So I've got an incredible jumping, intermittent bug that I'm trying to tack down. That's probably as good an explanation as any for what's to follow.
I've been reading over the recent spate of homosexaulity threads and one thing rally struck me, as it has struck me before. There is a great deal of discussion about bigotted or prejudicial thinking and it's link to religion. However, it appears to me that this dicussion is taking place without any reference to the over 60 years of investigation, scientific and otherwise, that has gone into these issues. While it obviously bothers me that a great deal of what has been said has a great deal of evidence against it and very little for it, I am more concerned about the general attitude of casual ignorance that this apparent ignorance implies. I don't know, I just find it hard to believe that people really believe that they should approach a complex and important issue such as prejudice with only their biased opinions to guide them. Of course, this could all just be a matter of my misperception of people's knowledge, in which case, I appologize. In either case, I'm being an arrogant jackass; just in the former, I'm also right.
I am often critical of religions, especially Christianity. However, I'd like to state for the record that I have no intrinsic problem with religions or Christianity. I try - and generally succed, I think - to approach all types of religious and spiritual in a respectful manner. The problems I'm going to be talking about are based rather in people and in specific manners of belief.
I take it as a given that prejudice and authoritarianism are immature and dangerous types of thinking. Sure, I could trot out study after study which gives supporting evidence from this, but, truth be told, it's really my gut I'm listening to. Also, I believe that the mass of humanity is, and always has been, in a state of grave immaturity. Again, a given, but one with some support.
This immaturity exists and manifests itself regardless of whether a person is religious or not. As such, we should expect to see prejudice and authoritarianism across all populations, and we do. The question is, however, is there a difference in the amount of this exhibited based on group membership and is it more dangerous in some groups than in others.
In regards to the first question - Is there a greater amount of prejudice and authoritarianism in religious people than in non-religious? - the answer in the US (there have been some cross-cultural studies that cast doubt on the universality of these findings), the answer is unequivocally yes. In all the multitude of peer-reviewed studies investigating this question, only two that I know of have failed to find a significant correlation between claiming religious membership and prejudice. There results are somewhat less overwhelming concerning authoritarianism, but still the vast majority of studies have found significant correlations.
However, the issue is by no means as clear-cut as that makes it sound. The results merely show that the population of religious - taken as a whole - show greater levels of prejudice than the population of non-religious - again, taken as a whole. There is no call to claim that being religious implies that you are more prejudiced than someone who isn't religious.
I'm sure almost everyone can think of religious people who break this stereotype, who are both extremely religious and extremely non-prejudiced and non-authoritarian. Not suprisingly, more detailed studies also turn up this result. Various investigations came up with different ways to measure actual religious dedicated and threw this into the equation and found an interesting result. Instead of a monotonically increasing level of prejudice where how highly dedicated you were determined how prejudiced you were, they found a curivilinear situation, where prejudice rose for low religious dedication and was higher still for medium religious dedication, but dropped sharply for high levels of religious dedication. More than a few studies found that the level of prejudice exhibited by the highly religiously dedicated was below that of non-religious and many more showed no significant difference between the two groups.
One of the initial and most influential researchers into prejudice and its link to religion, as well as the author of the seminal The Nature of Prejudice, Gordon Allport, suggested that there was a dichotomy in how people approached their religious beliefs. He claimed that some religious people have what he termed "Intrinsic" religious belief, that has the following qualities: views God as loving, supportive, forgiving, views each person as unique and special, inclusive in vision; views all people as their neighbors, views death positively, and looks upon religion as a search for truth. This approach was contrasted with "Extrinsic" religious belief, which was has these qualities: views God as stern, vindictive and punitive, views people in terms of social categories: sex, age, status, exclusionist in vision; views their in-group as their neighbors, views death negatively, looks upon religion for its utilitarian value, as a means to other ends. Using the scale Allport developed to measure the extent that people used one or the other styles of religious belief, reasearchers found the same results as in the above, with the one change being that the most intrinsic people were almost always less prejudiced and less authoritarian than the non-religious people.
There is one characteristic of the results that is implied by the above but which I haven't yet stated. That is, the people on the far end of the scale, the religious who have low levels of prejudice are far outweighed by the religious who have higher levels. If I recall correctly, the highest percentage I saw put them at around 15% of the total religious population.
I want to stress that as yet, the only scientific studies I know of have been able to show correlation to prejudice. There has been a great deal of speculation as to what this correlation means, but it remains just that, correlation. Causation is a completly different story.
As to the second question, it is only a matter of personal belief that I believe that prejudice and authoritarianism is more dangerous in religious people than in other groups. Having considered the history and nature of western religion, I believe that it is a type of belief that is even less susceptible to reality testing than most other human beliefs. The very factors that religous thought aims towards, such as the nature of the divine or life after death, are beyond rational verification. Many religious dictates use their status solely as religious dictates as proof for their rightness. Also, the lack of realistic proof leads often leads to religious believers to search for the common irrational and immature forms of proof, such as social prooving, i.e. getting other people, by whatever means necessary, to agree with what you say.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:So I've got an incredible jumping, intermittent bug that I'm trying to tack down.
I have no idea what this means, but I just pictured Jiminy Cricket on the run.
quote:Instead of a monotonically increasing level of prejudice where how highly dedicated you were determined how prejudiced you were, they found a curivilinear situation, where prejudice rose for low religious dedication and was higher still for medium religious dedication, but dropped sharply for high levels of religious dedication. More than a few studies found that the level of prejudice exhibited by the highly religiously dedicated was below that of non-religious and many more showed no significant difference between the two groups.
That explains a great deal.
Posted by Jacare Sorridente (Member # 1906) on :
Very interesting post Squicky. Although I often disagree with things you post I must admit that this post had me nodding my head much of the time. In my own experience it is the people who have been a member of their religion for a good deal of time and yet have not studied beyond a fairly superficial view who are the most dogmatic and unbending in their views.
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
To me, it makes a lot of sense. The person who is more dedicated to his faith (and I'm speaking towards Christianity) likely holds the "love your neighbor" commandment from Christ in higher regard than those who are less dedicated and only pay lip-service to their religion.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
I suspect it's more complex than that, zgator.
The more religious one is, the more likely one is to feel secure in their beliefs. That makes it easier to be open to the beliefs of others, without being threatened by them.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Very interesting data, Mr. Squicky, especially what Kat quoted. I was just about to quote that paragraph myself. The intinsic/extrinsic categories of religious beliefs are interesting as well. It almost fits to call Old Testemant=extrinsic, N.T.=intrinsic.
I know I have made lots of negative comments about Christianity here at Hatrack, much of that has to do with my distrust of organized religion and my broad anti-authority views in general.
Some of my comments stem from dealing with smug, strident, holier-than-thou Christians who wish hellfire and damnation down upon non-believers and in general give Christ's teachings lip service but little or no practice in their dealings with others. Because these Christians can be very vocal, they give Christians everywhere a bad name.
That said, the 15% or so of Christian true-believers who have low levels of prejudice you mention from studies, and follow Christ's gospel of "turn the other cheek," "walk a mile in his shoes," "judge not lest ye be judged," "let he who is without sin cast the first stone," "look to the beam in your own eye before the mote in your brother's," and in general, love of neighbor, tolerance of other's, mercy and forgiveness are role models to me. I try to practice some of those ideals, but it's freaking hard to be that self-less. I respect anyone who can do it enormously.
[ November 20, 2003, 06:43 PM: Message edited by: Morbo ]
Posted by skrika03 (Member # 5930) on :
So we now have a way of labeling how prejudiced someone is? Does that seem ironic to anyone else?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
I'm trying REALLY hard not to get angry, Morbo. I know you well enough, I think, to be fairly certain that you did not mean this to be offensive:
quote: The intinsic/extrinsic categories of religious beliefs are interesting as well. It almost fits to call Old Testemant=extrinsic, N.T.=intrinsic.
But that is simply FALSE. The CHRISTIAN views of the OT and NT may fit.
But the ways Jews read the MT (Masoretic Text, a name I prefer to OT for obvious reasons) is different, not having a vested interest in reading it as portraying an angry, vengeful God.
quote: views God as loving, supportive, forgiving, views each person as unique and special, inclusive in vision; views all people as their neighbors, views death positively, and looks upon religion as a search for truth
Sounds a lot like how most Jews view God, contrary to popular belief.
