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The Internal Racist Part 5 |
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Monday, 11 August 2008 |
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A disadvantage of minorities is that they are minorities...and generally have less access to power and resources in a society,
In a second study, Rudman and Ashmore measured the resource allocation implications of implicit racism for Jews, Asians and blacks. Participants in their study were asked to examine a budget proposal ‘under consideration’ at their university and to make recommendations for allocating funding to student organisations.
The Internal Racist Part 5 |
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The Internal Racist Part 4 |
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Monday, 04 August 2008 |
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"Did you hear the one about the Englishman, the Irishman and the Chineseman?"
Shop-worn ethnic jokes are the standard fare of countless, "Big book of jokes". They also serve as the basis for reinforcing social stereotyping and status.
As the old saying goes: "There is no smoke without fire". The Internal Racist Part 4 |
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The Internal Racist Part 3 |
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Friday, 25 July 2008 |
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Our internal racist does not just discriminate against black people - we are much more sophisticated than that. We discriminate against a whole range of ‘minority’ groups!
In an interesting experiment, a number of job applications were sent out by the economist Dan-Olof Rooth of the University of Kalmar in Sweden. The job applications were on behalf of two men, both identical in every way except that one mythical job applicant had a Swedish name while the second had an Arabic sounding name.
The Internal Racist Part 3 |
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The Internal Racist Part 2 |
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Saturday, 19 July 2008 |
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It is important to understand the impact of implicit assumptions in a wide range of areas. I have been focusing on racism and sexism because they are two significant areas where clear differences emerge between what we consciously believe and how we actuallybehave.
For instance, in a 2007 study by Harvard psychologist Mahzarin R. Banaji, 287 doctors were presented with a photograph and brief clinical vignette describing a middle-aged patient who arrived at the hospital complaining of chest pain. Some of these doctors were provided with a photo of a white man and others a photo of a black man. The medical conditions of the patient were always the same.
The Internal Racist Part 2 |
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The Internal Racist Part 1 |
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Wednesday, 09 July 2008 |
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Imagine you are walking through a major metropolitan city in the US. It is late at night, there is graffiti on the walls, broken windows and rubbish all around. You are alone until you hear footsteps. As you turn around ask yourself - who do you want to see?
Such a situation prompted civil-rights leader Jesse Jackson to state:
"There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to start thinking about robbery - then look around and see somebody white and to feel relieved."
The Internal Racist Part 1 |
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Implicit Assumptions Answers |
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Friday, 04 July 2008 |
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The questions posted in the previous blog were designed to highlight the two systems of thought (the intuitive and the rational) that operate in our brain (see references for confirmation of this outlandish statement!) The degree to which an individual monitors their intuitive thoughts with their rational mind is a profound indicator of other significant personal characteristics.
Question one asked: A bat and a base-ball cost $1.10 together. The bat costs $1.00 more than the base-ball. How much do the bat and the base-ball cost individually? (Did you give it a go?)
Implicit Assumptions Answers |
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Implicit Assumptions Questions |
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Tuesday, 01 July 2008 |
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The following simple questions will provide an indication as to how your decision making can be influenced through implicit assumptions. Taking a few minutes to complete the questions as it will provide you with very powerful insights into how easily conscious thinking can be influenced.
1. A bat and a base-ball cost $1.10 together. The bat costs $1.00 more than the base ball. How much do the bat and the base-ball cost individually?
Bat costs:_____________ Base Ball costs: ___________
2. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? (A widget is an economic euphemism for 'product' or 'thingie' - there is a reason that economists are not engineers)
How long?____________
3. There is a lake suffering from a blue-green algae bloom. Every day the size of the bloom doubles. If it takes 48 days for the bloom to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half the lake?
How many days? ________________
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Implicit Assumptions Aside |
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Tuesday, 24 June 2008 |
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Before delving deeper into the nature and characteristics of Implicit Assumptions it is worth taking a moment to explore how they influence our daily life and, in particular, how they influence the decisions that we make.
Technically, implicit assumptions are 'simplifying heuristics' which is a fancy way of saying, 'decision shortcuts.' Our brain makes sense of the world by making mental models to explain it and how the different parts of our world interact. We can also think of our brain as a squishy machine that is constantly sorting information from our environment to try and keep us safe while also helping us reach our 'objectives', be them ever so humble or grand.
Implicit Assumptions Aside |
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Looking Up And Seeing Stars |
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Thursday, 12 June 2008 |
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Just over a week ago Dianne Odell, at the age of 61, died because of a power failure to her home in Jackson, Tennessee. While family members frantically tried to start an emergency generator, her father said, "We did everything we could do but we couldn't keep her breathing. Dianne had gotten a lot weaker over the past several months and she just didn't have the strength to keep going."
 Dianne Odell had spent the previous 58 years with a two meter machine completely enveloping her body to keep her alive. This machine, a 340-kilogram iron lung, was a cylindrical chamber with a seal at the neck that completely enveloped her body with only her head exposed. At the age of three, Dianne was struck down with the debilitating disease polio. Her life was dependent on a machine developed in 1928 that produced positive and negative pressure on her lungs to induce breathing. Because of a spinal deformity from the polio that made it impossible for Odell to wear a more modern, portable, breathing apparatus she had to use the older machine.
Looking Up And Seeing Stars |
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