This is a survey article of sorts built on shaky foundations. The most relevant paper to read in relation to this story is this one: "Over half of psychology studies fail reproducibility test." http://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-f...
By the time the results get distilled into a Guardian article, the situation is probably hopeless.
There's a trade-off between evaluating everything on a case-by-case basis (which takes time and energy) and using general rules of thumb that allow quick decisions making, but is essentially discrimination.
I like to reflect on my own judgement before I actually need to use it, deciding which rules will be acceptable, what situations call for carefulness, what ideas I should be wary of even if I'm in a horrible mood.
The subconscious is a wonderful thing, but sometimes it's nice to take charge of one's own thoughts a little bit.
All judgements in favor of one person over another are discrimination. The problem is when discrimanation is for immaterial factors based on racial/gender attributes over those relevant to the environment.
In some ways a person's culture can play a large role vs. physical attributes in a given work environment. I think it comes down to making at least an effort to treat everyone fairly and not making broad assumptions.
It's not just about time and effort. There are situations where we simply do not have access to complete information, no matter how much time and effort we spend gathering it.
Completely off-topic, but is the quote at the top grammatically correct? The comma looks unnecessary.
I feel like it should be "We must make snap judgments on the basis of various shortcuts, or we’d be unable to function", not "We must make snap judgments, on the basis of various shortcuts, or we’d be unable to function". Is this just an error, or was the comma added to more closely reflect how the individual spoke?
It changes the meaning, I think. In the second case, it means that snap judgements must be made to function, and they're, incidentally, based on shortcuts (but you can leave out this part of the sentence), while in the first case 'on the basis of various shortcuts' is a very integral part of the information, and snap judgements must be made this way.
In some ways statistical modeling is trying to do with rigor and honesty about error what we seem to do quite naturally in daily life. That is we make decisions based on observed and/or shared and taught patterns.
Stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination are the crude, less substantiated and often mean-spirited cousins of statistical models.
Models are useful as long as their limitations are well understood, and humans use them with caution and compassion.
Modern statistics and statistically modelling are actually just confirming the validity of the majority of widely held stereotypes.
As statistics in the academy become more common and advanced, more and more old stereotypes are just confirmed to be accurate. This is considered a crisis right now in social psychology, for instance, because there are almost no stereotypes that research has debunked. Again and again, research confirms stereotypes, and shows that humans in the aggregate are very good at creating accurate inferences.
Stereotypes create injustice when they lead to prejudice--failing to give an individual a chance because they belong to a stereotyped group--but prejudice is wrong because outliers deserve a chance, not because stereotypes are incorrect.
How can liberalism persist in the face of so much science that dismantles its most sacred beliefs?
>there are almost no stereotypes that research has debunked. Again and again, research confirms stereotypes, and shows that humans in the aggregate are very good at creating accurate inferences.
I'm calling BS on this unless you give some specific examples.
Not only this but confirming stereotypes does not mean that "humans in the aggregate are very good at creating accurate inferences."
For example if (group) have the stereotype of being dumb that doesn't mean that others are good at making accurate inferences, it may just mean that others are good at denying (group) access to education and the same standard of living.
The only catch is that when attributes of the stereotyped population change over time, the stereotype can lag behind the change for awhile, but the stereotypes eventually catch up to fit the new situation. All cultures stereotype and all cultures are quite good at it. Stereotypes are a pragmatic and democratic form of knowledge-making that all human cultures use[1].
This bullet proof research came out of various well-funded attempts to debunk stereotypes during the last 30 years. You know that science is working when sincere and hopeful attempts to debunk common knowledge end up confirming it very strongly!
[1]:Heine, Steven J., Cultural Psychology. 3rd edition. W.W. Norton, 2016. ISBN: 9780393263985.
"Calling BS" does not seem very substantive and it doesn't feel very civil either. I don't see who made you the authority here.
There are too many examples to list, but the citation I gave contains dozens and dozens[1]. For instance, it turns out that North Asians really are better at math than people of European ancestry. Ashkenazi Jews really are better at learning languages and have larger vocabularies and superior grammatical understanding and usage. Cultural psychologists have tabulated voluminous data on all the ethnic stereotypes throughout the world--hundreds of stereotypes that different Asians have of each other for instance--and again and again they are found to be more true than not.
The big mistake would be to then have prejudice--to prejudge an individual on the basis of their group affiliation. While it's a scientific fact that North Asians (Korea, China, Japan) are better at math than other populations, there are plenty of people in those groups that are worse than the global average. So it would be a mistake to assume that just because someone you meet is North Asian they are better than average at math.