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
rivka, I think you can probably take Morbo's comment as having been based in a Christian view of the Bible.
However, I've noticed that this particular subject seems to a real pressure point for you, and I'm quite curious about it. Not about your reactions, but about the text itself. I don't know how much experience you have with the Christian Old Testament, but do you have any info on how different the actual text of the Old Testament is from the Masoretic Text, if at all? I'm not much of a Bible scholar, but most of what I have read is from the Old Testament, and I do seem to recall the text indicating a "vengeful God." If the texts are not markedly different, then how does such a different interpretation come from the same words?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Yeah, it is something that sets me off, isn't it. Sorry.
Well, the main difference is the simple fact that the Christian OT is a translation. As such, it cannot possibly be accurate. Many verses are meant to be read multiple ways -- but you can only translate it one way at a time. And some concepts simply don't translate.
But the main difference, I think, is not in the text. Traditional Jews believe that it is impossible to understand the text without the assistance of the Oral Law. Not difficult -- impossible. They were given to Moses at the same time for that very reason.
[ November 20, 2003, 07:12 PM: Message edited by: rivka ]
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
I don't think you need to apologize. After all, we all have our buttons.
So then, according to the traditional Jewish view, the text itself is not strictly primary?
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Of course I didn't mean to offend you Rivka, nor Jews or Christians in general. I'm sorry if you are offended. It was an offhanded remark in response to the intrinsic/extrinsic dichotomy brought up in the first post. I am not the first who has noted the differences between the OT God and the NT God. Martin Gardner noted it in a philosophy book I read last year, then went on to say that most Christians ignore the OT in favor of the NT.
What is the Oral Law? I have never heard of that.
Posted by Maccabeus (Member # 3051) on :
Why would anyone view death positively? Except maybe a serial killer, but they don't count.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote:Well, the main difference is the simple fact that the Christian OT is a translation.
Um, not necessarily. I have a Christian OT that's in Hebrew. I also have a Jewish Publication Society translation of the Tanach that's in English. Of course no translation can capture the full sense of the original. But that's what study is for -- to look at the different possible meanings and nuances of the original words.
And no, Morbo, you're not the first one to suggest that there is a different God in the OT and the NT. It was suggested as early as the 4th century. It was declared a heresy then, but somehow it keeps popping up. Usually among people who haven't bothered to study the MT/OT in any depth. Which, as your book points out, applies to many (I'll remain optimistic and not say most) Christians. Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote: So then, according to the traditional Jewish view, the text itself is not strictly primary?
Yes . . . and no.
Yes, in that the text IS looked at alone, to obtain the p'shat, or literal explanation. No, in that we look at more than just the p'shat of each verse. Yes in that all the explanations of the Oral Law are alluded to in the written text. Proximity of seemingly unrelated topics, letters that are "missing" or "extra," use of uncommon verbs or conjugations -- all these are clues to the deeper meaning of the text.
quote: It is a book, an idea, a quality of life. It is the Pentateuch; the Bible in all its parts; the Bible and the rabbinical writings; all writings dealing with revelation; all reflection and tradition dealing with God, man and the world. It is represented as a bride, the "daughter" of God, as a crown, a jewel, a sword; as fire and water; as life, but to those who are unworthy, as poison and death. It is the pre-existent Wisdom or Word of God, present at creation and acting as the "architect" of the creative work. It preserves the world from destruction; without it, all creation would lapse into chaos; it is the harmony and law of the universe. It is all this and much more, for the exaltation of the Torah in Jewish tradition is a theme which no words can exhaust. Torah is the reason man was created. It is the equivalent of the Temple sacrifices.
Oral law:
quote: We must refer to the second part of the Torah -- the Oral Law -- also given at Sinai, to understand the written word. This encompasses the Divine interpretations and expositions, which are accessible to human comprehension; and it includes the rules of exegesis by which God instructs man in how to delve more deeply into the law and teaches him how to apply it to evolving circumstances.
During the Roman persecutions, the Oral Law was written down, lest it be lost.
quote: Why would anyone view death positively?
Death is a transition to the World of Truth. Is that not a positive thing?
[ November 20, 2003, 11:00 PM: Message edited by: rivka ]
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote: Um, not necessarily. I have a Christian OT that's in Hebrew.
Really? Cool. I would be curious as to the differences between it and the Tanach on my bookshelf (which, BTW, does contain an English translation).
quote: I also have a Jewish Publication Society translation of the Tanach that's in English.
This one? It's a reasonably good translation, although the fact that they compare themselves to the Septuagint makes me wince.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
One difference is probably that my footnotes are in Latin. The text itself is from the Leningrad Codex.
*checks link* That's the one. It was required reading for OT 101, along with the NRSV.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
quote: Usually among people who haven't bothered to study the MT/OT in any depth.
And isn't explained very well by the people who have studied it. Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
'Tis true, I have no Hebrew texts with Latin footnotes.
I had to look up the Leningrad Codex and NRSV. The Codex (according to this article) has only very minor differences with the Tanach on my shelf.
I found a site with the NRSV and looked at the first chapter (*sings* Begin at the very beginning . . . ). It looks to be a fairly good translation. A few of the word choices made me go , though. Posted by skrika03 (Member # 5930) on :
I consider myself a Christian, but I don't think the Lord of the Pre-Common era (who made the world) compares unfavorably with Christ, who was executed. We believe they were the same deity.
I was confused about it as a child, because I thought the Lord in Genesis was the Father Jesus prays to in the book of John. And really it has only become clear to me since my twenties.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
skrika03, welcome to the forum.
dkw, Hebrew with Latin footnotes? Wow. I remember when I picked up a book on Beowulf in high school. It had English, Old English, Old French, Latin, and something else, I remember it had 5 languages, mostly straight untranslated text. What a narrow audience could get anything out of that text.
quote: I don't think the Lord of the Pre-Common era (who made the world) compares unfavorably with Christ, who was executed. We believe they were the same deity.
skrika03. I understand and respect that you believe Jesus and the Lord of the Pre-Common era are one and the same, without diving into the whole trinity/monotheism quandry.
I haven't studied the bible in years, and never as rigorously as dkw (she's a minister) or Rivka (she's an Orthodox Jew--is that the right term, Rivka?) But on a basic level, don't the OT and NT seem very different? I seem to remember a whole lot of towns being destroyed by the Lord (Jericho, Sodom and Gomorroh for example), the seven plagues of Egypt, curses, the flood, and just in general a whole lot of smiting of sinners by the Lord.
Whereas Jesus preached love, tolerance, mercy and forgiveness. I know you could find all those attributes in the OT, but the tone certainly seemed to shift (not counting Revalations, that is prophecy.)
Not trying to attack anybodies beliefs, just curious how others view this.
[ November 21, 2003, 12:40 AM: Message edited by: Morbo ]
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
(psst, she's not a real noob. )
quote: she's an Orthodox Jew--is that the right term, Rivka?
Yes, thank you. Posted by Hazen (Member # 161) on :
"although the fact that they compare themselves to the Septuagint makes me wince."
Why is that so? I understand it is standard procedure among Biblical scholars to compare all the ancient translations to look for preserved variant readings. The Septuagint is still a very old version.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
The Septuagint translation was produced under extreme duress from a conquering nation. It's not precisely something to aspire to.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I've got to admit, I expected a much different reaction to my post. I'm not sure if people got the rather extreme implications of that information. In a way, it's a scientific suggestion that generally, a person claiming to be religious and acting on religious motives, is probably rather acting on their psychological weaknesses. It's stuff like this and the high correlation between certain measures of religiousity and f-scale scores, that makes me think that mainstream contemporary religion is an extremely worrying social force. At least on these specific measures of immaturity, the mast majority of the religious population show them to be among the least mature people in our society.
I don't know, I expected a little more comment than, "Oh, well I'm glad that I and everyone I know are part of the good religious people."
You know, it's not my place to judge people, and I've known both religious and non-religious people who were very mature and religious and non-religious people who were very immature, but I really do want to make people doubt their motivations. My perspective is that my understanding of the various psychological weaknesses that are attendent with mainstream America religiousity has fueled a lot of my discussions about religion and the disagreements that have occured during them. I've consistently seen people express attitudes about God and their religion that I know are on the extrinsic side of the Religious Orientation Scale.
