I’d like to discuss social bias, prejudice, bigotry; all the
usual suspects that make up who we are and how we treat others.
I was reading an article in the Scientific American magazine
(January 2014) about the unconscious mind and how it controls human
behavior. It would seem that the goal of
overcoming prejudice against various minority groups is a nearly impossible
goal for the majority of us.
One of their experiments found that “many people who say
they have a positive attitude toward minority groups are astounded when social
scientists reveal contradictions (in that belief) using a simple test.”
My first reservation about this simple test
is that the word ‘social’ should never be considered an appropriate descriptive
modifier for ‘scientist.’ But, that’s
just a pet peeve of mine. However, I
should point out that my major in college was Social Sciences – very interesting,
but not a subject area that one would normally describe as science. I found that sociology and psychology were far
easier than zoology.
The test in question involved two buttons and a computer
screen. The left button to be pressed
indicated either ‘good or white.’ The
right button to be pressed indicated either ‘bad or black.’ Various pictures were shown to include
puppies, spiders, snakes, kittens and a series of faces of different races.
The same pictures, or variations thereof, were later shown
to the same group of test takers.
However, the buttons were changed:
left button indicated good or black, right button indicated either bad
or white. Latent prejudice among the
test-takers was proven / at least indicated because the test-takers took longer
to press the appropriate button – apparently indicating they had more
difficulty associating black with good.
The article did not reflect whether or not minority individuals fared better on this test than Caucasians.
Furthermore, it did not indicate that all children grow-up with a notion that white is generally and intrinsically good, versus black which is generally
and intrinsically bad. Example: good cowboys tend to wear white and bad
cowboys usually are dressed in black, good witches are white and bad witches
are black, when mourning people traditionally wear black, etc. Now, some might jump-in
with ‘yes, that’s true and children are programed from a very early age.’ OK, perhaps, but that concept of white /
good, black / bad goes back centuries.
And, the association was usually not associated with race.
I’m sorry, but I hate this kind of research. It does no good, draws lines apparently based
in science, and makes one feel hopeless that things will ever change.
Which brings me to another related subject, law enforcement
profiling: good or bad.
To be continued…
True Nelson
2 comments:
Hi True,
You're not alone in your disdain for lame experiential "science." I'm so with you on this. What you're describing sounds like research that is so flawed that I hardly know where to start. First, research has to be fairly large scale, with adjustments made for differences in test subjects. Then it has to be quantifiable, and it has to be duplicated multiple times in order to be considered valid. The design of what you described has so manyf flaws built into it I don't know how it can even be publishable.
As far as the subject, I think it was a dumb way to measure so called prejudice. Reversing buttons and meanings sounds like it was pulled straight out of the brain games in Lumosity, the brain training website. Responses could be caused by the difficulty the brain has in making a quick switch, not by prejudicial thinking.Some of the light switches in my home are counter intuitive and they confuse me every time, even though I use them daily. A better way to measure would be having subjects interpret pictures that included the two colors.
Most striking to me is how these monthly single subject magazines have to keep coming up with articles that are brief, easy to understand and capable of attracting and holding a reader's attention. The accuracy and validity matters less than being an interesting read. When my daughter was a baby, we were sent copies of Parent Magazine (or maybe it was called Parenting, don't remember). Every issue made me panic that I was messing up on some vital aspect of my daughter's existence. Finally it dawned on me that they had to keep churning stuff out time after time and couldn't repeat very often or if they did, it had to be disguised as something different. The more dramatic the better.
So, for me it's pretty much caveat emptor when it comes to mass market periodicals. I take them with the same grain of salt the editors do when they tack it up on the story boards with 30 others.
Best,
LM
Thanks, True, for answering my questions re Desiree Young's civil suit. I belatedly realized that one important thing did come of the suit, as far as it went. Terri's friend DeDe Spicher 's deposition outed her (to my satisfaction, anyway) as being involved in Kyron's disappearance when she hid behind the Fifth dozens of times.
As for social research, some of it is well-designed and productive, but the simple-minded black/white experiment you described is abysmal and casts a pall over all social research..As LM suggested, switching the rules may have left the subjects befuddled. The U of Washington's school of social work is very research-oriented, but has no time for poorly-designed projects.
Re prejudice, I have noticed less of it among young people than among the older generations. Progress in changing attitudes is frustratingly slow, but at age 76 I have lived long enough to see steady progress over the decades. It's like watching a very slow, but very determined tortoise. Prejudice was far worse in my youth. I'm white, with many white cousins who would not have married non-whites. But a number of their children married people of other racial or ethnic groups, or adopted children from those groups, and I'm now related to young adults of Asian, Black, Jewish, Hispanic, and other ancestry. And guess what - they're sharp-as-tacks, achiever-type young folks, the pride of their white grandparents. So there's definitely hope, if you have the patience to keep your eye on the tortoise.
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