NationStates Jolt Archive

To my horror, I turn out to be a racist.

The University of Chicago offers an online psychological test in which you encounter a series of 100 black or white men, holding either guns or cell phones. You're supposed to shoot the gunmen and holster your gun for the others.

I shot armed blacks in an average of 0.679 seconds, while I waited slightly longer - .694 seconds - to shoot armed whites. Conversely, I holstered my gun more quickly when encountering unarmed whites than unarmed blacks.

Take the test yourself and you'll probably find that you show bias as well. Most whites and many blacks are more quick to shoot blacks, no matter how egalitarian they profess to be.

Harvard has a similar battery of psychological tests online (I have links to all of these from my blog, nytimes.com/ontheground, and my Facebook page, facebook.com/kristof). These "implicit attitude tests" very cleverly show that a stunningly large proportion of people who honestly believe themselves to be egalitarian unconsciously associate good with white and bad with black.

The unconscious is playing a political role this year, for the evidence is overwhelming that most Americans have unconscious biases both against blacks and against women in executive roles.

At first glance, it may seem that Barack Obama would face a stronger impediment than Hillary Clinton. Experiments have shown that the brain categorizes people by race in less than 100 milliseconds (one-tenth of a second), about 50 milliseconds before determining sex.

And evolutionary psychologists believe we're hard-wired to be suspicious of people outside our own group, to save our ancestors from blithely greeting enemy tribes of cave men. In contrast, there's no hard-wired hostility toward women, though men may have a hard-wired desire to control and impregnate them.

Yet racism may also be easier to override than sexism. For example, one experiment found it easy for whites to admire black doctors; they just mentally categorized them as "doctors" rather than as "blacks." Meanwhile, whites categorize black doctors whom they dislike as "blacks."

In another experiment, researchers put blacks and whites in sports jerseys as if they belonged to two basketball teams. People looking at the photos logged the players in their memories more by team than by race, recalling a player's jersey color but not necessarily his or her race. But only very rarely did people forget whether a player was male or female.

"We can make categorization by race go away, but we could never make gender categorization go away," said John Tooby, a scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who ran the experiment.

Looking at the challenges that black and female candidates face in overcoming unconscious bias, he added, "Based on the underlying psychology and anthropology, I think it's more difficult for a woman, though not impossible."

Alice Eagly, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, agrees: "In general, gender trumps race. Race may be easier to overcome."

The challenge for women competing in politics or business is less misogyny than unconscious sexism: Americans don't hate women, but they do frequently stereotype them as warm and friendly, creating a mismatch with the stereotype we hold of leaders as tough and strong.

So voters (women as well as men, though a bit less so) may feel that a female candidate is not the right person for the job because of biases they're not even aware of.

"I don't have to be conscious of this," said Nilanjana Dasgupta, a psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "All I think is that this person isn't a good fit for a tough leadership job."

Women now hold 55 percent of top jobs at American foundations but are still vastly underrepresented among political and corporate leaders - and one factor may be that those are seen as jobs requiring particular toughness. Our unconscious may feel more of a mismatch when a woman competes to be president or a chief executive than when she aims to lead a foundation or a university.

Women face a related challenge: Those viewed as tough and strong are also typically perceived as cold and unfeminine. Many experiments have found that women have trouble being perceived as both nice and competent.

"Clinton runs the risk of being seen as particularly cold, particularly uncaring, because she doesn't fit the mold," said Joshua Correll, a psychologist at the University of Chicago. "It probably is something a man doesn't deal with."

But biases are not immutable. Research subjects who were asked to think of a strong woman then showed less implicit bias about men and women. And students exposed to a large number of female professors also experienced a reduction in stereotypes.

So maybe the impact of this presidential contest won't be measured just in national policies, but also in progress in the deepest recesses of our own minds.


(link (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/06/opinion/edkristof.php))

Hopefully, it's easier to guard yourself against prejudice, and think twice, if you become aware of potential unconscious biases...

I'd say religion once served a similar tribal identity purpose, both are equally irrelevant in the modern world of course.

Hopefully, it's easier to guard yourself against prejudice, and think twice, if you become aware of potential unconscious biases...
Great article. Thanks for posting it.
I suppose that it is next to impossible to completely get rid of some of the low level programming. What makes us adult modern human beings is the ability to look past it.

But biases are not immutable. Research subjects who were asked to think of a strong woman then showed less implicit bias about men and women. And students exposed to a large number of female professors also experienced a reduction in stereotypes.

I think this is key, I agree that we have subconscious bias and I'd agree that it's hardwired in our brain, which is really geared towards noticing inconsistencies, that which is unexpected, as a result of assimilating and reacting off patterns.

