Genuine question about stereotypes

[wanttomarryamillionaire]

So yesterday i was listening to a radio show about the young black girl that was strip searched by police, they were talking about stereotypes. Then today i have been reading a thread about travellers and again it has raised a question for me about stereotypes. How do/did stereotypes of certain sections of society begin? Where do they come from? Im not just talking about the two I've mentioned above but all stereotypes. Genuine question, not trying to start an argument.

@MangyInseam

About the Harvard test being invalid

I’m interested in the validity of the test. Before I try it!

Humans are successful because we're social -- knowing our tribe was a very useful primitive skill.

MN is tribal about things like naice ham, not piercing baby's ears, worrying about 'good schools' and going to Uni.

Another female community would be tribal about watching Love Island, going to pub and getting nails done.

I think the problem with the Harvard bias test is that it assumes that because you know about a common association (say "black people are usually poor and criminals") then it assumes that you agree that the association is true. Knowing a commonly held view or stereotype doesn't mean you embrace it.

Or am I wrong? Have they calibrated their tests against people who acknowledge the biases they hold?

Seriously, it's rather simple. People have prejudice. People who judge people are what they are, and everyone has opinions, and they gather together. If you couldn't understand what people have to suffer, then you are likely to be one of them.

I think the problem with the Harvard bias test is that it assumes that because you know about a common association (say "black people are usually poor and criminals") then it assumes that you agree that the association is true. Knowing a commonly held view or stereotype doesn't mean you embrace it.

Or am I wrong? Have they calibrated their tests against people who acknowledge the biases they hold?

Yes, I mean no. I mean I don’t think your conscious knowledge has any bearing. I don’t think they’re cheatable, either, which I realise is a slightly different question.

Try one or two. Read some of the (acres of) commentary on them.

I’d be interested to know what other people think.

implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatouchtest.html

your reply was clear as mud Thoosa

Yeah I thought so. Sleep deprived.

No; I don’t think they work by assuming you know of a common negative association and further assuming that I’ve association is justified.

Yes, I do think you’re mistaken in thinking that the above is the case.

I’m not a psychologist, though. I read some commentary. I observed how they work. I was intrigued by my results.

Thanks for trying... I suppose I am too tired to absorb information right now, too :)

My autocorrect is against me as well. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The brain is always looking for shortcuts IE stereotypes, as we simply don't have brain capacity to process all the information out there. So women choose husbands who look like their dads and men choose wives who look like mum. Especially if our lives have been good we stick to what we know and evolutionarily speaking it must work as we keep doing it. The brain is made to form categories and group stuff together for ease. If we are allergic to prawns we can also feel sick at the sight of whelks, if we leak milk when our baby cries,we might leak when any baby cries. The brain is hardwired to do this. So if we are white, black is different, different is unknown, might be bad, therefore avoid. Presumably its only recently in evolutionary terms that we would even have considered that this might be wrong in some cases. So yes it is othering but its inbuilt. By three months old babies prefer faces of their own race. There is going to be a lot of work to do if society wants to change this!

I’ve just tried the asian American European American tear..
I don’t understand it. It says I’m biased to thinking asian Americans are not American but the test doesn’t allow you other options. Is it spied based? So if you don’t have to think before categorising then you’re biased???

That sounds different to the ones I took.

I’ll check them out again tomorrow. Hope I didn’t post a lookalike link.

I’ve only completed one test. I might try another but Id like to understand the test a little more

[quote Rummikub]@MangyInseam

About the Harvard test being invalid

I’m interested in the validity of the test. Before I try it![/quote]
Yeah sure. So there are a couple of things.

One relates to what are called psychometrics, which has to do with how accurate testing of the mind or personality or psychological processes is. So for example we know those tests in teen magazines that supposedly tell us what Twilight character we correspond to - they aren't really telling us anything accurate about our brain or personality (shocker!)

In psychology, they want these kinds of tests to be accurate, and to be measuring something real about our mind, or our cognition, or our intelligence, whatever. And a lot of effort goes into determining if the tools developed are doing that, measuring something real as opposed to being a bunch of garbage numbers like the Twilight personality test.

Important elements in determining this are things like, does it produce the same results reliably? Can we use the results of the test to make predictions that are accurate? When they examine these kinds of tests, they need to meet a certain standard (which is a number but I don't know what the scale is) before they are considered good tools to use. And the implicit bias tests do not meet that standard.

The second problem is that even if a test collects information that seems to be real, it doesn't tell you what that information means. Lets say you do the test where the see if your response time changes for different associations. And assume it's measuring something real. But, is it really measuring bias? The tests haven't actually managed to establish that.

There are also some specific issues too around the way this stuff is used for things like workplace anti-bias training - it's not evidence based.

Lets say you do the test where the see if your response time changes for different associations. And assume it's measuring something real. But, is it really measuring bias?

That’s interesting
And in particular the above - I wondered about speed being used as a measure.

So would familiarity have an effect @MangyInseam ?

If you see a lot of people of type X in your daily life, you react /classify faster when shown a depiction?

@Thoosa

So would familiarity have an effect *@MangyInseam* ?

If you see a lot of people of type X in your daily life, you react /classify faster when shown a depiction?

I think this is something that is questioned about the test. People's results change when they take it at different times. No one knows really what the results mean, from what I understand.

Ive found your answers fascinating, thank you. This question has really got me thinking.