"Discrimination is always high on the agenda at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology's conference, where psychologists discuss their research on racial prejudice, homophobia, sexism, stereotype threat and unconscious bias against minorities. But the most talked-about speech at this year's meeting, which ended Jan. 30, involved a new "outgroup." "
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08tier.html?_r=2&hp
What are your thoughts on this?
How might this relate to the different divisions of psychology?
(thanks to Xavier for sending)
I agree with the statements made in the article for the most part. Ironically enough I do consider myself a conservative and a majority of my values reside in conservative ways. I do sometimes feel isolated in public events or on campus when I do not go along with the majority of students and feel that I am wrong in some way for believing the way I do. This article really made me think about how I treat others who might be in minority without even realizing it.
I think this relates to the divisions of psychology in the way it relates to a lot of things: just because a person beleives a certain way does not mean he or she is right or wrong. As psychologists we are curious about people and the way people are interacting, developing, and living (at least in my perspective). If we discriminate against or have bias towards those who we are curious about then we can never find any 'true' or 'real' answers to our questions because we will be held back by those biases.
I feel that this article is correct and I also agree with its statements. I am also conservative in my views and I don't get involved in much political events on campus due to my conservative beliefs. I feel that my views are wrong at times because I'm so outnumbered by others on campus. I feel that this relates to the way psychology is divided, because after reading chapter 6 we learned how divided psychology used to be. Women and minorities were not allowed into the study of psychology and it took a lot of persistence from such people to get that division eliminated. If we still exclude or discriminate certain people from psychology, we could lose great research into the field. We never know if those that we exclude or discriminate will be the next person who adds a new concept or idea to the field of psychology, so if we exclude and discriminate we may be stopping the advancements in the psychology.
I feel that even though I am a liberal, this article makes very strong points. Prejudice is going to be a part of our lives. I think it's inevitable. People have differing views that will make them biased one way or the other on any set of beliefs. It is also inevitable that sometimes one group of people will strongly be outnumbered by another group of people. As the article describes, the individuals with differing ideals aren't INCORRECT in their way of thinking, it's just different. I think the most thing that we can pay attention to is making sure that the simple prejudices don't become discrimination.
Considering I see myself as fairly liberal myself, I agree on many of this person's ideas. Sometimes it isn't the powerful that mess up, sometimes it IS ok to blame the victim. Maybe not so in cases like rape, but if a cashier at a store gives you a 20$ bill on accident instead of a 1 dollar bill for change, and they end up getting fired, who is to blame? You could blame yourself for not turning the money in, but also the cashier should have been paying attention and countering the money like they TRAIN them to do.
That being said, it is nearly impossible to eliminate all bias in a group. I mean the fact alone that all the psychologists there are social psychologist is biased itself. A different psychologist might see discrimination differently.
So really the only thing the article is saying to me is that "everyone is different and good luck ever getting a completely unbiased result unless you randomly pick people to give their opinion on the subject, professional or not."
I agree with this article. The majority of people on college campuses is overwhelmingly liberal. Often times people become very centered on their ideas and values and do not take the time to try and understand others. There is always going to be some bias out there, I do not think it is humanly possible to look at something with zero bias. That does not mean we should not try though, and I think researchers should be the ones trying the hardest not to look at things too narrow-minded. Everyone needs to work on being more open to others opinions and values around them.
I basically agree with this article. Most of the time you're going to find that students or anybody in general interested in the social sciences is very liberal, and it's rare to find a conservative. However, I don't know how bad of a thing that is, considering liberals are usually more open and accepting to most things (based on research I've read on how those who are seen as liberals and/or democrats tend to be VERY high in openness and agreeableness). BUT I do think it is always good to have opposing views in any venues because it makes us think outside the box, or even perhaps strengthen our own core values.
I find it interesting, though, that many psychologists in the 19th century tended to be a little more conservative (in some ways more than others) such as favoring white men, and not being as accepting of other people, but I guess that was also just how a lot of people thought back then.
I, like Laura, am unsurprised that most social scientists are liberal. However I'm also unsurprised that there are minorities within the group. I sometimes find that believing in creationism at all makes me different from my peers who put stock solely in evolution.
The differences between liberals and conservatives shouldn't matter much though when it comes to research, and would actually give different perspectives on research questions or angles, just as those who believe in Jesus and those who don't will potentially have different perspectives.
I am not really into politics or discussing them, but after reading this article I found it surprising that so few people claimed to be conservative. In a room of 1,000 people and only having three claim to be conservative seems a bit wacky. I'm guessing depending on the situation most people could see either side of a debate. This related to the different divisions of psychology because many political views are based on ethics and ethics are a big part of psychology.