What it comes down to is, I think that this information and the volumes of other info of this type suggests quite strongly that the role of traditional religion in American society is, at best, a mix of good and bad. And yet, discussions of the possible dangerous aspects of religion generally boil down to zealous defense unfettered with any doubts on one side and puerile and usually inacurate attacks on the other.
If information such as this doesn't cause people to doubt and do some soul searching and attempt to educate themselves about it, I have no idea what will.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:The more religious one is, the more likely one is to feel secure in their beliefs. That makes it easier to be open to the beliefs of others, without being threatened by them.
I think that this is a fundamental point of human nature that so many people just don't get. Many people think that fighting for their beliefs, often by trying to get rid of any opposing ones, is a sign that they are strong in these beliefs. I - and over a 100 years of psychology - suggest that it's much more likely that this is a sign of weakness. If you know something is true, there's little reason to fight when someone says it's false.
A counter-point is that strong, mature people are that way because they doubt. They are willing to listen to people that they respect but who disagree with them and give a fair hearing to those people's ideas. It's been my experience that mature people are constantly trying to better their understand, while immature people generally are fighting a battle to maintain their set views.
I also believe that mature people of any religion - even none - recognize and celebrate the underlying unity of the world and possess a great deal of empathy for others, as is exemplified by the actual version of the "Golden Rule" that Jesus gave: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Interesting that now-mainstream version of this rule is the much more egocentric "Do unto others and you'd have done unto you."
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
One question: what exactly do "prejudice" and "highly religious" mean in this context? Take the case of homosexuality for example. Is prejudice a)believing that homosexuality is wrong b)loudly proclaiming that homosexuality is wrong c)hating homosexuals or d)actually trying to stop homosexual behavior through legislation or encouraging gays to become straight? If the first qualifies as prejudice, then is it wrong to condemn certain behaviors? If I say that it's wrong to steal, am I prejudiced against thieves, and is this then wrong?
Because that's probably how many Christians see the prejudice issue. The popular moral standard today is tolerance for anything that doesn't hurt others. That is not necessarily the moral standard that Christians hold, since many of them believe that morals are handed down by God and are not subject to change by humans (most are actually pretty hypocritical about this, though--I've never met a Christian who doesn't pick and choose to some degree). It seems that Christians are judged by society's morals and found wanting. How is that different from the way homosexuals were treated in the past?
On the other hand, if "prejudice" is hatred towards particular groups or an attempt to force others to change, then that's a little more reasonable. After all, I see things in the NT about "speaking the truth in love" but nothing about forcing conversion, trying to influence the behavior of non-Christians, or hating people. The Kingdom of God is spiritual, not political, and Jesus told his followers to change themselves rather than other people. As you pointed out, the deeply religious may be more likely to understand the "love your neighbor" aspect of Christianity.
Your point that we are not doing much soul-searching as a result of your post is well-taken. But don't you think that lumping us all in a group and then telling us we're probably prejudiced is a bit...prejudicial?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Shigosei, If you want to know how prejudice is defined and highly religious or about authoritarianism, all the information I'm working from is more or less publicly available. Seriously, I'm not try to lead you by the nose here or play some sort of trick because I just really hate Christians. I am genuinely concerned about this.
Go to the library. Check out The Nature or Prejudice. It's the book that Martin Luther King used and praised. It's still very highly regarded. It will make you a better person, and more than likely make you a better Christian.
If you're interested in the actual studies, do a web search or check out the Journal of Scientific Studies of Religion or the Journal of Psychology and Theology. Surely this is an important enough issue to put some effort into.
I get it. You're defensive because I said that bad things about something you care about. I can't make you undefensive, no matter what I say, you're going to build a defense. So I'm not even going to bother.
If you want to talk about specific topics, like how crazy it is that the used to Bogardis Social Distance Scale for so long and whether the newer "unconscious preference" types are more accurate, I'd be happy to oblige you. I'm just not in the mood right now to answer "Nuhuh".
[ November 24, 2003, 01:30 AM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
I'm sorry if my questioning of the study came across as being defensive. That certainly wasn't my intention. I was trying to point out that "prejudiced" Christians may dismiss the study as being prejudiced against them. I suppose I should have gone and examined it myself. I thought it would be useful to try to expose people to a different point of view.
You ask people to think about the implications of the study, Mr. Squicky. I think that is good. I asked people to think about the implications in a different light. I did not ask anyone to dismiss the study, and I did not try to refute it outright. I am not even disagreeing that the behavior of many Christians is pretty intolerant. Is there no room for any disagreement at all without being labeled as defensive?
The statement that I am defending something I care about requires some assumptions about me. What are those based on? The way I argued? My religion?
In the end, I can't make you believe that I'm not defensive, no matter what I say. You may call me prejudiced if you like; you are almost certainly correct. You ask me to examine my prejudices and try to rid myself of them, and I will.
Edit: By the way, where do fundamentalists fit in? They'd probably categorize themselves as "highly religious" and most people would categorize them as intolerant.
[ November 24, 2003, 03:29 AM: Message edited by: Shigosei ]
Posted by Maccabeus (Member # 3051) on :
What I noted in regard to the study you quoted, Mr. Squicky, was that some religions hold the positions of one side or the other as tenets of faith. It occurred to me that some people might believe these things not because of psychological weakness but just because they accept as true for other reasons a religion that espouses them.
For my own part, I am happy to straddle the line and once again defy classification. Posted by Jacare Sorridente (Member # 1906) on :
quote: It's stuff like this and the high correlation between certain measures of religiousity and f-scale scores, that makes me think that mainstream contemporary religion is an extremely worrying social force. At least on these specific measures of immaturity, the mast majority of the religious population show them to be among the least mature people in our society.
Here is my problem with this conclusion:
First, I cannot believe that such a generalized statement holds true for such a large group of people. There is no large group that I have yet encountered which does not hold a good cross section of all attitudes and personality types from apathetic to dogmatic to sincerely interested in new opinions.
Second, there are very, very few people who will not argue to the death for the set of core values they hold dear. What those core values are may be very different from group to group, but I really doubt that there is a group called the religious who are much more close-minded than a group called the non-religious. What changes, I think, is what the core values of people likely to be found in either group consist of.
For example, the areligious in the US are quite often former Christians who because of one experience or another have become disenchanted with their former religion. As these people were raised in a tradition of spirituality I am sure that many times they can simply not be comfortable with no spirituality at all, so they try Wicca or various Eastern philosophies or perhaps the more liberal Christian philosophies. This spiritual casting about undoubtedly improves their appreciation for previously foreign ideas.
However, it also seems to develop a counter close-mindedness to the Christian close-mindedness which goes something like this:
I have examined countless other religions and synthesized my spirituality based on the truth in all of them. You, however, are too provincial to consider anything outside of your narrow little belief system.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:MrSquicky said: I don't know, I expected a little more comment than, "Oh, well I'm glad that I and everyone I know are part of the good religious people."
OK, here goes. I have grave reservations about a group of studies conducted by a profession that is much more secular than the general population as a whole. Unconscious prejudices about religion invariably color the methodology and the interpretation of the results.
For example, I notice that you did not answer Shigosei’s question about what constitutes prejudice. It’s fine to suggest reading the primary source material, but this question is key to understanding the possible conflicts over this type of research and is easily answered in summary.
quote:MrSquicky said: As to the second question, it is only a matter of personal belief that I believe that prejudice and authoritarianism is more dangerous in religious people than in other groups.
This is flat out wrong. Let’s pick Pol Pot, Stalin and Mao off the top of our heads. Three of the four greatest genocides of the 20th century were caused by despots invoking a secular and specifically anti-religious belief system.
Taking these together with religion-inspired systematic oppressions would suggest that it is strong beliefs which lead to the worst atrocities, not merely strong religious beliefs.
Belief systems are often co-opted by others for selfish reasons. The biblical “justifications” for slavery were written in response to slavery to allow “Christians” to ignore large tenets of their faith for material gain. Some minister poring over old texts did not suddenly realize that slavery was a good thing and send expeditions to Africa to buy slaves. Some Portuguese traders realized that they could buy captives from Africans and sell them in the Americas. Someone started feeling guilty about it and took about 20 verses out of context and said, “See, God wants us to own slaves.” Greed inspired the evil; the religious machinations were needed to overcome the religion-inspired consciences of the slaveholders.