This is why issues about negative portrayals in media have a lot of weight. The idea of the friendly black doctor has been around since the Cosby Show. It's why Commander in Chief was discussed as possibly placing Senator Clinton in slightly better light.

We fear the unknown, we're threatened by it so the more we see people of different genders and colour in different roles in life, the less racist we'll all become.

(link (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/06/opinion/edkristof.php))

Hopefully, it's easier to guard yourself against prejudice, and think twice, if you become aware of potential unconscious biases...

Ah, the implicit association test. Interestingly, I was teaching students on this very topic last term. And yes, the article does pretty well capture the issue. If anything it's more about cultural stereotypes than underlying in-group/out-group divisions (though those do come into it), which is why you get Black Americans who nonetheless show similar patterns to Whites (associating other Blacks with bad ...).

Changing unconscious biases is not easy, it's generally theorised the only real way to do so takes time, with repeat exposure to people who don't fit the stereotypes. In fact generally the more exposed people are to other races (or sexuality...) the less likely they are to consider them as an 'out-group' memeber, ie the less they'll classify them based on race and the more they'll classify them based on other attributes (e.g. employment, attractiveness etc...). So yes, changing the underlying beliefs takes a lot of time, which doesn't mean we can't be aware of them and try and ensure our behaviours correspond with our egalitarian conscious beliefs not our biased unconscious ones.


On another note, if people want to take the IAT: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/. Have fun.

from the OP:

And evolutionary psychologists believe we're hard-wired to be suspicious of people outside our own group, to save our ancestors from blithely greeting enemy tribes of cave men. In contrast, there's no hard-wired hostility toward women, though men may have a hard-wired desire to control and impregnate them.


...in other news, Bruxelles is in Europe. Also coming, shocking report about water being finally discovered as terribily wet.

Xenophobia is an instinct. A very common instinct, too, for most animals. Since humans are animals...
We're all xenophobic, some to a lesser degree, some to a higher degree: we can choose to control this instinct, or to give it free rein. I must refer to ( ;) VM...) Dune: humans are able to control and eventually to act against their instincts.

Racism is the exploitation of this instinct.

...in other news, Bruxelles is in Europe. Also coming, shocking report about water being finally discovered as terribily wet.
What's interesting in the article is not the finding that the instinctive xenophobia exists, but rather the described way to prove it and check for yourself to what degree you are susceptible to it.

Xenophobia is an instinct. A very common instinct, too, for most animals. Since humans are animals...
We're all xenophobic, some to a lesser degree, some to a higher degree: we can choose to control this instinct, or to give it free rein. I must refer to ( ;) VM...) Dune: humans are able to control and eventually to act against their instincts.


Xenophobia is... HOW you classify the out-group is cultural. Race/ethnicity is the most overt because it's clearly visible and immutable feature, but it doesn't have to be, like the example in the article of basketball teams. Give it a few hundred years and faster than light travel and we may be classifying our in-group/out-group based on human v aliens.

What's interesting in the article is not the finding that the instinctive xenophobia exists, but rather the described way to prove it and check for yourself to what degree you are susceptible to it.

Ok, I can give you that. Anyway, no great news still: I don't think it's a very scientifical proof or measurement, more a sort of a good hint. Science and sociology still don't mix very well, and I'm suspicious of most attempts at it.

interesting, but predictable.

Xenophobia is... HOW you classify the out-group is cultural. Race/ethnicity is the most overt because it's clearly visible and immutable feature, but it doesn't have to be, like the example in the article of basketball teams. Give it a few hundred years and faster than light travel and we may be classifying our in-group/out-group based on human v aliens.

Not totally cultural. Also the psychology of the evolutive age plays a big role. If the person you recognise as yourself in the mirror, and the people you recognise as "mummy and daddy" all have white skin, a black skin is likely to be recognised as "non-me, non-us", that is, "xenos" (foreign, stranger). Since "us", "family" means "safety", the "non-us" means "danger". It's a simple generalisation, and as such has deep roots.
The cultural factor comes with other kinds of xenophobia, maybe less direct: like religion or nation (what's the big difference in looks between a northern Italian and a southern French - still they speak differently, hence each of them is "other" in respect to the other one).

Anyway, xenophobia, as any other phobia, is an instinct. Nationalism exploits culturally-characterised xenophobia (they speak differently, they're the "other": the Greeks named "barbaroi" those who couldn't speak Greek; the Slavs name the Germans "nemecki", that is mutes). Racism exploits phainotype-based xenophobia (blonde hair vs dark hair, pale skin vs dark skin, big noses vs small noses etc). Religious sectarianism exploits another kind of culturally-characterised xenophobia ("we" believers vs "they" unbelievers or deicides) ...

