering research by Claude Steele and others. Through lively conversation, real-world analogies, and firsthand insights from the scientists themselves, the episode unpacks how stereotypes subtly shape performance and how even a few words—or a symbolic moment like Obama’s ascent—can disrupt persistent inequalities.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Obama Effect Study (02:47 – 04:53)

• Study Summary:

  • Researchers gave a 20-question GRE-style test to Black and white participants, asking their race beforehand.
  • Before Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy, Black participants averaged 8.5/20; white participants averaged 12/20.
  • After Obama became the Democratic nominee and following his election, the performance gap disappeared—Black and white scores were about the same.
  • This sparked the question: did Obama’s success directly influence test-takers’ sense of possibility or stereotype threat?

• Caveats:

  • “We should say by way of caveats that this is a really preliminary study...” (Jad, 04:39)
  • Small sample size; results not yet peer-reviewed.

2. Understanding Stereotype Threat (05:03 – 13:00)

• Origins of the Concept (Claude Steele’s Research):

  • Observed at the University of Michigan: Black and white students with similar credentials performed differently after starting college.
  • “Two kids would enter Michigan. One was black, one was white...same skills, same SAT score...after one semester, the black kid was winding up with lower grades.” (Jad & Claude Steele, 05:17 – 05:36)

• Claude Steele’s Experiments:

  • Women scored lower than men on tough math GRE sections—despite comparable credentials.
    • “Women...performed dramatically worse than the men.” (Claude Steele, 06:26 – 06:46)
  • When researchers told women the test showed no gender differences, the gap vanished.
    • “Sure enough...their performance did go up and go up to match that of the equally skilled men.” (Claude Steele, 07:56 – 08:04)

• Simple Framing Shifts Can Change Outcomes:

  • Re-labeling an “IQ test” as a “puzzle” erases Black-white performance gaps.
    • “Blacks perform as well as whites and they did.” (Claude Steele, 09:28)
  • Similar effects found even with non-academic tasks, like golf putting performance, depending on whether the task was described as an intelligence or athletic ability measure.
    • “When we told them it was a measure of sports intelligence, black participants did about four strokes worse than white participants. But when he changed it...as a test of your natural athletic ability...results totally flip...whites performing significantly worse than blacks...” (Jeff Stone & Jad, 10:20 – 10:38)

3. How Stereotype Threat Works (11:18 – 13:00)

• The ‘Gremlin’ Analogy:
  • Stereotype threat is like a gremlin that whispers doubt during difficult portions of a test.
    • “If the test is easy...these effects don’t happen.” (Claude Steele, 11:51)
    • “He [the gremlin] walks in with you, but he doesn’t speak necessarily until things get challenging.” (Ryan Brown/Eric Day, 11:57)
  • Physiological effects: elevated blood pressure, impaired memory.
  • The distraction—even if you don’t believe the stereotype—draws attention and reduces performance.
    • “The real subtle power of a stereotype isn’t that it prevents you from doing the thing you want to do. It distracts you for just a beat from doing the thing you want to do.” (Jad, 12:57)

4. Letters & Listener Feedback (14:22 – 17:34)

• Listener Questions:
  • Updates on past episode topics, such as the medical fate of “patient X” from a prior show.
    • “Patient X had his entire pancreas removed and many years later is doing fine.” (Jad, 14:55)
• Controversy Over Jad’s Use of Language:
  • Jad discusses the reaction—especially from his parents—to using “the b-word” on air, reflecting on generational and cultural differences in language.
    • “Honestly, if I could do it again, I would take it back.” (Jad, 16:53)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Obama Effect:

  • “What they noticed was after Barack Obama had become fabulous, blacks taking the test scored about the same as whites. Before Barack Obama had been fabulous, blacks performed more poorly.”
    (Robert, 03:53)

• On Stereotype Threat:

  • “Just do the best you can. And with that simple disclaimer at the start, same kind of an effect...the black students and the white students are...now equal."
    (Jad & Claude Steele, 08:23 – 08:32)

  • “All the usual stuff. And even if the student doesn’t believe it, which is likely, see, you don’t have to believe it. That’s the kind of insidious thing here.”
    (Ryan Brown/Eric Day, 12:35 – 12:41)

• On the Dynamics of Testing Pressure:

  • “That performance gap totally vanished.”
    (Jad, 08:04)