This is not to ignore atrocities that actually were inspired by misguided interpretations of a religious belief, nor those inspired by the actual tenets of some religious beliefs. It is to provide a context for examining belief
The flip side is that strong beliefs also lead to the greatest good in the world. Abolition and the civil rights movement were both strongly grounded in the Christian faith, although both included many other religious and secular belief systems as well.
The civil rights movement was successful because it made it impossible for Americans to stay apathetic about it – it was these largely apathetic people that allowed the system to continue. By forcing people to pick sides and clearly delineating the evil of the system, a small group of people motivated a much larger group of people to stop tolerating it.
Your statement also ignores the fact that uniformity of belief makes it possible to convince or dupe followers with a much smaller set of arguments than if the target audience had diverse beliefs. If I need 1000 followers, I’ll do better to find 1000 people I all collected in one place and with a similar belief system than to harangue random people in the street.
Dagonee
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:You know, it's not my place to judge people, and I've known both religious and non-religious people who were very mature and religious and non-religious people who were very immature, but I really do want to make people doubt their motivations.
What's your motivation? You seem to have a problem with judging religious people. Why does that disturb you?
Don't point to the study. I mean, why, of all the incredible things to point out, you picked that one to induce questioning?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Aspects of the prejudiced personality, as defined by Gordon Allport in his definitive, and really easy to get a hold of, book, The Nature of Prejudice, which was one of the staples of the Civil Rights Movement and which I feel the people responding here won't read because they're not interested in learning about this, they're interested in coming up with reasons to justify why they're not going to try and learn: Ambivalence towards parents-conscious express no faults with parents, unconsciously express animosity Moralism Dichotomization A need for definiteness Externalization of conflict Institutionalism Authoritarianism
From a study, quoted in this book, on the prevalent attitudes of highly prejudiced children: There is only one right way to do anything If a person does not watch out somebody will make a sucker out of him It would be better if teachers were more strict Only people who are like myself have a right to be happy Girls should learn only things that are useful around the house There will always be war; it is part of human nature The positions of the stars at the time of your birth tells your character and personality
expanded to adults, they also include: The world is a hazardous place in which men are basically evil and dangerous We do not have enough discipline in our American way of life On the whole, I am more afraid of swindlers than I am of gangsters.
Here's a link to the Bogardus Social Distance Scale, the only scale of prejudice used in the multitude of studies going on since the 1940s (when, for example, prejudices against gays were not measured) that I can find that I can post without breaking copyright laws Others are readily available in your local library.
Here's a link to a version of the F-Scale, a - better to say the - test of authoritarianism.
Look, I doubt the integrity of the people who are disagreeing with me here. I'll state that plain. As I said, it is my feeling that you are acting only on the defensive to provide reasons why you don't have to consider what I'm saying. You don't want to look into the scientific study of prejudice, especially as it relates to religion, but you want feel justified in ignoring it. Because that's all I'm asking, for people to look into it. I'd be upset if you just took my word for it. I want people to explore this topic on their own, because it is so very important.
But, as I said, while I have my impressions, it's not my place to judge. Only you know how sincere your interest and criticisms of this issue are. Maybe you really don't think that understanding prejudice beyond your gut instincts is important. Maybe you've got this incredible fund of knowledge on the subject that leads you to disagree with what I've said. Maybe you are avoiding educating yourself for some noble reason. I don't see any of these things, rather I see the actings of the same forces that I was talking about in my above posts. So far, the criticisms that people have posted are those of people completely ignorant of the subject matter. That, in and of itself, tells me something. There have been a host of issues brought up in the psychometrics of prejudice over the past 60 years that it's been going on and these issues have all been addressed to some extent or another. All of the issues that people have mentioned are dealt with in the literature. It's an open field. All of the work done is available for review and comment. Criticisms of this work (from all corners, there has been a lot of religious people who have studied this issue - ofen to disprove it - who now agree with the findings) are also available for review and comment. I am making the simple claims that the studies done and the scales used are scientifically valid (which can only really be verified by review) and that, while the results found are open to interpretation, people who criticize the results without knowing anything about what they are talking about are likely not the best judges.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Squicky, I'm finding what you are saying to be very interesting. However, I like most humans am a bit lazy. I readily admit I'm not going to go out and do the amount of research that you have on the subject, and why should I when I have your condensation right here? Also you will be researching on the subject at the same time so the likilhood of me ever "catching up" to your knowledge further diminishes.
Rather then lecture me, educate me. I'm willing to learn, but like most people that hinges on my convienence. If you put it on hatrack it is convienent. If you tell me to go to the libary it isn't. I have a whole lot of OSC books on my reading list before I go voluntarily reading something that would be that dry and boring to me.
Does the fact that I'm not willing to go to the library to do research on predjudice automatically make me prejudiced? I think not. Though I would be curious to take a test to see where I fall.
AJ
(My f-scale score was a 2.4)
[ November 24, 2003, 01:27 PM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]
Posted by Jacare Sorridente (Member # 1906) on :
Squick- Banna pretty much hit it right on the head. Let's face it, most everyone has a fairly busy life. When I go off to do research it is generally on some subject that I find very interesting. I do in fact take "serious" research suggestions from a forum from time to time. I am reading some interesting theology books as well as one on the effects of geography on human history due solely to suggestions in forums.
However, while it is interesting enough to debate I simply am not interested enough to spend many hours doing research on this topic. Nor, I think, is anyone else here. If you think it interesting enough to talk about and debate about then do so. If you think it isn't worth your time then don't. But please don't lecture us about our willful ignorance, knee-jerk defensiveness etc. etc. It simply isn't the least bit productive.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Squick, you are ASKING for our attention. You are requesting our time away from our own happy lives to listen to you. There are many, many issues in this world that are worth of concern; what makes yours special?
I am puzzled how someone who claims to be such a student of human psychology can apply it so poorly.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:MrSquicky said: which I feel the people responding here won't read because they're not interested in learning about this, they're interested in coming up with reasons to justify why they're not going to try and learn.
That’s a really poor attitude. You post an interesting, thought provoking topic based on some studies and sources you’ve read, and refuse to clarify the positions of those studies in response to questions. Then you dismiss Shigosei’s legitimate question and analysis as defensiveness.
quote:MrSquicky said: Look, I doubt the integrity of the people who are disagreeing with me here. I'll state that plain.
quote:MrSquicky said: So far, the criticisms that people have posted are those of people completely ignorant of the subject matter.
And yet until now you’ve refused to provide additional information in response to their questions. People generally don’t respond well to “You need to read this for your own good. If you don’t, I’m going to question your integrity.”
Besides, you’re also postulating that these studies provide the only perspective to discuss these issues, which is begging the question at the heart of the studies and other thoughts on these matters.
Dagonee
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
I find it very amusing that my F-scale score is almost the same as AJ's -- 2.5.
My word, the incredible BIAS exhibited by that test!
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Woo Hoo! 2.6. I'm a "liberal airhead."
Like we didn't already know that. Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
What a dumb test.
quote:[4] The business man and the manufacturer are much more important to society than the artist and the professor.
This is not an either/or scenario. Someone who thinks it is lacks a view of the bigger picture.
Favoring the "artistic" group of people over the "practical" group of people is just as close-minded as assuming that only the "practical" people have claim to the benefits of society.
Besides, there's no such thing as the all or nothing scenario presented. What was it Heinlein said? Specialization is for insects? Human beings should be able to do everything.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
My score lies between Kayla's and AJ's?
Wow, if that doesn't say something about the test, I don't know what would. My self-assessment is considerably less liberal on some issues than either Kayla or AJ. Go figure. Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
Hmmm... 2.2
kat, the question in and of itself need not be biased. That is, it is absolutely possible to disagree that businessmen and manufacturers are more important than artists and professors without thinking that artists and professors are more important than businessmen and manufacturers. It's quite easy to do so, in fact. The bias only comes with the way in which the answer to such a question is interpreted.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
Wow, I didn't even read the bottom!
For a score of 3 - 4.5. . .
quote:Within normal limits; an appropriate score for an American. (The overall average score for groups tested in the original study is listed in the 1950 publication as 3.84, with men averaging somewhat higher and women somewhat lower.)
An appropriate score for an American?!? I should probably read this thread and figure out what that means in context.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
saxon75: I don't believe professions are divided into matters of relative importance. Even if they were, neither artists nor manufacturers would be at the top of the list.
