Do we control the judgments and decisions that we make every day? In the book, Blindspot, authors Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald reveal how people formulate decisions and judgments automatically based on their exposure to cultural attitudes regarding age, gender, race, ethnicity, social class, religion, disability status, and nationality. They claim a section of our brain, a“blind spot,” is responsible for storing the hidden biases that lead us to select choices and decisions in our life. Furthermore, the authors aim to unfold the scientific logic of their analysis of the effects of hidden biases so people will be “better able to achieve the alignment,” between their behavior and intentions (Banaji and Greenwald, 2013) preface …show more content…
The power of stereotypes stored in the brain was a daunting thought. This information enlightened me about the misconceptions we carry from our cultural experiences. Also, it startled me that according to (Banaji and Greenwald, 2013) “those who showed high levels of White Preference on the IAT test were also those who are most likely to show racially discriminatory behavior,” (pg. 47). I reflected on this information, and it concerned me that my judgments were simply based on past cultural experiences. This mindbug was impacting my perception of someone before I even had a chance to know him. Furthermore, I became aware of how this type of behavior could affect decisions that I possibly would make in the future. In college I will meet a more diverse group of peers than over before, and I need to be open minded and fair in my interactions. In addition in my college career, if I became a manager and was in charge of hiring I pondered whether I would be fair. Subsequently, this was a distressing revelation to me and according to (Mahzarin and Tony, 2013) “who were not pleased to discover that hidden race bias was an uninvited potential mindbug,” (pg. 52). Consequently, my cultural experiences or at times lack of true cultural experiences created within me a hidden bias about African
Some common ethnic stereotypes are derived out of implicit social cognition, also known as implicit bias. The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity defines implicit bias in their report titled, “Understanding Implicit Bias”. “… Implicit bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that effect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner” (“Understanding Implicit Bias”). Stereotypes from implicit bias contrast with others because they are created in one’s subconscious, not necessarily from a palpable event or reason. Implicit biases can become rooted in a person’s subconscious in several different manners. “In addition to early life experiences, the media and news programming are often-cited origins of implicit associations,” says the Kirwan Institute (“Understanding Implicit Bias”). The manner in which the American media portrays specific groups of people influence the implicit biases of the American people. These biases causes people to have feelings or attitudes about other races, ethnicities, age groups, and appearances (“Understanding Implicit
Implicit and explicit biases are related mental constructs. For many years, even dating back to our great’s ancestor, people always have automatic judge people, places, and things. We were all given five senses, knowing how the brain works, we choose to use our conscious actions to judge. Without awareness, we usually act on those judgments. There are two types of judgments consciously and unconsciously.
Further , it was also due to a small truth that would cover a big lie. An instance, is that a woman could say that a muffin looks pretty. These lies women tell could be risky ´, but they are used in order to not hurt the person who is receiving the lie. This was also noticed in Meyer's ted talk when she mentioned when there were two patterns of deceptions. The first one was an interview that was conducted with Bill clinton . The tell tales of his interview showed that he used a non contacted denial and a distanced language. The second deception is that liars are known to freeze their upper
The book, Blindspot, by Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald, discusses our brain’s hidden biases in which can influence our behaviors against different social groups. From different ideas discussed in Blindspot, racism is defined as conscious thoughts and feelings that provoke repetitive endorsed expressions and actions of hostility, dislike, and disrespect towards a race. Although racism can be defined, distinguishing a racist isn’t quite as clear cut.
While people deal with everyday life, a plethora of events is occurring throughout the day. Most people usually do a multitude of actions to resolve these events without thinking as well. This can be anything from trying to get to class as soon as possible, talking to someone that recently was introduced, or doing a kind of tradition at a football game. Cognitive Biases is defined as a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment, whereby inferences about other people and situations may be drawn in an illogical fashion. This article will talk about a small sample of these situations and clarify what the meaning behind them. It shall discuss Negativity Bias, Confirmation Bias, Gamblers Fallacy, and Illusion of Control
This allowed people to write down all stereotypes they know of African Americans. The results showed that both low and high prejudice groups wrote down similar stereotypes and therefore there was no significant differences between the groups and any category. “High- and low-prejudice persons are indeed equally knowledgeable of the cultural stereotype (Devine, 1989).” Although this is the case for both high- and low-prejudice persons, this does not mean that consciousness of a stereotype equals the influence and inevitability of prejudice. “The inevitability of prejudice approach, however, overlooks an important distinction between knowledge of a cultural stereotype and acceptance or endorsement of the stereotype” (Ashmore & Del Boca, 1981; Billig, 1985). Knowing about versus actually believing in stereotype are two very different things: “Beliefs can differ from one’s knowledge about an object or group or one’s affective reaction toward the object or group (Pratkanis, in press).” Therefore, while stereotypes are automatically activated, beliefs require conscious
When confronted with a problem, why does the human brain default to lying? Dishonesty is never a solution, although it may seem like the best option in the spur of a moment. My grandma always gave the example of her youth: she avoided and deceived her friend’s sister because the little girl riled everyone. Come to find out, the sister passed the following month due to an illness. I could never imagine the guilt she experienced. Nevertheless, everyone has been deceitful before and many characters were in the tragedy, The Crucible, by playwright Arthur Miller. Reasons for lying are understandable, but most people will admit that mendacity has only caused pain. Lying’s outcome is never positive: it may seem like a good option, for falsehood can save a person’s life, benefit someone, and it eases stress, but these are all transitory.
