http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2442521&page=1
The following link is a link to a 20/20 story that was run on stereotyping. The test was performed by Harvard psychologists and is used to show subconscious biases that people are unaware. The test involved flashing images so fast that people reacted before they had time to really think about their reactions. What was found is that most people have inherent stereotypes hardwired into their thought processes. While reading this article I had one question that kept popping up and in the end was left unanswered. Do these biases come from outside input, such as the media, or are they more innate? In the article, it is talked about how chimpanzees and other animals would attack individuals of the same race, but from different tribes or areas. The case of the chimpanzees seemed to me the most likely to point to the explanation that these biases are natural. I have seen other studies that talk about how chimpanzees while actually go out in patrols and kill other chimpanzees that they find in their territory. But the more I thought about this example the more I thought about how social chimpanzees are. They have a very intricate social structure, just like humans. So maybe these biases are then passed through generations through these social interactions. The evidence from the article that points to this is some shocking results from when the test was run on individuals from social minorities. The exact example that stood out the most was the test figure that stated that almost half of the black people tested had subconscious biased toward people of their own race. This makes sense because for years in this country, even know, minorities are continually blamed for social and economical problems. What the test concluded was not an answer to the question though. It stated that these racial biases are in us, we just have to choose when to express them. (322)
2 comments:
I don’t agree that these biases are natural. In the case of the chimpanzee, reactions to a certain race or tribe could be over the chimps’ lifespan of endangerment and a learned condition to fight. In the article it describes how children were given photos of different races and asked which they thought was the mean one and between the Arab man and the Chinese man, the kids chose the Arab man because the Chinese man was smiling, this to them signaled “nice”, but as someone posted in a previous blog smiling is a social custom. We are socially trained that a polite person will not harm you, this is false and a key strategy for serial killers like Ted Bundy. (121 words)
I’m not sure how I feel about the idea of biases and stereotypes being hard-wired into our brains. I understand the nature versus nurture debate, and how some qualities are inherent in our DNA, while other behaviors are learned throughout are life. I think I find myself leaning more toward the learned side, as I like to believe we are born without bias and prejudice already built in. I think in our current culture we are bombarded with so many different messages, whether we are conscious of them or not. I think that we learn what we are taught and shown by those closest to us in our lives, and the biases that we have are a result of behaviors that we were shown from a very young age. This was an interesting article to read and it poses an interesting debate about behaviors that are learned and those that are innate. (152)
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