• Team of evolutionary psychologists find that perception of race is not automatic
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[quote]For years, psychologists thought we instantly label each other by ethnicity. But one intriguing study proposes this is far from inevitable, with obvious implications for tackling racism. When we meet someone we tend to label them in certain ways. “Tall guy” you might think, or “Ugly kid”. Lots of work in social psychology suggests that there are some categorisations that spring faster to mind. So fast, in fact, that they can be automatic. Sex is an example: we tend to notice if someone is a man or a woman, and remember that fact, without any deliberate effort. Age is another example. You can see this in the way people talk about others. If you said you went to a party and met someone, most people wouldn’t let you continue with your story until you said if it was a man or a woman, and there’s a good chance they’d also want to know how old they were too. Unfortunately, a swathe of evidence from the 1980s and 1990s also seemed to suggest that race is an automatic categorisation, in that people effortlessly and rapidly identified and remembered which ethnic group an individual appeared to belong to. “Unfortunate”, because if perceiving race is automatic then it lays a foundation for racism, and appears to put a limit on efforts to educate people to be “colourblind”, or put aside prejudices in other ways. Over a decade of research failed to uncover experimental conditions that could prevent people instinctively categorising by race, until a trio of evolutionary psychologists came along with a very different take on the subject. Now, it seems only fair to say that evolutionary psychologists have a mixed reputation among psychologists. As a flavour of psychology it has been associated with political opinions that tend towards the conservative. Often, scientific racists claim to base their views on some jumbled version of evolutionary psychology (scientific racism is racism dressed up as science, not racisms based on science, in case you wondered). So it was a delightful surprise when researchers from one of the world centres for evolutionary psychology intervened in the debate on social categorisation, by conducting an experiment they claimed showed that labelling people by race was far less automatic and inevitable than all previous research seemed to show. Powerful force The research used something called a “memory confusion protocol”. This works by asking experiment participants to remember a series of pictures of individuals, who vary along various dimensions – for example, some have black hair and some blond, some are men, some women, etc. When participants’ memories are tested, the errors they make reveal something about how they judged the pictures of individuals – what sticks in their mind most and least. If a participant more often confuses a black-haired man with a blond-haired man, it suggests that the category of hair colour is less important than the category of gender (and similarly, if people rarely confuse a man for a woman, that also shows that gender is the stronger category). Using this protocol, the researchers tested the strength of categorisation by race, something all previous efforts had shown was automatic. The twist they added was to throw in another powerful psychological force – group membership. People had to remember individuals who wore either yellow or grey basketball shirts, and whose pictures were presented alongside statements indicating which team they were in. Without the shirts, the pattern of errors were clear: participants automatically categorised the individuals by their race (in this case: African American or Euro American). But with the coloured shirts, this automatic categorisation didn’t happen: people’s errors revealed that team membership had become the dominant category, not the race of the players. It’s important to understand that the memory test was both a surprise – participants didn’t know it was coming up – and an unobtrusive measure of racial categorising. Participants couldn’t guess that the researchers were going to make inferences about how they categorised people in the pictures – so if they didn’t want to appear to perceive people on the basis of race, it wouldn’t be clear how they should change their behaviour to do this. Because of this we can assume we have a fairly direct measure of their real categorisation, unbiased by any desire to monitor how they appear. So despite what dozens of experiments had appeared to show, this experiment created a situation where categorisation by race faded into the background. The explanation, according to the researchers, is that race is only important when it might indicate coalitional information – that is, whose team you are on. In situations where race isn’t correlated with coalition, it ceases to be important. This, they claim, makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. For most of ancestors age and gender would be important predictors of another person’s behaviour, but race wouldn’t – since most people lived in areas with no differences as large as the ones we associate with “race” today (a concept, incidentally, which has little currency among human biologists). Since the experiment was published, the response from social psychologists has been muted. But supporting evidence is beginning to be reported, suggesting that the finding will hold. It’s an unfortunate fact of human psychology that we are quick to lump people into groups, even on the slimmest evidence. And once we’ve identified a group, it’s also seems automatic to jump to conclusions about what they are like. But this experiment suggests that although perceiving groups on the basis of race might be easy, it is far from inevitable.[/quote] [url]http://mindhacks.com/2013/04/29/race-perception-isnt-automatic/[/url]
I can't remember the quote exactly, but: "No one is born to hate or despise their fellow man... It comes with brainwashing from parents or others"
When I was little I usually refused to hold hands with "that black kid", and my parents never taught me to be afraid of them. Make of it what you want. It could be because I was usually afraid of "the unknown" or "the different". After a couple of months I learned that they're fine to be with though.