*snip*

Interesting, I'm not fully sure I agree though.

I'm just not convinced we're instinctively xenophobic, I think it's something ingrained in us from a very early age.

I'd say we're instinctively prejudiced, in that we'll believe information from trusted sources to the point where we make assumptions - black people are dangerous - without looking to question that assumption.

Not totally cultural. Also the psychology of the evolutive age plays a big role. If the person you recognise as yourself in the mirror, and the people you recognise as "mummy and daddy" all have white skin, a black skin is likely to be recognised as "non-me, non-us", that is, "xenos" (foreign, stranger). Since "us", "family" means "safety", the "non-us" means "danger". It's a simple generalisation, and as such has deep roots.
The cultural factor comes with other kinds of xenophobia, maybe less direct: like religion or nation (what's the big difference in looks between a northern Italian and a southern French - still they speak differently, hence each of them is "other" in respect to the other one).


But in the above example, say you grow up in an area where most/a lot of your friends at school are black, so is your next door neighbour, babysitter etc... you're going to end up with a different in-group/out-group experience to if you grow up in an all white neighbourhood. The us/them distinction encompasses more than just yourself and your parents. Furthermore, you get cases where children have been adopted into families of different ethnicities (a classic example asian children adopted into french families) and developing in-group beliefs in keeping with their adopted ethnicties (including cross-ethnic facial recognition, they were better at differentiating between white faces than asian ones).

The process is evolutionarily in-built, how it's applied and how people are categorised is more mutable.

But in the above example, say you grow up in an area where most/a lot of your friends at school are black, so is your next door neighbour, babysitter etc... you're going to end up with a different in-group/out-group experience to if you grow up in an all white neighbourhood. The us/them distinction encompasses more than just yourself and your parents. Furthermore, you get cases where children have been adopted into families of different ethnicities (a classic example asian children adopted into french families) and developing in-group beliefs in keeping with their adopted ethnicties (including cross-ethnic facial recognition, they were better at differentiating between white faces than asian ones).

The process is evolutionarily in-built, how it's applied and how people are categorised is more mutable.

Yes, I think its a combination of two evolutionary traits, one is the noticing of things that don't fit a pattern, or stand out as differentiating markers and the other is the acceptance of trusted sources.

Both advantageous in themselves but susceptible to ingraining prejudice against specifics.

Racism is the exploitation of this instinct.

No, it isn't. At least not only.

Maybe you can explain "suspicion" that way: war, genocide. But you can't explain slavery, or more broadly, a society where the races interact but only on decidedly unequal terms. What about racism that purports to benevolence, that isn't "suspicious" so much as it is dehumanizing? What about racial self-hatred? Is that evolutionarily codified, too?

Indeed, it appears that a lot of racism, especially the racism that casts others as inferior and inhuman, appears to come as a result, not of social distance, but of social coexistence on unequal terms: when blacks began to be used as slaves, racist theories developed to explain it, to justify it, and, indeed, the legal status of blacks fell accordingly.

In any case, even if evolutionary psychology managed a good explanation for all of this, it would still only be a potential explanation... not a proof.

Yes, I think its a combination of two evolutionary traits, one is the noticing of things that don't fit a pattern, or stand out as differentiating markers

Are people prejudiced against red-haired people?

and the other is the acceptance of trusted sources.

Yes. But that indicates that racism has a significant cultural foundation: those "trusted sources" aren't by necessity racist.

Are people prejudiced against red-haired people?

.

There is a memorial in the shape of a Celtic Cross in New Orleans, honoring the 5000 Irish immigrants who died digging the canals.

Irish immigrants were hired because the work was considered too dangerous for wasting the lives of black slaves.

...
The process is evolutionarily in-built, how it's applied and how people are categorised is more mutable.

Yes of course. I was simplifying, maybe a bit too much.

There is a memorial in the shape of a Celtic Cross in New Orleans, honoring the 5000 Irish immigrants who died digging the canals.

What are you trying to prove?

The question is whether differentiating features, in and of themselves, provide for prejudice. They clearly don't.

Are people prejudiced against red-haired people?


In Italy, yes, there was prejudice against red hair
.
See: novel "Rosso Malpelo" (Red-Hair Bad-Hair is a possible translation) by Verga.
Or popular saying from central Italy, "di pelo rosso non è buono neanche il capretto" (not even a suckling goat is good if it has got red hair).

Are people prejudiced against red-haired people?

Not sure where you going with this.