[1]: Heine, Steven J., Cultural Psychology. 3rd edition. W.W. Norton, 2016. ISBN: 9780393263985.
No one would deny that there are substantial physical differences between men and women, not just in form but in function, such as athletic performance. Men hold the majority of individual performance world records, consistent with stereotype. But there are also cognitive and intelligence differences [0]. Men have an IQ distribution with greater variance than women, which suggests statistically that there are more men than women per capita in the top percentiles of intelligence, as well as the bottom [1] - one study placed twice as many men as women in the top 2% [1], while Down syndrome and other learning disabilities are also more common in males. Some studies find that men have slightly (a few points) higher average IQ [2] and perform better on reasoning tests [3]. (There is controversy of opinion about some of these results and I don't know how to summarize their standing in the scientific community.)
Anatomical differences in the brain are well known, with males having larger brains, and using their hemispheres differently than females. A 2013 study reported, "Sex differences in human behavior show adaptive complementarity: Males have better motor and spatial abilities, whereas females have superior memory and social cognition skills. [...] Overall, the results suggest that male brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action, whereas female brains are designed to facilitate communication between analytical and intuitive processing modes." [4]
Another example is that female babies are more interested in faces and social situations, while males are more interested in mechanical objects. This difference even begins days after birth, too soon to be influenced by culture [5], meaning that the difference is innate.
Some of these studies could be seen to be confirming stereotypes, e.g., males having a proportionately greater attraction to mechanical objects could be an inclination that leads to more men than women self-selecting into engineering disciplines. More men having top percentile intelligence could correspond to historical geniuses being stereotypically male (Newton, Einstein, Ramanujan, etc.) - and there being more men in the bottom percentiles could explain why more men are homeless and have mental illness (bag man or hobo stereotype). My understanding is that IQ differences by race also tend to align with stereotypes, with Asians and Ashkenazi Jews as you mentioned having top average intelligence.
I try to understand as much research as I can, since I view it as the most effective objective way to learn about the world. Scientific results don't / wouldn't alter my view that humans all deserve to be treated with fairness, equality, compassion, and judged on their individual behavior and merit, and not by membership in some group.
[1] Deary, Ian J.; Irwing, Paul; Der, Geoff; Bates, Timothy C. (2007). "Brother–sister differences in the g factor in intelligence: Analysis of full, opposite-sex siblings from the NLSY1979
> Here we use a novel design, comparing 1292 pairs of opposite-sex siblings who participated in the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY1979) [...]. Males have only a marginal advantage in mean levels of g (less than 7% of a standard deviation) from the ASVAB and AFQT, but substantially greater variance. Among the top 2% AFQT scores, there were almost twice as many males as females. These differences could provide a partial basis for sex differences in intellectual eminence.
[2] Allik, J., Must, O., & Lynn, R. (1999). Sex differences in general intelligence among high school graduates: Some results from Estonia. Personality and Individual Differences, 16, 1137-1141.
[3] Lynn, Richard (1994). "Sex differences in intelligence and brain size: A paradox resolved". Personality a...
Biases are turtles all the way down, one learns. The only “solution” I’ve found for myself is not to “correct” them, but to have a lot less conviction about my own correctness. Big error bars.
I'm not sure I get the point of this article. On the teacher example, of course we discriminate based on skill, no one's disputing that. I could not find a deeper point than discriminate by legitimate metrics but not by skin color, race, etc which is fairly obvious.
The point of the article is that using outrage and shame culture to resolve discrimination can be just as bad as acts of discrimination themselves. The act of shaming a person can make you feel you have done your 'good deed for the day', and allow you to unconsciously commit your own biases against others. The article suggests that instead of shaming or attacking biases we observe in others, we should reflect on ourselves first, and fix our own misdeeds and mistakes.
The entire article could be summarized from a verse in the (NKJV) Bible:
Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?
Because my brother is actually being a racist, which is a beam in his eye, whereas I am calling him out for being a racist, which, if we accept that there's something wrong with "outrage and shame culture" (which, tbh, I mostly see used interchangeably with "PC" as a catchall putdown by people upset that they can't just talk shit about minorities and women without consequence like they used to be able to do in the good ol' days), is a speck in my eye.