  • “Their blood pressure’s elevated, their short term memory is impaired. It’s that flicker of frustration through their body that wakes up the gremlin who starts to whisper in their ear.”
    (Claude Steele & Jad, 12:22 – 12:31)

---

Segment Timestamps

• [02:47] – Introduction to the Obama effect study and basic results.
• [05:03] – Claude Steele describes his early work on performance gaps.
• [06:26] – Initial experiment with women and math tests.
• [07:47] – Discussion of pre-test disclaimers and their effect on performance.
• [08:40] – Effects of test framing (IQ test vs. puzzle).
• [09:41] – Jeff Stone’s miniature golf experiments.
• [11:18] – Analogy of stereotype threat as a gremlin and its mechanics.
• [12:57] – How distractions, not belief, affect performance due to stereotype threat.
• [14:22] – Listener letters and feedback section.
• [16:53] – Jad reflects on language and generational culture.

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Tone and Style

Radiolab retains its playful, intellectually curious tone throughout—mixing light banter with thoughtful explanation. The hosts’ chemistry and use of analogies help clarify complex social science findings in down-to-earth terms, while the inclusion of actual researchers lends authority and authenticity.

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Takeaways

• The episode compellingly illustrates that framing and social context—including the visibility of figures like Barack Obama—can significantly impact people’s academic and cognitive performance through stereotype threat.
• Small interventions (a reassuring statement, changing a test’s label) can level the playing field—suggesting both the subtlety and power of stereotypes, and the hope for lessening their effects.
• Radiolab’s mix of storytelling, scientific explanation, and engaging back-and-forth offers an insightful, accessible look at how psychology intersects with real-world events.

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(Note: The original episode contains further lighthearted content and listener mail, but this summary focuses on the main thematic exploration of the Obama Effect and stereotype threat.)

Transcript

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[Radiolab Intro Announcer]

I quite you're listening to Radiolab, the podcast from WNYC and npr.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hello everyone, this is Radiolab, the podcast. I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

And I'm Robert Krulwich. And Jad Sick.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yes.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't explain to you the situation that you, the podcast listener, are in, but there's been some confusion here among our podcast listeners exactly what's going on in the last five podcasts you've listened to completely produced hour long programs.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yes, that's why we began Radiolab as a radio show. Hour long programs, which we work very, very hard on.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah. I mean, I think of us as having two we have Radiolabs for the radio, which are hour long programs, and you've just heard a bunch of those. And then we have Radiolabs just for you. You're the person who signed up. Those are called the podcasts. And we could do stuff on the podcasts that are a little less formal. And not that we're terribly formal on the radio, but it's just a looser form so it can come in different lengths. Shorter or longer or longer.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, that's true. That's true. We've ran conversations between you and various smarty pants that have run pretty long.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Really long.

[Jad Abumrad]

And have been great.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Yes.

[Robert Krulwich]

Or close to forever. But the point is, this is now the beginning of a podcast. So this is not a. And if you're wondering where to find us on the radio, the issue there is that we're on the radio at different times all over America. So you have to ask your local station when they run Radiolabs. Sometimes it's in the morning, sometimes in the evening, but the podcast is anytime you choose.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's right. And starting with this podcast, this post season five podcast, I want us to read to you, Mr. Krull, the second paragraph of an article that was recently in the New York Times.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Okay.

[Jad Abumrad]

Have you heard about this fellow Barack Obama?

[Robert Krulwich]

I know about the New York Times, but. Oh, Barack Obama. Yes, I heard him too.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay. Well, new researchers have documented, I'm quoting here, what they call an Obama effect, showing that a performance gap between African Americans and whites on a 20 question test administered before Mr. Obama's nomination all but disappeared when the exam was administered after his acceptance speech and again after the presidential election.

[Robert Krulwich]

So to back up, that means translating into normal English.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yes, go ahead.

[Robert Krulwich]

That some researchers decided to give a 20 question test to a bunch of people. They were young people and older people too. Just, you're gonna take a test that's a GRE test. It's a verbal test that you take to go to graduate school.

[Jad Abumrad]

But before they take the test, they have to list their race.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yes, they do. So you put down your race and then you take the test. Now, the first time they administered the test was sometime last year. Before Barack Obama was a big deal.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yes.

[Robert Krulwich]

And blacks performed poorer than whites.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah. So whites on average at that point answered 12 questions out of 20. Correct. And black subjects answered only 8.5 on average out of 20.

