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标题: People with low self-esteem show more signs of prejudice [打印本页]

作者: StephenW 时间: 2011-2-28 14:19 标题: People with low self-esteem show more signs of prejudice

People with low self-esteem show more signs of prejudicePublished: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - 15:03 in Psychology & Sociology
   When people are feeling badly about themselves, they're more likely to show bias against people who are different. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, examines how that works. "This is one of the oldest accounts of why people stereotype and have prejudice: It makes us feel better about ourselves," says Jeffrey Sherman of the University of California, Davis, who wrote the study with Thomas Allen. "When we feel bad about ourselves, we can denigrate other people, and that makes us feel better about ourselves."
Sherman and Allen used the Implicit Association Test (IAT)—a task designed to assess people's automatic reactions to words and/or images—to investigate this claim. In order to reveal people's implicit prejudice, participants are asked to watch a computer monitor while a series of positive words, negative words, and pictures of black or white faces appear. In the first part of the test, participants are asked to push the "E" key for either black faces or negative words and the "I" key for white faces or positive words. For the second task, the groupings are reversed—participants are now supposed to associate positive words with black faces and negative words with white faces.
Determining prejudice in the IAT is pretty straightforward: If participants have negative associations with black people, they should find the second task more difficult. This should be especially true when people feel bad about themselves.
But what psychologists don't agree on is how this works. "People were using the exact same data to make completely different arguments about why," Sherman says. There are two possibilities: either feeling bad about yourself activates negative evaluations of others, or it makes you less likely to suppress those biases.
In their experiment, Sherman and Allen asked participants to take a very difficult 12-question test that requires creative thinking. No one got more than two items correct. About half of the participants were given their test results and told that the average score was nine, to make them would feel bad about themselves. The other half were told that their tests would be graded later. All of the participants then completed the IAT and, as expected, those who were feeling bad about their test performance showed more evidence of implicit prejudice.
But Sherman and Allen took it a step farther. They also applied a mathematical model that reveals the processes that contribute to this effect. By plugging in the data from the experiment, they were able to determine that people who feel bad about themselves show enhanced  prejudice because negative associations are activated to a greater degree, but not because they are less likely to suppress those feelings.
The difference is subtle, but important, Sherman says. "If the problem was that people were having trouble inhibiting bias, you might try to train people to exert better control," he says. But his results suggest that's not the issue. "The issue is that our mind wanders to more negative aspects of other groups. The way around that is to try and think differently about other people. When you feel bad about yourself and catch yourself thinking negatively about other groups, remind yourself, 'I may be feeling this way because I just failed a test or something.'"
  Source: Association for Psychological Science

作者: positiveattitud 时间: 2011-2-28 14:24

Interesting...

作者: StephenW 时间: 2011-2-28 14:50

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Clearly, you and I are not one of them with our high self-esteem

作者: positiveattitud 时间: 2011-2-28 15:18

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I bet you are right

作者: StephenW 时间: 2011-2-28 17:46

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Jokes aside, I have my doubts about the research. Prejudice is very objective and I believe it is very difficult to measure. I am interested to see if people with "high" self-esteem are also more prejudicial. Just think of all the rich people and people in high position, some of them are the worst offenders.

作者: positiveattitud 时间: 2011-2-28 19:57

StephenW 发表于 2011-2-28 17:46
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Jokes aside, I have my doubts about the research. Prejudice is very obj ...

True.
I think people with average self-esteem show less signs of prejudice, just like me

作者: StephenW 时间: 2011-2-28 20:07

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But if I view you with high esteem, that is a completely different story.

作者: positiveattitud 时间: 2011-2-28 20:08

本帖最后由 positiveattitud 于 2011-2-28 20:12 编辑

StephenW 发表于 2011-2-28 20:07
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But if I view you with high esteem, that is a completely different stor ...

Wow, things are getting more complicated

作者: positiveattitud 时间: 2011-2-28 20:17

作者: StephenW 时间: 2011-2-28 20:18

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My thinking:
If I view you with high esteem - good for you.
If I view you with low esteem - may be good or bad for you, depending whom I am.
If you view yourself with high esteem - may be good or bad for you.
If you view yourself with low esteem - bad for you.

So it is good if a lot of people view you with high esteem, but never feel low esteem for yourself.

You can't get anymore clearer than that

作者: positiveattitud 时间: 2011-2-28 20:18

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作者: positiveattitud 时间: 2011-2-28 20:34

本帖最后由 positiveattitud 于 2011-2-28 20:34 编辑

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Actually I think whether it's good or bad for you depending on how you view things.

作者: positiveattitud 时间: 2011-2-28 20:40

I think it doesn't really matter how other people view you, the only thing does matter is that how you view yourself.

作者: positiveattitud 时间: 2011-2-28 20:40

StephenW See, someone views you with high esteem - Good. 发表于 2011-2-28 20:23
You can read Chinese?!

作者: StephenW 时间: 2011-2-28 22:14

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I went overseas to study when I was young. I can still read Chinese, the traditional form, but I am getting used to the simplified version. I am very rusty with writing Chinese and I am too old to learn data entry of Chinese on the computer. But then I discover Google Translate, so now when I want to write in Chinese, as when I post to the HBV English forum, I first write in English and then get Google to translate into Chinese. Bingo! then I just cut and paste, and may be do some editing. You should try it sometimes, write in Chinese, let Google translates into English, and they will esteem you as a Professor in English!

Now you know all my secrets. I am curious to know: am I writing to a male or female? You don't have to answer online, just send me a short message. Or if you don't answer at all, I think I can guess correctly

作者: StephenW 时间: 2011-2-28 22:15

positiveattitud 发表于 2011-2-28 20:40
I think it doesn't really matter how other people view you, the only thing does matter is that how y ...

You don't call yourself "positive attitude" for no reason

作者: positiveattitud 时间: 2011-2-28 22:51

StephenW 发表于 2011-2-28 22:15
You don't call yourself "positive attitude" for no reason.

作者: bjjww 时间: 2011-4-19 10:41

When you feel bad about yourself and catch yourself thinking negatively about other groups, remind yourself,

作者: StephenW 时间: 2011-4-19 11:24

bjjww 发表于 2011-4-19 10:41
When you feel bad about yourself and catch yourself thinking negatively about other groups, remind y ...

Yeah, no point in dwelling on the negative.........easier said than done.

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