If it isn't an either or question, then it's a trick question. Trick questions that force the subject into a mode of thinking they may not have originally inhabited, and then measure that new mode of thinking, are inappropriate for what is being touted as an excellent objective study.
Also, the F scale? The F is for fascist. Fascist = prejudiced?
The scale, the questions, and the entire argument seem designed to paint religious people as the unenlightened source of evil. Considering Squicky's response to indifference is to accuse Hatrack of dissemination, the entire enterprise seems like a witch hunt.
quote:Look, I doubt the integrity of the people who are disagreeing with me here. I'll state that plain.
*snort* Baby, try to get an open mind. You are not the source of all truth, no matter desperately you feather the armor.
[ November 24, 2003, 02:12 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
The F scale clearly conflates certain attitudes, likely inappropriately. For instance:
quote: A person who has bad manners, habits, and breeding can hardly expect to get along with decent people.
While it used to be (say, around the time the F scale was created) that a given person had similar attitudes about the importance of bad manners, habits, and breeding, the conflation was not intrinsic. There are plenty of people now who would consider bad manners and habits detrimental to being able to get along with "decent people", but who would not consider breeding relevant at all. Furthermore, the manner in which the question is asked implies that decent people includes only people with good breeding, which if a person decides the question is intended to mean such may get them to respond highly in the negative when in fact they moderately agree with a more moderate sentiment that could be expressed by the question.
In fact, reading over the test, the entire test is hilarious. It asks people to judge agreement with the statements, but some of the statements clearly intend for a person to answer based on the degree they consider the distinction appropriate, not the degree they agree or disagree with it. For instance:
quote: The business man and the manufacturer are much more important to society than the artist and the professor.
If someone answers strongly agree or strongly disagree to this question they display strong fascist tendencies in the conventional definition of the word. However, if they answer as to the degree they find the question appropriate many people will put strongly disagree. It is exceptionally hard to accurately score based on questions which will illicit significantly different answers based on how a person takes a question, where how a person takes a question is not dependent on their position (as in this case).
Or take questions where the scoring would depend on the person's perception of the current state of the country in ways that are not ascertained by the question:
quote: What this country needs most, more than laws and political programs, is a few courageous, tireless, devoted leaders in whom the people can put their faith.
Taken absolutely literally, it is not dependent on that, but most people will take it as a relative question, I think (I sure did on first reading). In that case, a non-fascist could very well answer in the affirmative, if they thought the laws and political programs were already in place but due to lack of leadership had not been well implemented.
Then there're questions which are dependent upon whom the answerer considers to be enforcing the situation, such as:
quote: When a person has a problem or worry, it is best for him not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things.
A non fascist person could very well answer in the affirmative, thinking this a matter of personal positive thinking. A fascist person could also answer in the affirmative, thinking that the government would provide the ways of keeping busy.
All in all, I consider it a pretty inexact example of psychological testing, suffering from highly ambiguous phrasings and relying upon answerers to guess the writers intent, which will generate answers based on the answerer trying to make themselves look the way they want themselves to look based on their perception of that intent. It will likely catch most extreme cases of fascist tendencies due to its few more unambiguous questions, but I question its ability to do even the most moderate discernment towards the other end of the scale.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Wait, I'm a liberal airhead? 2.966666666666667 score.
Hobbes Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Skipping to the end- after Katharina's you are asking for our attention comment-
There is a lot in the new testament about being critical of your own perceptions and influence. Why don't you (Squick) go to LDS.org >> scriptures >> topical guide and search on Fear and Trembling for me?
I'm not as much of an OT scholar, but I bet the case can be made from that text too.
Scientific knowledge requires you to take much "on blind faith" under the principle of "oh, it was published in a peer reviewed journal." Both living religion and science are Processes, not edifices, of improving one's own knowledge and not simply regurgiating. THough both involve regurge in the early stages of learning.
The only other Jatraquero that I am aware studies my specialty of Linguistics is Jon Boy. We do not go around trying to seed debates on our specialty in order to make others feel inferior. (feel free to read this as an accusation.) Though there are often related threads to which we can contribute. Then again, I guess I'm not accusing you if you are working on the assumption that most Jatraqueros can easily grasp the intricacies of psychology without a lot of effort.
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
I think the leap of faith required to believe that a scientist is accurately and honestly describing his methods and results in a journal, and that said methods and results have been fairly reviewed by others in the field is a bit smaller than that required to believe that there is an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent Creator.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
saxon:
Why? I mean, I generally assume that most scientists are honest with their research, but why is it easier to believe in the wisdom of fellow human beings than God?
pooka: Ophelia is also studying linguistics.
[ November 24, 2003, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
kat, I'm not saying that there is or isn't a God. And I'm not even saying that it's easier to believe in human wisdom than in God. All I'm saying is that it is easier to believe in something verifiable than something that is not. Whether or not there is a God cannot be proven. Meanwhile, the fact of whether or not any given scientist and his reviewers are being honest can be proven.
I'm not saying there isn't some amount of faith necessary for belief in either case, or trying to place value on beliefs based on the amount of faith required. I just think that you need more in one case than the other.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Fair enough. With the scientists, you can double-check.
--
That of course depends on whether or not you are in a verifiable science. With the softer sciences, it there is much more subjective interpretation. How can you prove something that is completely subjective?
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
If it's good science, the data should be verifiable and reproducible within the tolerances of error. However, the conclusions drawn from the data are where the subjectivity comes in, and there I agree that it's tough.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I am taking Kat's word for it that Squick is involved in psychology.
I'm sure there are other linguists. Linguists are used to not expecting everyone to be interested in their field of study. I'm not implying Jon Boy would endorse my derision of psychology.
I'm also reacting to stuff Squick posted in Lalo's emoticons thread.
By the way, for you linguists, I was talking about the emoticons last night and my husband asked why I pronounce it /im'otacuns/ (sorry for the loose transcription) but the funny part is I was applying tri syllabic shortening to such a new lexical item. Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I hate to admit getting hard science info from PBS, but on Nova they were saying Einsteinian physics was incompatible with Quantum Mechanics.
Of course, it is usually soft scientists and not hard scientists who undertake to attack religion.
Linguistics, by the way, is a branch of Humanities. Thus the turf war with the "science" of psychology.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
yes, and galilean physics is wrong all the time. Doesn't prevent it from being a verifiable approximation.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
<is waiting for Squick to post again>
AJ
Posted by Maccabeus (Member # 3051) on :
You know, Squicky, I'd love to get ahold of that book. It sounds interesting. And as soon as I can I'm going to take the tests you linked.
Trouble is, the semester is ending and I'm scrambling to finish my work before it does. Kind of puts a damper on extra-curricular research. In the meantime, like a number of people here I feel justified in responding to your seemingly know-it-all tone. That doesn't mean I think you're wrong. It just means I'm suspicious.
Clear?
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I'm also unclear how the Bogardus test is supposed to be scored. The ethnicities given are Mexicans, Vietnamese and Nigerians.
They wanted you to put check marts in boxes below each of these ethinicities in responses to these questions. I could not tell what a check mark actually "meant" whether it was positive negative or neutral. Also who ever designed this test couldn't possibly have ever lived in Southern California.
quote: 3. Put a cross in as many of the boxes as your feelings dictate.
How would you feel about having members of the following groups (Mexicans, Vietnamese and Nigerians): 1. As close kin by marriage 2. In my club as personal chums 3. On my street as neighbors 4. Working alongside me in my job 5. As citizens in my country 6. As visitors to my country 7. I’d exclude them from my country
I don't know how you are supposed to express your feelings by a "cross" in a box. On a personal level 2 through 6 apply to me with regards to all of the above ethincities and quite a few extra besides. I wouldn't mind any of them as close kin by marriage either. I don't feel anything ethinically related about the friends I have of each category other than looking forward to being invited over to dinner so I can taste authentic food of that variety!
AJ
Oh yes, the test wanted your first reactions to each of the ethinic groups too. My responses: Mexicans: Lived down the street and across the street from me (I grew up in a mostly Latino neighborhood)entire families were on my swim team Vietnameese: Lived down the street from me, entire families were on my swim team. Nigerians: Older couple lived two blocks away, taught a couple of Nigerian kids to swim and had a really cool couple of college professors from Nigeria. There was the one male Nigerian engineering student that I studied with who kept calling me up while drunk, but I also had a close female study buddy in my History of Modern Africa class that was Nigerian and definitely helped. The sad thing was that she wouldn't tell the Kenyan prof teaching that she was Nigerian because she didn't want to be picked on.