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;40467134]I can't remember the quote exactly, but: "No one is born to hate or despise their fellow man... It comes with brainwashing from parents or others"[/QUOTE] this is an incredibly simplistic and misleading view
[QUOTE=Gears of duty;40467159]When I was little I usually refused to hold hands with "that black kid", and my parents never taught me to be afraid of them. Make of it what you want. It could be because I was usually afraid of "the unknown" or "the different". After a couple of months I learned that they're fine to be with though.[/QUOTE] Or because of stigma you were too young to realize was affecting you.
When i was on La Palma for the first time I refused to step on the black sand.
My dad was an Australian cop for 15 years, so I pretty much grew up on stories of Aboriginals getting into trouble and doing stupid shit. I know a few good abo's, one of them a fantastic artist, but I don't like them. Funny how inherited prejudice works.
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;40467134]I can't remember the quote exactly, but: "No one is born to hate or despise their fellow man... It comes with brainwashing from parents or others"[/QUOTE] Nah, it's an evolutionary adaptation. (They talk about how we list things from a coalitional perspective which from an evolutionary psychology/biology perspective makes sense). What is the sad thing is that we're conditioned in some way via society to assume people of other skin colours as being different "coalitonally" to us.
[QUOTE=Craigewan;40467336]Nah, it's an evolutionary adaptation. (They talk about how we list things from a coalitional perspective which from an evolutionary psychology/biology perspective makes sense). What is the sad thing is that we're conditioned in some way via society to assume people of other skin colours as being different "coalitonally" to us.[/QUOTE] I wouldn't say it's by society, I'd say it's by default. We're built to live in small tribes that were genetically very similar and so looked similar. When confronted with people of different skin colors or who have differently shaped faces to you, it's an automatic red flag for "not one of us" unless you take pains to make them perceived as already part of the group.
[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;40467207]this is an incredibly simplistic and misleading view[/QUOTE] Every teen is literally a little, easily directable drone, the only difference is which ideology lures him in.
As someone who grew up in a rainbow family (I'm all white, my older brother is mix race as are many of my cousins, I have uncles from Jamaica, my adopted baby brother is half Sicilian) I knew what racism was from my parents, but I didn't know that people were actually racist until I got into high school and it actually shocked me. When the internet came around, I was exposed to it on a much larger scale. I just don't understand it, I suppose at the end of the day it's just ignorance and a fear of what you don't know and for that I just kinda feel sorry for racist people. I've been out with people who I wouldn't call racist in a million years and we've gone places where there are alot of black kids and they'll feel uneasy, I can never get my head around it. [QUOTE=Dejarie;40467321]My dad was an Australian cop for 15 years, so I pretty much grew up on stories of Aboriginals getting into trouble and doing stupid shit. I know a few good abo's, one of them a fantastic artist, but I don't like them. Funny how inherited prejudice works.[/QUOTE] You're a racist pal
[QUOTE=Dejarie;40467321]My dad was an Australian cop for 15 years, so I pretty much grew up on stories of Aboriginals getting into trouble and doing stupid shit. I know a few good abo's, one of them a fantastic artist, but I don't like them. Funny how inherited prejudice works.[/QUOTE] i dont know if it actually is, but it certainly feels worse that you acknowledge that youre prejudiced and dont change
I used to have this crush on this Indian girl back in 1st grade and I remember imagining being with her as adults and thinking that people would think it would be weird because we were different skin colors.
it sorta makes sense considering our idea of racism and racial differences really became the way it is during the age of colonialism, to justify colonialism. in the middle ages you were about as likely to hate someone because they were from the next village over as you were to hate them because of their skin color.
[QUOTE=Falchion;40467391]Every teen is literally a little, easily directable drone, the only difference is which ideology lures him in.[/QUOTE] or u know people are free thinking individuals
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;40468300]or u know people are free thinking individuals[/QUOTE] ahahahahah, sure, live in a candy world of rainbows and puppy dogs.