Is that really what you got from the article? I feel like the author makes a pretty valid point: everyone pattern-matches people at first impression. If you decide to climb on a tower of moral virtue because you think you've consciously decided to stop pattern-matching on the basis of race/gender and thus don't introspect about your (many) other subconscious biases, you're really not doing anyone a favor.
I was specifically responding to the idea, suggested by Afforess, that "using outrage and shame culture to resolve discrimination can be just as bad as acts of discrimination themselves", which is ridiculous, and which the second paragraph of the article at least somewhat seems to imply.
Obviously, if someone claims they've defeated the biases that everyone falls prey to constantly, they are almost certainly incorrect. But, at least in my experience, I've never seen that; I've seen a lot of people who are cognizant of the studies suggesting everyone's prone to bias who then try to consciously counteract that, I've seen a lot of people reject those studies and their conclusions entirely and claim they and many others can make judgments that are not prone to those biases, and I've seen a lot of people who don't know what studies you're talking about. I haven't seen anybody saying "Everyone is prone to these biases except me," much less the epidemic the article suggests.
You can literally go on twitter and find somebody spewing racist shit every second of every day. You cannot do the same with "people claiming that everyone is implicitly biased except for them".
You can literally go on Facebook and find somebody spewing "you're racist". They may or may not think "I'm racist too, but I handle it better." For some reason they usually are careful not to say anything pointing to that direction. We can't know that those people think.
That racist stuff on twitter could be just humor and nothing more. We don't know how those people think either.
The point of the article was "hey people, you might be biased in this way." Now what's wrong with saying that aloud?
I read the title, saw the photo of the author, and made a snap judgment that the article was going to be a pseudo-intellectual, covertly conservative argument, such as: "Why race is actually a thing, sometimes" or "Why gender pay imbalances may be sometimes helpful" - and my snap judgment was right.
What's funny about discrimination is some is overt, but much more is covert. Overt is mostly frowned upon, although e.g. car insurance companies still openly charge men more. I'm pretty sure that's only allowed because men aren't the "protected gender" when it comes to discrimination.
When gender based discrimination is outlawed men are included as well.
That being said Montana outlaws gender based discrimination in auto insurance as does the EU.
Where its allowed it is allowed because nobody got around to outlawing it. That can change.
Until Obamacare many US states allowed health insurance companies to charge women higher premiums because women go to the doctor more. Obamacare outlawed that.
I think gender discrimination is auto insurance will end eventually.
33 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 74.4 ms ] threadBy the time the results get distilled into a Guardian article, the situation is probably hopeless.
I like to reflect on my own judgement before I actually need to use it, deciding which rules will be acceptable, what situations call for carefulness, what ideas I should be wary of even if I'm in a horrible mood. The subconscious is a wonderful thing, but sometimes it's nice to take charge of one's own thoughts a little bit.
In some ways a person's culture can play a large role vs. physical attributes in a given work environment. I think it comes down to making at least an effort to treat everyone fairly and not making broad assumptions.
I feel like it should be "We must make snap judgments on the basis of various shortcuts, or we’d be unable to function", not "We must make snap judgments, on the basis of various shortcuts, or we’d be unable to function". Is this just an error, or was the comma added to more closely reflect how the individual spoke?
Stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination are the crude, less substantiated and often mean-spirited cousins of statistical models.
Models are useful as long as their limitations are well understood, and humans use them with caution and compassion.
As statistics in the academy become more common and advanced, more and more old stereotypes are just confirmed to be accurate. This is considered a crisis right now in social psychology, for instance, because there are almost no stereotypes that research has debunked. Again and again, research confirms stereotypes, and shows that humans in the aggregate are very good at creating accurate inferences.
Stereotypes create injustice when they lead to prejudice--failing to give an individual a chance because they belong to a stereotyped group--but prejudice is wrong because outliers deserve a chance, not because stereotypes are incorrect.
How can liberalism persist in the face of so much science that dismantles its most sacred beliefs?
I'm calling BS on this unless you give some specific examples.
Not only this but confirming stereotypes does not mean that "humans in the aggregate are very good at creating accurate inferences."
For example if (group) have the stereotype of being dumb that doesn't mean that others are good at making accurate inferences, it may just mean that others are good at denying (group) access to education and the same standard of living.
This bullet proof research came out of various well-funded attempts to debunk stereotypes during the last 30 years. You know that science is working when sincere and hopeful attempts to debunk common knowledge end up confirming it very strongly!
[1]:Heine, Steven J., Cultural Psychology. 3rd edition. W.W. Norton, 2016. ISBN: 9780393263985.