From the family customs to common societal perceptions about groups of people, it is safe to say that our thoughts, implicit or explicit, and behavior can be shaped according to other people’s views and morals. Upon taking the Implicit Association Test, I understood there is space to the individual thought, through positive or negative cultural or social influence.
Stephanie Ericsson’s The Ways We Lie, analyzes and reflects on how lying has simply become the norm in our society. We all lie, there is not one person in the world that does not lie. Most people lie because they are afraid of telling the truth, however what they do not know is telling a lie can lead them in the wrong direction because many things can happen when lying to a person. The person can find out when everything unravels that person will not have trust in you and you would be known as a liar. To every action there is a consequence, so why not deal with just one consequence when telling the
Truth-telling has become altered in today’s society. In certain situations it is all right to lie or deceive. People have regarded truth-telling as overrated. It is amazing the words we put with the word lying. We call them so many various things such as; exaggeration, little white lies, half truths, deceptions, and fibbing. Lying has become a very complicated topic today. Lying can be used in many different ways such as; to protect the innocent, for tradition, and the esteem of individuals. On the other hand, lying can be used as a tool of deception and manipulation. When used in this manner lying becomes detrimental to an individual and to a society. “We need to sort out what is and what is not morally justifiable, just as we must sort out moral from immoral behavior in politics, science, and religion (qtd. in hooke, 210)”
(8) has suggested that the inhibition hypothesis is related to what is currently known about cognitive processes. Mainly, the limited cognitive resources the brain possesses can only be divided between so many tasks; as cognitive demand increases past a particular point [i.e. through high emotional intensity/complex lie] emotional leakage will occur while the individual attempts to be deceptive (8). It is this concept of emotional leakage, precipitated from the inhibition hypothesis, that has been of great interest to researchers as it offers a glimpse into the inner affective state of the subject (8). The applied applications of the concept have been particularly useful in fields concerned with deception detection - especially in regards to high stakes lies (8).
As humans, we have a natural tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and ignore contrary evidence. We also fear what we can’t control because dramatic events are readily available to memory and they shape our perceptions of risk. These readily available memories can be stimulated when reminded of a concept that links to the dramatic event. We often form our concept by developing prototypes. Prototypes provide a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories. Unfortunately, prototypes can also be used towards racial discrimination. When we have a prototype of a particular ethnic group we tend to categorize the whole ethnic group to that prototype; although, it might not be a true fact. For example, after the 9’11 incident, people started fearing all Muslims and had the concept of terrorist and the best prototype that matched the concept “terrorist” was Muslim. In this paper I will cover three terms; Prototypes, confirmation bias, and belief perseverance.
According to Devine (1989), automatic processing involves the unconscious retrieval of obtained associations that develop through memory repetition; this process links with stimulus cues in the environment. The intense nature of automaticity is that an individual cannot escape or try to ignore the process (Devine, 1989). People build and enforce stereotypes through this automatic process and have no conscious control of memory retrievals. Human bodies take a lot of effort to function, but automatic processing requires little effort. People, therefore, mostly rely on automatic thinking, rather than controlled. This is why some researchers argue that automatic processing is why stereotyping is inevitable; because automaticity is easier, it does not mean controlled thinking cannot disband stereotypes (Devine, 1989). Controlled thinking is intentional and requires active participation of an individual. This proce...
Is how we act is predetermined by a number of factors beyond our control or are we simply able to make choices that are not determined by our dispositions or desirers. This notion of freewill has been debated by theorists for centuries. Hard Determinists say that how we act is due to a combination of genetic factors and the environment around us. A similar notion is Fatalism where how is act is predetermined by a higher power. However Compatabalists think that how we act is a combination of freewill and what environmental and genetic endowments have been bestowed to us. This paper will critically discuss these theories and how human beings are capable of freewill.
Pronin, E., Lin, D. Y., & Ross, L. (2002). The bias blind spot: Perceptions of bias in self