Half the internet is going to throw away their favourite evolutionary psychology textbooks now that they can't use human nature as an excuse to hate the blacks anymore pack up your fedoras boys the dream is over
[QUOTE=Zeke129;40468405]Half the internet is going to throw away their favourite evolutionary psychology textbooks now that they can't use human nature as an excuse to hate the blacks anymore pack up your fedoras boys the dream is over[/QUOTE] Until there is a mountain of evidence supporting the claims made in this article then I do not think that is likely. The findings do not really surprise me, it gels with my personal experiences with racial categorisation.
[QUOTE=Hellduck;40467646]i dont know if it actually is, but it certainly feels worse that you acknowledge that youre prejudiced and dont change[/QUOTE] Why change, not like I'm going to go out and lynch any of them, and I'm not an asshole like most people, and if someone asks for help, I'll help them regardless of race. It's just very easy to dislike a group when you spend half your life hearing about the stupid shit they do.
I've seen and experienced enough to take this theory into my beliefs. Coming from a very small rural school, we always accepted the opportunity to meet or hang out with new people. The most racist, as far as I could tell, were those who spent most of their life living the traditions of their older family members: usually cowboys or farmhands. Not generalizing who is what, I just believe it's based on the history of the people the trait is learned from.
Very interesting read! Thanks for sharing.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;40468405]Half the internet is going to throw away their favourite evolutionary psychology textbooks now that they can't use human nature as an excuse to hate the blacks anymore pack up your fedoras boys the dream is over[/QUOTE] i have my evolutionary psychology textbook right here it doesn't mention race in the index nor anywhere else in the book except in passing as far as I can tell [editline]29th April 2013[/editline] evolutionary psychology doesn't have much to say about races proper. if race is mentioned it's usually in the context of how we treat different races like this article for example.
[QUOTE=Dejarie;40468789] It's just very easy to dislike a group when you spend half your life hearing about the stupid shit they do.[/QUOTE] Like racists
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;40467134]I can't remember the quote exactly, but: "No one is born to hate or despise their fellow man... It comes with brainwashing from parents or others"[/QUOTE] If that were true then their would be no one to brainwash the people who brainwash the other people, its just looping logic, unless the first people were the only ones who didn't feel this way, which History shows us is not true.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;40468405]Half the internet is going to throw away their favourite evolutionary psychology textbooks now that they can't use human nature as an excuse to hate the blacks anymore pack up your fedoras boys the dream is over[/QUOTE] Legit when have ANY of the dudes you are stereotyping actually referenced an actual evopysch paper or study? Largely most of the shit I see is some bitter aspie alluding to some "evopysch" he once read but doesn't have the text on hand but its science so it justifies my world view!!!! - and this shit ends up giving evo psych a very bad name for what is actually an incredibly interesting and potentially illuminating field of study.
[QUOTE=Gears of duty;40467159]When I was little I usually refused to hold hands with "that black kid", and my parents never taught me to be afraid of them. Make of it what you want. It could be because I was usually afraid of "the unknown" or "the different". After a couple of months I learned that they're fine to be with though.[/QUOTE] I was the exact opposite. There was a guy called Adam in my primary school who I remember for being extremely funny and having the greatest collection of Action Men. It's only years later looking back on it that I realised he was black. Didn't even register at the time.
[QUOTE=Falchion;40467391]Every teen is literally a little, easily directable drone, the only difference is which ideology lures him in.[/QUOTE] everyone disagreeing with this is some 15 year old who is mature for their age [editline]30th April 2013[/editline] i don't think I actually saw a black person until I was atleast ~8-ish, I don't there are actually any in india
This article just says that people automatically group other people. Race is a primary grouper in natural life, but when say you're sorting lads and guidos it takes a backseat. So perception of race is automatic (most of the time)?
I remember that when I was 7 or 8 my family and I went to the US, Florida exactly, and I was at the pool at the resort we were staying in and I saw two black men who worked there, and I couldn't stop staring and wondering to myself why were their palms so god damn white. I remember thinking they must have been painting or something and painted their hands. It wasn't even the first time I saw black people, but it intrigued me for some reason.
[QUOTE=Dejarie;40467321]My dad was an Australian cop for 15 years, so I pretty much grew up on stories of Aboriginals getting into trouble and doing stupid shit. I know a few good abo's, one of them a fantastic artist, but I don't like them. Funny how inherited prejudice works.[/QUOTE] [url]https://twitter.com/yesyoureracist[/url]
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