Monday, November 3, 2008

blink #1 (continued)

5. Why, according to Gladwell, did he become mortified upon completion of the first part of the IAT test on race?  What occurred on the second part of the IAT test?
Gladwell said that in part one of the test, when he had to match faces and words with categories of race and good/bad, he had a hard time putting "glorious" with "good" when "good" was in the "African American" column or "evil" with "bad" when "bad" was paired with "European American". He was mortified that he had to think so much about this and obviously had a strong pro-white association. On the second part of the test, the category pairings were switched, so that "European American" was with "good" and "African American" with "bad". This time, Gladwell had "no trouble at all" pairing the words.

6. Did it make any difference how many times Gladwell took the test?  What does the author believe is the reason for our answers on the IAT (i.e. what does the IAT measure)?
It did NOT make any difference how many times Gladwell took the test, he could not score better. He believes that our answers, which take longer to complete when "African American" is paired with "good", measures our "unconscious attitudes" and "immediate, automatic associations". We have pre-formed associations built into out brains by society, our experiences, the media, etc. and that is why we do not score well on this test, not because we are really RACIST.

7. If Gladwell is correct, that your unconscious acts as a computer that “crunches all the data” from our lives and “it forms an opinion”; would you consider this to your true self?  Please explain your answer.
To some extent I agree with Gladwell as applies to my own life, but I must say, I can't fully be sure because the subconscious associations and opinions Gladwell is talking about, if I make them, I do not really KNOW I am making them. However, I have noticed that sometimes I will catch myself making pre-judgements, and I am pretty shocked because "within myself" I believe all races and genders are equal and that judgements, pre-associations/generalizations without good reasoning should not be made. Yet, because I have seen so many films with black "gangstas" and such, I live in an area with a high concentration of whites and not much else, etc. I find myself more prone to be think a white person attractive than a black one. Gladwell's theory of course pertains to other areas in my life besides racial associations... Associating women with household duties and a mother role, teenage boys with laziness... only a few of the things that plague my daily subconscious judgements...

8. Does Gladwell feel that it matters if one has a “strongly pro-white pattern of associations?”
He says it does not matter in the sense that it does not deem you RACIST or hateful or a bad person or anything, but it kind of matters in the sense that it can affect the way things work in the world, for example, Gladwell says "if you have a strongly pro-white pattern of associations... that will affect the way you behave in the presence of a black person."

9. How does the Warren Harding error impact the business world?
Subconsciously, people tend to assume that because a a person is a man, tall, good/strong-looking, etc, he is more fit for the job or is more reliable. Thus they will be less likely to hire a woman, a black person, a fat person, or a short person, because of these previously formed associations. This can lead to a certain group of people, say, tall, white men, getting most of the jobs/positions/respect or whatever.

10. How does Bob Golomb’s strategy defeat the Warren Harding error?
According to Gladwell, Golomb is an expert at thin-slicing; he reads customers in moments and figures out what they are going through, how they are feeling, and how he should treat them accordingly. His two rules are to "take care of the customer" and to treat everyone like they have the same chance of buying a car, whether they are black, white, male, female, old, young... They could all buy a car today, so be polite and treat them nice. Take care of them. This is precisely what Golomb does, he does not prejudge people because he knows that prejudgements can be very wrong and people can surprise you and end up buying a car when you thought they looked to poor, etc. People love Golomb and are much more likely to buy a car from someone who treats them with respect and not just like a stupid customer to pull money out of.

11. What were the results of the Ayres study?  What does Gladwell believe to be the explanation for these results?
The results of the study, in which each person on the "team" appeared equal and said and did the same exact things, were that white men were offered the lowest prices on cars, white women the second least, then black women, and finally black men with the highest offers on car prices. Gladwell believes that extreme racism or even a conscious decision to label the blacks/women as "lay-downs" was NOT the cause of these results but rather that it was the unconscious associations between women and minorities and "lay-downs" instilled by society, past experiences, what other car sellers have said, etc. that caused them to notice the biggest facts about these customers, race and gender, and make that slip-second link.

12. How does Gladwell believe you can change your score on the race IAT?  How, according to Gladwell, can we apply this rule to our everyday lives?  Do you agree?
Gladwell believes that we can better our score by reading/hearing about black people doing good things, like Martin Luther King, right before taking the test, and then we will have an easier time associating good things with black people. He thinks that we can apply this to our lives by exposing ourselves on a regular basis to minorities and "the best of their culture" so that we are familiar and comfortable with them and prevent our natural hesitation and discomfort towards unfamiliar things. I agree, in theory at least (I have not had much experience actually USING this technique, so I cannot really speak for its effectiveness), that this would help with our thin-slicing problem. For example, before participating in Operation Smile in Honduras, I viewed several pictures of children with cleft pallets, and learned some about it. I think this helped me not to be so shocked when I arrived and saw all these disfigured children who look so different than the privledged, healthy kids I am used to seeing.

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