Do people notice red-haired people? Yes they do. Do different cultures apply different attributes to red hair? Yes they do.

Yes. But that indicates that racism has a significant cultural foundation: those "trusted sources" aren't by necessity racist.

Hard to say, if by racist one mean according certain attributes to a particular race, then yes, on a certain level they're racist.

That doesn't mean racism is an ingrained instinct.

EDIT:

What are you trying to prove?

The question is whether differentiating features, in and of themselves, provide for prejudice. They clearly don't.

Yes they do.

In Italy, yes, there was prejudice against red hair
.

I was making an argument based on the present culture of the US, not for all times and places.

I'm sure pretty much every distinguishable feature imaginable has been a basis for prejudice somewhere, sometime. The question is whether this is "automatic" (a suspicion we get from people who are "different") or whether it requires a culture that singles out certain distinguishing features for prejudice.

I think you will find that all you biases are belong to us.

Hard to say, if by racist one mean according certain attributes to a particular race, then yes, on a certain level they're racist.

What do you mean?

Yes they do.

No, they simply don't.

Racist societies function on the basis of certain distinguishing features, not others. You might be able to make the case that we sometimes "group" people based on distinguishing features in general, but that doesn't change the fact that patterns of oppression, of (say) unequal distribution of resources, tend to come on the basis of particular distinguishing features and not others.

What do you mean?

I mean that if we prejudge a person due to a feature, rather than based on observation, that is not an instinct - the only instinct is to notice uncommon features.

Prejudged opinions on what that feature implies is taught.

Prejudged opinions based on race are racist.

For the Harvard one I got

- Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for African American compared to European American.

The last time I took this .. a few years ago I had little to no preference.

No, they simply don't.

Racist societies function on the basis of certain distinguishing features, not others. You might be able to make the case that we sometimes "group" people based on distinguishing features in general, but that doesn't change the fact that patterns of oppression, of (say) unequal distribution of resources, tend to come on the basis of particular distinguishing features and not others.

So?

I'm talking about prejudging based on any feature that is 'different' - whether certain features create greater cause for prejudice has no bearing on what I'm saying.

I notice I'm more comfortable with poor whites than blacks. When you make them middle-class they feel more equal to me. Weird.

Unless the researchers had additional results they just didn't bother to write about, IMO the article itself exemplifies other biases of the types they claim to have been investigating: anti-white, anti-male biases. "Those bad ol' white males are so biased against blacks and women!" :rolleyes:

And the conclusion that white males are biased against female Presidential candidates fails. We aren't against a woman as President, just this woman as President.

The University of Chicago test results were too simple. Didn't even report how likely you were to make the wrong decision based on race.

My results were pretty much the same as the article writer's (faster to shoot black people, slower to holster for them), but I shot two cellphones-carrying white people and holstered my gun for two armed black people. That probably counts for something.

The University of Chicago test results were too simple. Didn't even report how likely you were to make the wrong decision based on race.

My results were pretty much the same as the article writer's (faster to shoot black people, slower to holster for them), but I shot two cellphones-carrying white people and holstered my gun for two armed black people. That probably counts for something.

It means that you hate white people?

The University of Chicago test results were too simple. Didn't even report how likely you were to make the wrong decision based on race.

My results were pretty much the same as the article writer's (faster to shoot black people, slower to holster for them), but I shot two cellphones-carrying white people and holstered my gun for two armed black people. That probably counts for something.

Honestly, I'd probably shoot all the cellphone-carrying white people. They might be CEOs!

I'm not racist, but according to that test I'm homophobic. I don't think I have a problem with gay people, but as a straight person the idea is less appealing to me.

I know I am biased towards American culture, even though I don't try to be. But that makes sense since I live here.

"Clinton runs the risk of being seen as particularly cold, particularly uncaring, because she doesn't fit the mold," said Joshua Correll, a psychologist at the University of Chicago. "It probably is something a man doesn't deal with."I agree that sexism is a bigger problem than racism, but in the case of Clinton I don't buy it. Clinton is genuinely not nice. Same thing with her husband.

The University of Chicago test results were too simple. Didn't even report how likely you were to make the wrong decision based on race.

My results were pretty much the same as the article writer's (faster to shoot black people, slower to holster for them), but I shot two cellphones-carrying white people and holstered my gun for two armed black people. That probably counts for something.

The point of that particular test is to judge split-second reactions as to an individuals danger, conscious decision making doesn't come into it. The classic example being a cop chasing a suspect who they believe draws a weapon and thus shoots them, only to find out it was a cellphone/wallet etc... People's reactions do change as soon as you give them longer to thing about it and more conscious processes take over.