[Robert Krulwich]

So that's a significant difference, although it was a small sample. Then they gave the exact same 20 question test again, GREs, again the verbal, to a group of people after Barack Obama had become the nominee of the Democratic Party, had given an acceptance speech in Denver, Colorado, and was a pretty famous and important. And then they gave it yet again after Barack Obama had been elected president of the United States. So there's these multiple test takings. And what they noticed was after Barack Obama had become fabulous, blacks taking the test scored about the same as whites. Before Barack Obama had been fabulous, blacks performed more poorly. And there's a long standing reason for the previous performance. But the new performance, that's very interesting.

[Jad Abumrad]

Pretty stunning, but I mean, we should say by way of caveats that this is a really preliminary study.

[Robert Krulwich]

It's not been peer reviewed. Other guys haven't looked it over.

[Jad Abumrad]

Not a huge number of subjects in.

[Robert Krulwich]

The study but nevertheless, very intriguing.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yes. And there is actually precedent for this way of thinking. The precedence goes back to a psychology professor named Claude Steele.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

I got a job offer. This is in the 80s at the university of Michigan. And it was part psychology and part to administer a minority student program there. And in the process, I saw data that surprised me.

[Jad Abumrad]

What he saw was a troubling trend. Two kids would enter Michigan. One was black, one was white. They'd come in at the exact same.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Level, same skills, same SAT score.

[Jad Abumrad]

So theoretically, they should do the same when they get to Michigan, but without fail, or almost without fail. After one semester, the black kid was.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Winding up with lower grades.

[Jad Abumrad]

How much lower?

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Pretty, pretty, pretty dramatic. At least 2/3 of the letter grades.

[Jad Abumrad]

Meaning if the white kid got an A, the black kid who should be getting an A too, is instead getting a B or a B. That's significant.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

That's significant. That's significant.

[Jad Abumrad]

And he also, by the way, saw this performance gap between women and men when it came to math. To the same degree, to the same.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Degree in advanced math courses, it was comparable. I learned this is a national phenomenon. If I was to walk into almost any college class in the United States, I'd have a very high probability of finding exactly that.

[Jad Abumrad]

What could explain these differences?

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

There was something there that people didn't understand and that we certainly didn't understand.

[Jad Abumrad]

So he figured he would start with the woman in math issue. He brought a bunch of women in and a bunch of men, sophomores, brought.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Them into the laboratory one at a time. Gave them a half an hour section of the Graduate record exam you take if you're a math major. Very, very difficult math. And sure enough, the women who had all the same credentials coming into that situation performed dramatically worse than the men.

[Jad Abumrad]

Worse as in it'd be a couple.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Hundred points on an SAT test.

[Jad Abumrad]

Big difference.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

This is a big effect.

[Jad Abumrad]

So Claude Steele thought, all right, step one complete. I've got a lab situation that resembles the real world. Good. Now the next step is to tweak things a little bit, see if I can mess around with it. Now, normally in these situations, the test.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Giver'S got a white lab coat on and he brings in a big stack of cellophane wrapped tests and he puts a clock on the table. It's all, it's all, you know, it's like that's gonna intimidate almost anybody.

[Jad Abumrad]

Maybe that's what's happening. He thought, what if I took away the clock, took away the coat? And most importantly, right before the test, I Had the test giver, instead of saying the normal, I'm going to give you a test pre test thing, maybe instead say something like this, look, you.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

May have heard that women don't do as well as men on difficult standardized math tests. You may have heard that. But that is not true for this particular test. This particular test does not show gender differences. Never has, never will.

[Jad Abumrad]

He wondered if maybe saying that simple sentence before giving the test would have an effect.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

And sure enough, I wouldn't be here. If their performance didn't go up and go up to match that of the equally skilled men.

[Jad Abumrad]

That performance gap totally vanished.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

She look at this thing. So we raced and did it very quickly. The same kind of an experiment with African Americans there.

[Jad Abumrad]

The pre test disclaimer went like this.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

This is an instrument that we use to study problem solving and it is not diagnostic of individual's intellectual ability.

[Jad Abumrad]

In other words, this is not a test of your intelligence, I repeat, not an IQ test.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

So just do the best you can.

[Jad Abumrad]

And with that simple disclaimer at the.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Start, same kind of an effect.

[Jad Abumrad]

The black students and the white students are, we're now equal.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Just recently, Ryan Brown and Eric Day did an even cleverer treatment. There is an IQ test which is non verbal.