There are too many examples to list, but the citation I gave contains dozens and dozens[1]. For instance, it turns out that North Asians really are better at math than people of European ancestry. Ashkenazi Jews really are better at learning languages and have larger vocabularies and superior grammatical understanding and usage. Cultural psychologists have tabulated voluminous data on all the ethnic stereotypes throughout the world--hundreds of stereotypes that different Asians have of each other for instance--and again and again they are found to be more true than not.
The big mistake would be to then have prejudice--to prejudge an individual on the basis of their group affiliation. While it's a scientific fact that North Asians (Korea, China, Japan) are better at math than other populations, there are plenty of people in those groups that are worse than the global average. So it would be a mistake to assume that just because someone you meet is North Asian they are better than average at math.
[1]: Heine, Steven J., Cultural Psychology. 3rd edition. W.W. Norton, 2016. ISBN: 9780393263985.
Anatomical differences in the brain are well known, with males having larger brains, and using their hemispheres differently than females. A 2013 study reported, "Sex differences in human behavior show adaptive complementarity: Males have better motor and spatial abilities, whereas females have superior memory and social cognition skills. [...] Overall, the results suggest that male brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action, whereas female brains are designed to facilitate communication between analytical and intuitive processing modes." [4]
Another example is that female babies are more interested in faces and social situations, while males are more interested in mechanical objects. This difference even begins days after birth, too soon to be influenced by culture [5], meaning that the difference is innate.
Some of these studies could be seen to be confirming stereotypes, e.g., males having a proportionately greater attraction to mechanical objects could be an inclination that leads to more men than women self-selecting into engineering disciplines. More men having top percentile intelligence could correspond to historical geniuses being stereotypically male (Newton, Einstein, Ramanujan, etc.) - and there being more men in the bottom percentiles could explain why more men are homeless and have mental illness (bag man or hobo stereotype). My understanding is that IQ differences by race also tend to align with stereotypes, with Asians and Ashkenazi Jews as you mentioned having top average intelligence.
I try to understand as much research as I can, since I view it as the most effective objective way to learn about the world. Scientific results don't / wouldn't alter my view that humans all deserve to be treated with fairness, equality, compassion, and judged on their individual behavior and merit, and not by membership in some group.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intellige...
[1] Deary, Ian J.; Irwing, Paul; Der, Geoff; Bates, Timothy C. (2007). "Brother–sister differences in the g factor in intelligence: Analysis of full, opposite-sex siblings from the NLSY1979
> Here we use a novel design, comparing 1292 pairs of opposite-sex siblings who participated in the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY1979) [...]. Males have only a marginal advantage in mean levels of g (less than 7% of a standard deviation) from the ASVAB and AFQT, but substantially greater variance. Among the top 2% AFQT scores, there were almost twice as many males as females. These differences could provide a partial basis for sex differences in intellectual eminence.
[2] Allik, J., Must, O., & Lynn, R. (1999). Sex differences in general intelligence among high school graduates: Some results from Estonia. Personality and Individual Differences, 16, 1137-1141. [3] Lynn, Richard (1994). "Sex differences in intelligence and brain size: A paradox resolved". Personality a...
The entire article could be summarized from a verse in the (NKJV) Bible:
Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?
Obviously, if someone claims they've defeated the biases that everyone falls prey to constantly, they are almost certainly incorrect. But, at least in my experience, I've never seen that; I've seen a lot of people who are cognizant of the studies suggesting everyone's prone to bias who then try to consciously counteract that, I've seen a lot of people reject those studies and their conclusions entirely and claim they and many others can make judgments that are not prone to those biases, and I've seen a lot of people who don't know what studies you're talking about. I haven't seen anybody saying "Everyone is prone to these biases except me," much less the epidemic the article suggests.
I haven't heard anybody in real life call black people dumb. So I could claim that racism doesn't really exist.
Personal anecdotes prove nothing. We are both biased. I can't see what harm is done by warning people about this stuff.
That racist stuff on twitter could be just humor and nothing more. We don't know how those people think either.
The point of the article was "hey people, you might be biased in this way." Now what's wrong with saying that aloud?
When gender based discrimination is outlawed men are included as well.
That being said Montana outlaws gender based discrimination in auto insurance as does the EU.
Where its allowed it is allowed because nobody got around to outlawing it. That can change.
Until Obamacare many US states allowed health insurance companies to charge women higher premiums because women go to the doctor more. Obamacare outlawed that.
I think gender discrimination is auto insurance will end eventually.