The terms stereotyping, prejudice and racism are so frequently used that distinctions can be lost. Stereotype is most commonly used to refer to negative or positive judgments made about individuals on any observable or believed group membership. Prejudice is irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group while racism is prejudice with the exercise of power over the group through institutional, historical and structural means.

Research shows it is the feeling of threat that results in prejudice. Such feelings can be realistic, symbolic, cause intergroup anxiety and inspire negative stereotypes. Realistic threats are intimidating to the power and material well-being of a dominant group. Symbolic threats refers to feelings that the dominant group’s way of life are in peril. Intergroup anxiety occurs when people feel personally threatened during interactions. And negative stereotypes refers to the dominant group’s unfavorable assumptions that determine their interactions with other group members. The research make it clear that the threat does not need to be real to lead a dominant cultural group to express prejudice toward a minority.

So, the critical question is what is the source of that perceived threat. Recently, researchers surveyed 274 U.S. born individuals during the Covid-19 pandemic. Their analysis showed that the more one believed their preferred daily social media to be fair, accurate, and factual, the more like they were to believe Chinese Americans pose a realist and symbolic threat.

Their analysis revealed a gender difference. Women were more likely to believe Chinese Americans have a negative influence on their welfare, political and economic power, and physical and material well-being. Men felt more awkward, irritated, suspicious, anxious, defensive and self-conscious when communicating with Chinese Americans.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, social media was a platform to communicate prejudice. Opinions shared by political leaders and celebrities were deemed by some as fact and led to perceived threat resulting, in some instances, prejudiced behavior. The researchers compared political leaders’ and celebrities’ for their opinions as well as unrestricted social media and uncritical consumers of social media.

Their conclusion? Uncritical social media use can result in prejudice.

Today’s professional and business worlds are dominated by facts and statistics. Points are to be made by sound argumentsand data, but perhaps we have forgotten the power of well-crafted stories.

Emily Falk, a professor of communication, psychology and marketing at the University of Pennsylvania reported that as a neuroscientist she studied what happens in our brains while hearing a story. Her experiment compares people who received messages framed as stories like, “Joe has never smoked cigarettes in his life. He has heart disease because he was exposed to secondhand smoke from his father,” to messages framed as facts, such as, “Smokers can harm other people. Every year, a lot of nonsmokers die from heart disease caused by secondhand smoke.” Upon hearing the messages, the participants were asked to come up with arguments in support of or against what they heard. Her results demonstrated that people hearing the message as a story used different brain mechanisms that operate automatically, even while under competing demands. Professor Falk concluded that competing demands reduce our ability to process facts, while stories, even with those same conditions, better increase our understanding.

In a second study, she demonstrated that stories are consistently processed in regions of the brain that help us understand what other people think and feel.

Stories can change people’s beliefs and behaviors when we become emotionally engaged and are less likely to critically evaluate the message. Listening to stories gives us new ways of seeing the world and motivate us to change our perspective. Professor Falk cautions that stories based on lies can be powerful deceptions.

An article in Forbes strongly argued that today’s leaders need to be skilled storytellers. According to a Hopi proverb, “those who tell the stories rule the world.”

Who do you see as the most skilled storytellers?