[Ryan Brown or Eric Day (Researcher)]

It's called the Advanced Progressive Matrices.

[Jad Abumrad]

It has figures, very abstract, they got.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Lines crossing that you have to match and so on.

[Jad Abumrad]

Checks, it's essentially pattern matching diamonds with dots in them, totally visual.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

And so they could represent that test as it is, as an IQ test. If you. That's in fact seen as the gold standard of IQ tests because it's quote culture free.

[Jad Abumrad]

There's no math, there's no reading because.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

It doesn't involve language. Or you could represent the exact same test as a puzzle.

[Jad Abumrad]

Puzzle. Puzzle meaning you can give an IQ test to a bunch of kids and the blacks will perform worse. But if you give that same test, lose the word test, lose the word IQ and just call it a puzzle.

[Ryan Brown or Eric Day (Researcher)]

The black participants suddenly jump up in their performance.

[Jad Abumrad]

Basically we got a reversal when you.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Represent it as a puzzle. Blacks perform as well as whites and they did.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, that's all it takes, just change a few words.

[Ryan Brown or Eric Day (Researcher)]

In fact, there's even better research on this by a guy named Jeff Stone at University of Arizona who's shown this with golfing tasks where he's had black and white golfers just putt. So this can even.

[Jad Abumrad]

We're talking about putting.

[Ryan Brown or Eric Day (Researcher)]

Well, think about what it takes to putt effectively. Are you a golfer?

[Jad Abumrad]

No. Ryan's not either. So he doesn't know what he's talking about.

[Ryan Brown or Eric Day (Researcher)]

That's right. So I'm gonna make this up. You have to concentrate.

[Jeff Stone (University of Arizona Researcher)]

What we did was we got a miniature golf situation where each hole changed and people had to work around obstacles.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Jeff Stone. He runs the Social Psychology of Sports lab at the University of Arizona. And here's what he did. He tested his black and white putters in two scenarios. Scenario one, using the word intelligence.

[Jeff Stone (University of Arizona Researcher)]

When we told him it was a measure of sports intelligence, black participants did about four strokes worse than white participants.

[Jad Abumrad]

But when he changed it, took out the word intellig and framed it instead as a test of your natural athletic ability. There the results totally flip flipped and.

[Jeff Stone (University of Arizona Researcher)]

We had now whites performing significantly worse than blacks by about four strokes. If you look at the recent U.S. open that was played in San Diego, Tiger woods and Rocco Mediate went four days, 18 holes. They went to an 18 hole playoff on Monday.

[Ryan Brown or Eric Day (Researcher)]

Yes.

[Jeff Stone (University of Arizona Researcher)]

And we're still tied.

[Jad Abumrad]

Sudden death we go.

[Jeff Stone (University of Arizona Researcher)]

And Tiger finally won it on the first playoff hole.

[Jad Abumrad]

Tiger woods wins a third U.S. open.

[Jeff Stone (University of Arizona Researcher)]

Championship by one stroke. So when you talk about four strokes, that's a huge difference.

[Jad Abumrad]

Alright, so here's my question. Stereotypes are powerful. Okay, that makes sense. But in terms of understanding how this works, can you make this tactile for me? Like if the stereotype that's having all these effects is like a thing, like a, like a little gremlin that bites. Like when in the test taking process does it actually like do its damage? That's gonna be way open to debate. What does seem to be clear from the data, according to Eric Day and Ryan Brown and Claude Steele, is that the gremlin only seems to appear when the test is sufficiently hard.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

If the test is easy. It's important to point out these effects don't happen.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's not that the gremlin is not there.

[Ryan Brown or Eric Day (Researcher)]

Well, he walks in with you, but he doesn't speak necessarily until things get challenging.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

As soon as the test gets difficult.

[Ryan Brown or Eric Day (Researcher)]

That'S where the voices kick in.

[Jad Abumrad]

Which means that for most of the tests, everybody's doing about the same. It's only at problem number 17, the one about cosines and factorials and whatever, where things start to go wrong. At least that's the theory. At that problem, the black student starts to stiffen up a little bit.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

That's right.

[Jad Abumrad]

And Claude Steele's measured this.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Their blood pressure's elevated, their short term memory is impaired.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's that flicker of frustration through their body that wakes up the gremlin who starts to whisper in their ear.

