The Structure of Implicit Social Attitudes. Alex Madva Eastern Division APA December 2012

Transcription

1 The Structure of Implicit Social Attitudes Alex Madva Eastern Division APA December 2012

2 Madeleine in the Psych Lab

3 Madeleine, meet Bob Bob volunteers at an orphanage.

4 Bob fought against a discriminatory law that made renting difficult for minorities.

5 Look at the X below X

6 DEATH

7 Bob volunteers at an orphanage.

8 Look at the X below X

9 DISGUSTING

10 Bob fought against a discriminatory law that made renting difficult for minorities.

11 Tension in our Understanding of Belief Truth Taking Role: Beliefs reflect what an agent takes to be true of the world. Action Guiding Role: Beliefs guide action, together with desires and ends. In this case, truth taking and action guiding come apart. So what does Madeleine believe? An isomorphic, but more troubling case: aversive racism Madeleine: pro Bob explicit attitudes but anti Bob implicit attitudes Aversive racists: egalitarian explicit attitudes and prejudiced implicit attitudes

12 How Belief like Are Implicit Attitudes? Implicit attitudes are responsive to an agent s thoughts, but insensitive to their logical form. A state is sensitive to logical form only if it is sensitive to the content of other states. Specifically: sensitivity to the logical constituents of the content e.g., logical operators like negation and conditional

13 Rest of the Talk Explain sensitivity to logical form and argue that it is a necessary condition for belief. Appeal to 2 areas of research to show that implicit attitudes fail spectacularly to satisfy this condition. Offer an alternative account of how implicit attitudes respond to other mental states: Implicit attitudes are sensitive to relations of spatiotemporal contiguity in thought and perception. I.e., the spatial and temporal orders in which people think, see, or hear things.

14 Conditions for Belief? Implicit attitudes fail to revise with the evidence? Criterion is too demanding. Implicit attitudes take the world to be a certain way. Criterion is too permissive (not to mention vague). Correct criterion will fall between these two extremes.

15 Sensitivity to Logical Form (or Form Sensitivity) Theo says something about Mason and John. Madeleine thinks, Did he say that John is a mason or that Mason is a john? 4 Variations of the Example: (1) and (2) show sensitivity to logical form. (3) and (4) fail to be sensitive to logical form.

16 Cases (1) and (2) (1) Madeleine comes to think that Theo meant to break the bad news to her about Mason... Mason is one of my closest friends... Mason is a john?!... Ugh, one of my closest friends is a john! (2) Madeleine s attachment to Mason distorts her reasoning One of my closest friends is a john! Ugh, I can t believe it! I can t believe one of my friends does that. There is no way that Mason does that.

17 Cases (3) and (4) (3) Madeleine succumbs to a performance error... She thinks, Mason is a john. John is one of my friends. One of my friends is a mason. Madeleine replies, Is John a Freemason or a masonry worker? Theo says, What? John is not a mason! Madeleine realizes her mistake. (4) Begins like 3... Theo says, John is not a mason! Madeleine thinks, John is not a mason. John is one of my friends. One of my friends is a mason. She repeats, But what sort of mason is he?

18 1 st Condition for Form Sensitivity DIFFERENT DIFFERENT (DD): A mental state is sensitive to logical form only if it responds to states with differing logical form in different ways.

19 2 nd Condition for Form Sensitivity A comedian, my granddaughter! My granddaughter is a comedian! I m not kidding you. Granny, I kid you not. SAME SIMILAR (SS): A mental state is sensitive to logical form only if it responds to states with the same logical form in similar ways.

20 DD & SS Are Testable A state fails DD if it responds to states with differing logical form as if they were the same. A state fails SS if it responds to states with the same logical form as if they were different.

21 Treating Different as Same: Affirmation vs. Negation Training Gawronski et al. (2008) responding to Kawakami et al. (2000) Affirmation Training Negation Training ATHLETIC WEALTHY YES! (affirming counterstereotype) NO! (negating stereotype)

22 Treating Different as Same: Affirmation vs. Negation Training Gawronski et al. (2008) responding to Kawakami et al. (2000) Effect of affirmation training: reduced implicit bias Effect of negation training: slightly enhanced implicit bias (i.e., negating stereotypes worked just like affirming stereotypes ) Not sensitive to logical form. Alternative Explanation : Perceived spatiotemporal contiguity of the words and faces drives the effect, independently of the logical form of participants thoughts and beliefs about those faces and words.

23 Treating Same as Different

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27 Treating Same as Different: Shooter Bias & If Then Intentions Mendoza et al. (2010) Instruction: You should be careful not to let other features of the targets affect the way you respond. In order to help you achieve this, research has shown it to be helpful for you to adopt the following strategy Some rehearsed a (so called) simple intention: (SI) I will always shoot a person I see with a gun. Others rehearsed an if then intention: (IF) If I see a person with a gun, then I will shoot. Although the intentions were semantically parallel, (SI) performed no better than controls, while (IF) was significantly more accurate. The observed results are striking, given that the basic instructions for completing the task were essentially the same for each condition. (2010, 515)

28 Treating Same as Different: Shooter Bias & If Then Intentions Mendoza et al. (2010) The salient difference between (SI) and (IF) is the order of gun and shoot. The shooter task involves (roughly) 2 steps: perceptually identify a stimulus press a button The temporal order of these steps corresponds to the order in which (IF) condition participants think about them. (If gun, then shoot) The difference has nothing to do with logical form. Both (SI) and (IF) specify the same cue and action. I.e., both express the intention to shoot if they see a person with a gun.

29 Thanks!