AJ
[ November 24, 2003, 05:12 PM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
OK, my F-score is 2.66666666 – I’m a liberal airhead.
I can safely categorize this test as unmitigated bullsh&^. fugu13’s analysis was just about spot on.
The Bogardus one is just strange. I’m not sure what the crosses were supposed to mean, but basically 1- 6 was a “that’s cool” in each box and a “No, I wouldn’t exclude them” in each box for number 7.
What the hell does that prove?
Frankly, if these studies are based on these tests, then I’m even more skeptical than I was.
Dagonee
Posted by Hazen (Member # 161) on :
I find it ironic that anyone called a book published over 40 years ago "definative." The point about astrology looks especially outdated.
I scores a 3.1 on the F test, by the way. Way too low for a frothing-at-the-mouth right wing extremist like me. Posted by Maccabeus (Member # 3051) on :
They don't get too much frothier than ol' Macc, Hazen...and I scored 2.8
Unfortunately I have never met a Nigerian. I'm thusly not sure how to take the other test.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Shigosei, I owe you an appology. My tone was uncalled for. I read your post incorrectly as the "You only think religious people are prejudiced because God said that being gay is wrong and you think it's right." Looking at it now, I have no idea how I got that impression. Well, that's not entirely true. It's exactly the argument that I was expecting, one that I've gotten before, and I think I jumped at it way too early. Anyway, I was wrong and I should have tried to answer your question. Sorry.
The simple answer is to how prejudice is defined is that it is defined as best as conscientious people, among whom quite a few were religious, could define it. A comprehensive, but nearly bloodless definition is unjustified beliefs about a group of people. Such a definition, however, fails to convey the pervasiveness of that type of thinking, the range of it's expression, or the various other maladaptive behaviors that corolate highly with this type of thinking. Without giving lengthy consideration of these and other concepts, I don't think that it's possible to give a really accurate definition of the term.
One thing I can tell you is that a statement such as "I believe homosexuality is morally wrong because of my religious beliefs" would not be scored as prejudiced on any of the scales that I know of. Rather, statements such as "I wouldn't hire someone I know to be homosexual." or "Homosexuals are all <insert characteristic here>" would score.
In a very real sense, the definition of prejudice has been tied up with the tests of it. These methods for determining prejudice have been constantly evolving to be both generally more accurate and to fit changes in the social climate. For example, the Bogardus Social Distance Scale, which I provided a link to, was a much more effective determiner of prejudice when it was socially acceptable to claim that other groups had no right to be anywhere near you. Later scales have had to rely on more subtle measures.
The scales that have been adopted by the majority of the community studying prejudice are not formed by people who want to screw over Christianity. For example, I doubt that anyone could claim that the Bogardus scale was biased against religious people, and yet it was the primary scale used in the early studies. A significant number of people who work in this field are themselves Christians or Jews.
Rather, there is a genuine concern with construct validity. One of the methods of ensuring this is to check the correlations to other personality assesments to see that the same type of relationship exists between the new scale and these measures and between older scales. If the tests can be shown to be either invalid or unreliable, they are abandoned. Certain scales have shown to be so useful, such as Allport's Religious Orientation Scale (what with the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction), that they become touchstones of the field and spawn almost a field of their own.
The prejudice scales that were used corolated highly with all manners of other scales of psychological weaknesses, perhaps most strongly with the F-Scale of authoritarianism. I provided a link to one of the early versions of this test to give an idea of the types of thinking that form the core idea of authoritarianism. Even were the prejudice tests poor predictors of prejudicial thinking and behavior, such corolations would still make them useful in determining psychological fitness.
What it boils down to is the question of whether or not you can trust the measures of prejudice. I stand by my earlier statement that if you, without knowing anything about those scales, are unwilling to believe that they are valid, there is nothing I can say that will change your mind. Because of copyright restrictions I can't reproduce any tests except for the very early ones that are no longer used. However, the tests and the studies are probably readily available in your library's central branch. I am more than willing to talk about problems that you have with specific tests or experiments, but I have no desire to counter an attitude of "Those tests, which I know nothing about, must be wrong because they suggest things that disagree with what I want to believe." There are actually objective methods of assessing the validity of these tests, and as such, objective methods of assessing, within a certain defined error, the amount of prejudice in a population.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I'd be interested in hearing your responses to my comments on the test.
edit: the F scale, that is.
[ November 24, 2003, 10:51 PM: Message edited by: fugu13 ]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I've got a ton of justification for what I said, but you know what, I don't think that it's important. As I freely admitted in my first post, I am both arrogant and a jackass. If you wish to claim I'm a bad guy, go right ahead. As I see it, I try not to be. I fail sometimes. Either way, I don't it particularly affects the truthfulness of what I say.
Rather, one of the descriptions that people used for at least one of my posts is thought-provoking. This is not the first, not the fifth, nor even the tenth time that I've posted things in this vein (not the prejudice thing, but rather the underlying issues) and I've rarely seen evidence that people have considered what I had to say. So, I am very interested, what thoughts did it provoke?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:MrSquicky I have no desire to counter an attitude of "Those tests, which I know nothing about, must be wrong because they suggest things that disagree with what I want to believe."
And no one has said that in this thread. The only thing that’s been said along those lines is, “Here are some summarized results from some tests which I won’t bother to describe that support a particular criticism of religion.”
When pressed for clarification, you denounced the request for clarification as defensiveness and posted links to two tests, which attracted richly-deserved derision.
You further state that your quoted statement above is the type of reaction of that you expected, but that you don’t want to discuss it.
The question must be asked, why did you make a post to a discussion forum when you never intended to discuss the responses you expected to get? You made the statement, “It's exactly the argument that I was expecting, one that I've gotten before, and I think I jumped at it way too early.” It sounds like you made a post designed to elicit an easily attacked response just so you could have the pleasure of attacking it.
You also dismiss any skepticism or outright refutation as defensiveness and unworthy of discussion. Again, if disagreeing or doubting was going to elicit this discussion, why did you post on a discussion board?
Believe it or not, most people on this board are a) smart enough to form preliminary opinions on this topic just from the information in this thread, and b) smart enough to modify these opinions if additional info on the thread or further independent research warrants it. The fact that we aren’t all interested in pursuing further independent research is a more a statement of the poor opinion several of us seemed to have formed about it based on your summary and links.
The fact remains that the two example of the tests you gave use were laughable. No other examples are forthcoming.
Dagonee
[ November 24, 2003, 10:59 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
fugu, I think that it is a mistake to judge a test from the 1940s by today's standards. Also, I do know that any Likert style tests (strongly agree to strongly disagree, or how strongly do you agree 1-10, etc.) must be given with strict instructions and with a person there to answer any questions you might have. To be honest, I don't know that much about the genesis of the f-scale. I know that it seemed to work at the time and it and it's later version were some of the central parts of a hotly debated field. Also, it has some pretty impressive corolations to other similar type tests. I've never had a huge interest in psychometrics beyond the basics, except for how to go about disagreeing with a test on objective grounds. If it works, I use it. I didn't link the test as some sort of valid test that you can use, but rather to illustrate some of the fundamental areas that make up the idea of authoritarianism. To be honest, I have some problems with the specific questions on this test, but I am aware of the validty of the underlying concepts that it was built on.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
Hey, no problem. Some of the fault is mine. I was asking for that by choosing such an inflamatory topic as homosexuality. I thought it would be the most relevant example since it is such a divisive issue in society and Christianity today, but I think I should have used something else to explain my question.
Thanks for clarifying the definition of prejudice. I'm sort of surprised that anyone would admit to having the attitude "I wouldn't hire (a Latino, a homosexual, a woman, etc.)" Maybe people are more honest on anonymous surveys. Actually, I guess I shouldn't be that surprised. There are plenty of people out there who are visibly prejudiced. There's the old "no interracial dating" rule at Bob Jones University, for example. I can't believe they kept that around for so long.
By the way, please don't take any of the criticism on this thread as an indication we don't like serious discussion. It's nice to have something solid amidst all the fluff.
Edit: in response to Squicky's post a few posts up.