[Ryan Brown or Eric Day (Researcher)]

I don't know if you can do this.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

Oh, shit. Is what they say about us true?

[Ryan Brown or Eric Day (Researcher)]

They don't think you can do it.

[Jad Abumrad]

All the usual stuff. And even if the student doesn't believe it, which is likely, See, you don't.

[Ryan Brown or Eric Day (Researcher)]

Have to believe it. That's the kind of insidious thing here.

[Jad Abumrad]

Just the fact that he has now this extra bit of mental chatter, that.

[Ryan Brown or Eric Day (Researcher)]

Little guy whispering, well, it's a distraction.

[Claude Steele (Psychology Professor)]

And that makes their performance go down.

[Jad Abumrad]

Just a little bit.

[Ryan Brown or Eric Day (Researcher)]

All of this dialogue is keeping you from being 100% focused on the task at hand, which is solving these problems.

[Jad Abumrad]

So the real subtle power of a stereotype isn't that it prevents you from doing the thing you want to do. It distracts you for just a beat from doing the thing you want to do. And that may be all the difference.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay, so we're almost done with this particular podcast, but before we go, I think we should have the letters section, which I'll do. Like this. Letters. They get letters. So we have this letter. Jed Abumrad. Yes. A number of people have wondered, who have listened to our diagnosis show. For those of you who haven't listened to the diagnosis show, you'll have to listen to it to understand this question, but they're very curious. What happened to patient X who had pancreatic cancer? In the show, we never quite explained his fate. What is the outcome?

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, yeah, that's actually a really good question. Patient X had his entire pancreas removed and many years later is doing fine. He's still alive, although the pancreas being a very important organ. When he was removed, he became a diabetic. So it's a pretty radical. Radical surgery, but it's, you know, arguably saved his life.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay, the next question. This comes from your father and your mother. Dad, what is wrong with you? Is essentially what they're saying. And I like to join them in that. For those of you who remember the show, was it choice when you did this? Suddenly in the middle of the show and for no reason at the end of a segment? Jed used a term of opprobrium to. He used the name that is normally associated with female dogs and just simply.

[Jad Abumrad]

Called the audience bitches.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay. Bitches. And then, like, all hell broke loose.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

And I thought at the time, what.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's true you should. It's true you should go on record as being a dissenter. From the beginning, you were.

[Robert Krulwich]

I thought, like, why did you. Why would you do that?

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay, so here's the thing some people found. Many people found it funny. Many people did not find it funny. And I sincerely apologize to the people who didn't. You look, I'm in my 30s, okay? I grew up watching MTV. It's, you know. You know, you go out with your friends, you're like, all right, bet she's ready to go out to dinner.

[Robert Krulwich]

You actually say that?

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, it's a term of endearment. It just popped out during one of the sessions. You remember this? It was really weird.

[Robert Krulwich]

It was really insulting and stupid.

[Jad Abumrad]

No, you didn't find it insulting.

[Robert Krulwich]

But then you did this Generation Card thing on me. So, like, I get, like. I get scared. All right, So I see. That's what all the young people are doing. But you know what? I got so many people coming saying, what's wrong with him? Why did he do that? And a lot of them were your age, or dare I say it, like, 19, 20, 21.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, I think it's a cultural thing. I think it's generational, but it doesn't even matter. Honestly, if I could do it again, I would take it back.

[Robert Krulwich]

You would?

[Jad Abumrad]

No offense. No offense meant. I mean, where it came from for me. And I think people who are my age, they. You know, it wasn't an attempt to behave. It's just something that happened in the booth. It was funny, and so we left it in. We probably shouldn't have.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Because my parents will not let me forget it. They're always, like, at dinner, and they're like, can you pass the salt, bitch? What do you think of the chicken roast, bitch? Like, all right, Mom, I get it. I get it.

[Robert Krulwich]

They're such good paradise.

[Jad Abumrad]

Anyhow, I guess we should go. All right, so Radiolab is funded in part by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the National Science Foundation.

[Robert Krulwich]

Also by Nurse Nestle, who will try to get Jad back to bed and tucked in to sleep as soon as possible.

[Jad Abumrad]

Right. I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

Nurse Nestle. Is that what I said? I don't know why I said.

[Jad Abumrad]

You never know what you're gonna say.

[Robert Krulwich]

No, I don't. I really don't.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krolwick.

[Jad Abumrad]

We'll, I guess, catch up with you in two weeks.

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