Working harder to overcome prejudice can physically harm minority group members

Evidence

Directly consistent with Allport’s views, many minority groups in the United States endorse hard work and determination as a means of overcoming their minority status (Kleugal & Smith, 1986). This value is reflected in the African American community in the legendary story of John Henry, a nineteenth-century steel driver, who beat a machine in a steel-driving competition only to drop dead of exhaustion. A dispositional preference to work harder to achieve success and advancement, despite sometimes overwhelming obstacles, has been called “john-henryism” ( James, Hartnett, & Kalsbeek, 1983). Research linking john-henryism to hypertension among African Americans suggests that adopting this coping strategy may be physically harmful, even though it may indeed be the coping strategy most approved of in society ( James, Hartnett, & Kalsbeek, 1983). — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 965

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: the cultural glorification of a socially approved coping strategy that measurably damages the people who adopt it — the John Henry paradox as a lens on hustle culture and minority stress.
• DEFINE: Introduces and defines the coined term ‘john-henryism’ for hard-striving coping with adversity.
• XREF: Connects to minority stress and allostatic load literature, and to the broader theme of socially-approved self-harm discussed in previous chapters on coping strategies. — connects to: Ongoing minority status itself generates chronic psychological stress for reservation Indians. — Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for…, 475