[ November 24, 2003, 11:07 PM: Message edited by: Shigosei ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I apologize, I did not get that impression when you called it the test of authoritarianism. I didn't realize you were not necessarily referring to your approval of it, but its importance in the field.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Yeah, I wasn't really careful with that list. I've been rushing to get something rather import done and it's been crashing at all the most inconvenient points and I've had to redesign a central part once already, so I just sort of put it out there. Another thing I should hve mentioned about it is that that was by no means a full test. You can't get a lot with only 10 questions.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Squick, I don't know what you're trying to do, but if it is "appear to be an intelligent scholar", it's failing miserably.
Are you doing okay?
[ November 25, 2003, 12:48 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I guess more what I want to know about predjuice is not that it exists, but what can we DO about it. I'm an engineer, I want something concrete that I can wrap my mind around to get productive solutions. It seems like the actuall origins of predudices are too complex to pidgeon hole (or there are a lot of pidgeon holes) so how do you go about correcting the problem when they are lots of small different ones rather than one big one?
AJ
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
quote:Later scales have had to rely on more subtle measures.
Interesting.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Could the changing way the scales measure stuff in and of itself be an indication of lowering predjudice levels?
aJ
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
Possibly. Or it could mean that the way prejudice is expressed -- the semiotics of it -- is simply more subtle. Or it could mean that test design is more sophisticated now -- that academics have improved the way they approach these things.
-- BUT --
In essence, I have serious reservations about the viability of testing things like prejudice beyond very gross means. It's very hard, imo, for test design not to reflect the biases of the researchers and to not lead subjects to certain conclusions.
So my question for Squick would be [I pay attention -- but I'd be more convinced if you didn't seem so caught up in your discipline (of course, I'm trapped to a certain extent in mine so it's all good)] how are these tests different from poltical polling or product marketing or any of the other 'soft' science attempts to capture data via surveys?
[quote]I've got to admit, I expected a much different reaction to my post. I'm not sure if people got the rather extreme implications of that information. In a way, it's a scientific suggestion that generally, a person claiming to be religious and acting on religious motives, is probably rather acting on their psychological weaknesses. It's stuff like this and the high correlation between certain measures of religiousity and f-scale scores, that makes me think that mainstream contemporary religion is an extremely worrying social force. At least on these specific measures of immaturity, the mast majority of the religious population show them to be among the least mature people in our society. quote]
The prejudiced part of me wants to agree with this and some of Squick's other conclusions because I have my own hang-ups with 'religious' people -- I also believe many of them are 'immature.' At the same time, what's more troubling to me is that, from what I can tell, most academics just don't *get* religion and religious movements and not only that, but they themselves tend to have rather immature beliefs in that regard.
My second question for squick is: exactly what are the looming negative implications for American society that you see as a result of this immaturity on the part of many religious groups? Why should this be such a cause for concern? What claims can you make about the likely negative behavior or attitudes of the irrational, 'immature' religious that the un- or non-religious are immune to or less prone to as a group?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Discrimination is a funny old word. It can mean so many different things depending on where it’s used. A basic, vanilla definition is the process by which two or more stimuli are responded to differently. However, when applied to the real world, issues of what this process actually is and why it is used lead to very different implementations.
A point I made elsewhere that is an extremely important part of social science theory is the difference between genotypes and phenotypes. In this context, these two words function pretty similarly to when they are used in a discussion of genetics. They are sort of a fancy way of making the distinction between the underlying reason or motivation for something happening and what happened. I'll be returning to this point often in what follows.
Applying it to the concept of discrimination, we return to the question: why do people discriminate?
First and foremost, it's because they should. Many times people have adequate reason to believe that things are different from each other. A square is not a circle and it's also quite different from a squire. Being able to pick up on how things are different and act according to these differences is fundamental to an organism's survival. At the very least, it's what keeps us from falling madly in love with, say, a parking meter. Regardless of anything else, that alone makes me believe that it's a good thing.
In non-abstract situations, it's rare that we ever have enough information to be 100% confident that our discriminations are justified. However, this is just a part of life and shouldn't be regarded as a bad thing, except in the aforementioned cases of parkometaphilia.
In other cases, people come to discriminate based on irrelevant stimuli. For example, one of the stronger theories on the development of phobias is that phobic people overgeneralize their fear associations to stimuli that aren't actually threatening. So a person uses irrelevant signals to tell them when to be afraid.
If we combine these two things - incompleteness and attention to unimportant details - we can show how discrimination can develop in cases where it isn't warranted. For example, Benjamin Franklin believed for much of his life that blacks where inherently inferior to whites when it came to intelligence. However, late in his life, he had chance to observe a classroom full of black children, and, as he reported later, he could see no difference between how well they learned and how well white children learned. Ben gave up his old ideas and became a committed abolitionist.
If this were all there were to it, the problems of prejudice and discrimination wouldn't be that big a deal. However, very few people are as secure as Ben Franklin was. Prejudice, as the term is commonly used, is a horse of a completely different color, or sex, or nationality, or whatever.
Not surprisingly, there was a huge amount of interest in understanding prejudice following the end of World War II. During this time, there were dozens of ways suggested to measure and predict prejudice against specific groups (e.g. the Jews, Negroes) and as a general concept. Careful studies matching the scores of these scales to actual observed behavior winnowed these tests down to the ones with the highest apparent accuracy.
One of the things that researchers found was that prejudice generally did not exist as a stand-alone thing. High scores on tests of prejudice or relatively many observed incidents of prejudicial behavior were accompanied by high scores or a high incidence of other maladjusted behaviors. For example, high prejudiced people were more likely to distort their perceptions or memories from reality. As part of this, they were more susceptible to the actor/observer bias and it’s close cousin, the fundamental attribution error. They tended to be more threat-oriented, more anxious, and thus to show more so-called neurotic symptoms. There was a wider difference between their public persona and their inner state.
As I stated above, Allport provided a list of behaviors that correlated highly to prejudice and constituted what he considered “The Prejudiced Personality”. I’ll sketch these out in greater detail by summarizing directly from the book.
Ambiguity toward parents: Prejudiced people showed a greater level of ambiguity towards their parents. In one study of female college students tested for anti-Semitism, the researchers found that “without exception these girls declared that they liked their parents.” Any type of criticism towards their parents was rare, much rarer than the study population of non-anti-Semitic girls. However, projective tests such as the thematic apperception test showed that the anti-Semitic girls showed that “a preponderance of [their] responses to parental figures accused them of meanness and cruelty, and betrayed jealousy, suspicion, and hostility on the part of the daughter.” As stated above, the non-anti-Semitic girls were more openly critical of their parents, but they showed much less hostility in the projective tests. –This next is not from the book - Later research has suggested a cause for this behavior by showing that children raised by parents with an authoritarian parenting style tend to score high for prejudice.
Moralism: Moralism is defined here by a “strict insistence on cleanliness, good manners, [and] conventions.” When asked, “What is the most embarrassing experience?”, the anti-Semitic girls responded “in terms of violations of mores and conventions in public.” The less prejudiced girls more often spoke of personal failings, such as “failing to live up to a friend’s expectations.” Studies with children found that the more prejudiced children generally saw the make up a of “perfect boy or girl” as being a mixture of “purity, cleanliness, [and] good manners”, while the less prejudiced children were more likely to describe a child who was a good companion or fun to be around.
Dichotomization: Closely related to moralism, dichotomization is the tendency to break things down into only two, mutually exclusive categories. For example, “If you are not with us, you’re against us.” or “There is only one right way to do anything.” However, this process of dichotomization generally goes far beyond moral judgments. It is a style of thinking that pervades the way a person sees the world. Prejudiced people were more likely to express of agree with dichotomizing statements. They also expressed a higher preference for classification systems that had only two categories.
Need for Definiteness: Another highly related concept is the need for definiteness. Again, this is a highly pervasive quality of a person’s thinking. To illustrate this point, Allport refers to the autokinetic effect, a classic perceptual experimental situation. This is a great situation to study reaction to ambiguity because there literally isn’t any right answer. However, researchers have consistently found that people tend to anchor their perceptions in how much it moves and, sometimes, the direction that it moved in. Prejudiced people tended to establish these norms earlier, were more likely to insist that the light only moved in one direction, and had less deviation in the amount they claimed the light moved.
