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How to use stats to fight racial inequality, not support it
Using statistics to inform the public about racial disparities can backfire. Worse yet, it can cause some people to be more supportive of the policies that create those inequalities, according to new research. “One of the barriers of reducing inequality is how some people justify and rationalize it,” says Rebecca Hetey, a psychology researcher at Stanford University. “A lot of people doing social justice work wonder why attitudes are so immune to change.
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The Carpenter Vs. The Gardener: Two Models Of Modern Parenting
Parents these days are stressed. So are their kids. The root of this anxiety, one scholar says, is the way we understand the relationship between parents and children. Alison Gopnik, a psychology and philosophy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, thinks parents—especially middle-class parents—view their children as entities they can mold into a specific image.
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Can you change implicit bias?
"Think of implicit bias as the thumbprint of the culture on our brain." Harvard University social psychologist Mahzarin Banaji describe how institutions can effectively deal with bias.
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Sometimes, computer programs seem too human for their own good
DIGITAL assistants such as Siri and Cortana are increasingly common on phones and computers. Most are designed to give their users the impression that a humanlike intelligence lies behind the program’s friendly voice. It does not, of course. But dozens of experiments over the years have shown that people readily build strong bonds with computerised helpers which are endowed with anthropomorphic features, whether visual or vocal. Developing an emotional relationship with a piece of software can, however, cut both ways.
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A Memory Shortcut, With a Little Help From Friends
“Always remember everything,” my mother is fond of saying. Of course, as she knows, this is impossible, even with advanced memory techniques. That’s why we take notes and use calendars. These are components of our external memory, which are parts of our extended minds. That your mind may not be entirely housed within your skull may be difficult to grasp. In their seminal paper, the philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers made the case that some functions we perform with other objects should be considered on par with thought that occurs in our brains. Using pen and paper to help perform a calculation is one example.
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Can Teamwork Solve One Of Psychology’s Biggest Problems?
Psychologist Christopher Chartier admits to a case of “physics envy.” That field boasts numerous projects on which international research teams come together to tackle big questions. Just think of CERN’s Large Hadron Collideror LIGO, which recently detected gravitational waves for the first time. Both are huge collaborations that study problems too big for one group to solve alone. Chartier, a researcher at Ashland University, doesn’t think massively scaled group projects should only be the domain of physicists. So he’s starting the “Psychological Science Accelerator,” which has a simple idea behind it: Psychological studies will take place simultaneously at multiple labs around the globe.