Another manifestation of this need for definiteness is the reluctance to admit that you don’t know about something. Prejudiced people have been shown across a wide range of studies to be much less likely to say “I don’t know.” In one experiment, the subjects were asked to associate names with faces. High prejudice subjects made more incorrect guesses in comparison to the low prejudice subjects, who were much more likely to say they had no idea and thus refuse to answer. In another study, an analysis of a public opinion poll revealed that people scoring high in anti-Semitism were less likely to given a “Don’t know” response.
In studies – not contained in this book - of functional fixedness, prejudiced people were shown to be more likely to suffer from failing to rethink previously effective solutions.
Externalization: Prejudiced people tend to view things, especially unpleasant things as originating outside themselves. They are more likely to engage in projection. Allport brings up the concept of extropuntiveness, which is a fancy way of saying excuse making. When something goes wrong, it is someone or something else’s fault. Another expression of this is the translation of a hated group into a hating group, a group that you wants to attack into a group that is attacking you.
Institutionalism: This is a no-brainer to me. I’m going to just quote because it probably isn’t for others.
quote:The person with character-conditioned prejudice likes order, but especially social order. In his clear-cut institutional memberships, he finds the safety and definiteness that he needs. Lodges, schools, churches, the nation, may serve as a defense against the disquiet in his personal life. To lean on them saves him from leaning on himself.
Research shows that, by and large, prejudiced people are more devoted to institutions than are the unprejudiced. Anti-Semitic college girls are more wrapped up in the sororities; they are more institutionally religious; they are more intensely “patriotic.” Asked “What is the most awe-inspiring experience?” they usually answer in terms of external patriotic and religious events.
Many studies have discovered a close link between prejudice and “patriotism.” …[E]xtreme bigots are almost always super-patriots. The tie between nationalism and persecution of minority groups was clearly seen in Nazi Germany. It seems to hold for other countries as well. One investigation…in a suburban American community, among middle-class people, is particularly revealing…While there was some evidence that insecurity and frustration do play a part in the nexus of anti-Semitism, the investigators found that the most important single factor is “national involvement.”…
The findings of this research are important. It will be noted that the anti-Semite is not merely a bundle of negative attitudes. Rather he is trying to do something: namely, to find an island of institutional safety and security. The nation is the island he selects. It is a positive anchorage; it is his country right or wrong; it is higher than humanity; more desirable than a world state. It has the definiteness he needs. The research establishes the fact that the higher the degree of nationalism, the higher the anti-Semitism.
Note the emphasis here is upon positive security. Anti-Semitism is not merely the shadow that fear and anxiety cast. Plenty of apprehensive and frustrated people never develop into anti-Semites. What is important is the way fear and frustration are handled. The institutionalistic way-especially the nationalistic-seems to be the nub of the matter.
What happens is that the prejudiced person defines “nation” to fit his needs…The nation is first of all a protection (the chief protection) of him as an individual. It is his in-group. He sees no contradiction in ruling out its beneficent orbit those whom he regards as threatening intruders and enemies (namely, American minorities). What is more, the nation stands for the status quo. It is a conservative agent; within it are all the devices for safe living that he approves. His nationalism is a form of conservativism. According to his definition. The nation is that which resists change. It follows that he distrusts liberals, reformers, supporters of the Bill of Rights, and other “commies”: they threaten to change his safe conception of what the nation means.”
Whew that’s a mouthful. I’m glad I’ve got the scanner text recognition program.
Authoritarianism: Authoritarianism is whole big can of worms, certainly bigger than prejudice. Allport’s description is necessarily disadvantaged because he was writing prior to the Milgram experiment, which is now one of the main bases for any understanding of authoritarianism. However, the theoretical foundations for a conception of authoritarianism had already been laid. Erich Fromm had written what is still perhaps the best exploration of this topic, his book Escape from Freedom, in 1941. Fromm made the argument that the basis for authoritarianism is a sadomasochistic world orientation, where you are submissive towards those above you and abusive towards those below you. If you are interested in learning more about this topic, I highly recommend Fromm’s book, and I think that Stanley Milgram’s book giving an account of his famous experiment, Obedience to Authority, should be required reading in any educational system.
To simplify, authoritarianism is a valuing of authority and power over personal freedom and change. The authoritarian person is primarily interested in power relationships. His solution to pretty much any problem is more “discipline”, where discipline is defined as conformity to authority or the application of external force.
It’s close to a certainty that prejudice is highly correlated with authoritarianism. So much so that part of the verification of new tests of prejudice is checking how well they correlate with tests of authoritarianism.
So anyway, that’s a little section of what is still considered one of the most important books ever written about prejudice. I tried to keep the above purely informational. The only arguments I included were those in the text itself. Now I’m going to start with what I think.
I haven’t yet dealt explicitly with the why of prejudice. I think that the above description of the prejudiced personality makes this almost redundant, but I’m an engineer as well as a psychologist, so I like redundancy.
One very important question that comes up in regards to prejudice is how to tell the difference between legitimate or even incomplete info discrimination and full-out prejudice. From a very superficial viewpoint, it can be difficult to judge. However, any kind of depth analysis revealed that there is a huge difference between the two. It’s the difference between believing in something and wanting to believe in something. The prejudiced person is so loud in their belief and so resistant to change, not because their belief is strong, but rather because it is so weak. They want to believe that it is true, so they self-deceive and avoid situations they can and twist ones that they cannot so that they can maintain this belief. Because, without it, a huge chunk of what they use to feel safe disappears.
Prejudice is a purposive behavior. People are prejudiced because it helps them get what they want. These goals can vary widely, but what they actually are unimportant in the general case. They all boil down to achieving safety or power.
I mentioned the Milgram experiment already. One aspect of this experiment that is often overlooked is what it has to say about morality formation. Obviously, this experiment caused a great deal of stress by putting people’s need to submit to authority in conflict with people’s desire not to shock another person to death. Nearly all of Milgram’s subjects exhibited signs of extreme stress. An interesting corollary to this is that many of them also exhibited behaviors to cope with this stress. One of these behaviors was the formation of a moral justification for the shocks. Some of the subjects reduced their stress by clinging to belief that somehow the innocent person they were shocking deserved it.
Another study that sheds light onto this aspect of prejudice formation is the Muzafer Sherif’s classic Robber’s Cave study. Sherif was one of the major contributors to the field of group dynamics and as such was very interested in the formation of group norms. In this study, he found that the formation of an in-group led to a moral elevation of that group and a degradation of the out-group. This shifting of norms followed the pattern of out-group prejudice confirmed by countless other studies. Of particular interest to this discussion is how, while the individual subjects earnestly claimed that each of the people in their group was different from each other, they tended to regard the members of the other group as being more or less uniform. To put it another way, they formed a prejudice against the other group.
I can keep going on like this, but I think that it is clear that there is some pretty strong evidence that when you want to do something bad to others, it is common to form prejudicial attitudes toward them.
However, it is not just to deal with the stress caused by conflict with a certain group that people form prejudices against that group. One of the interesting things that early researchers found while looking into anti-Semitism is that there was a significant difference between American anti-Semitism and European and other anti-Semitism. To wit, it was extremely uncommon to find Jews accused of sexual perversion in America, but this was one of the major complaints against them in Europe. It’s not that America didn’t have a group that they associated with sexual perversion; it just wasn’t the Jews. Rather, Blacks were frequently the depraved sex-addicts. Some researchers found the exact same complaints, down to wording, being levied against Jews in Europe, but Blacks in America.
Now, it’s possible that European Jews were just more lusty and lascivious than Americans. It’s possible that Blacks were somehow inheritors of this same lusty lifestyle. I think that it’s more likely that the prejudiced people in question had some sexual anxiety that they needed to project onto someone. Since the Europeans didn’t really have Blacks to put it on, they attached it to the always popular Jews.
Several studies have shown a similar pattern. Oftentimes, the bad attributes most often associated with a prejudiced against group, excepting socially reinforced stereotypes, corresponded nicely to the particular pressures that a person was under.
So, how do we eliminate prejudice? The simple answer is to do away with the underlying cause. If we could cure it like Alvin cured Lolla-Wossiky’s drunkenness, by removing the darkness that it was there to block out, man, that would be so sweet. Unfortunately, saving David Blaine, I can’t think of anyone who has that kind of magical power. And all I got from repeatedly contacting David was a restraining order and an invitation to keep out of Maryland for the rest of my natural life.
I’ve got lots of ideas for realistic solutions. That’s pretty much what I do, when I’m not doing other stuff, anyway. They all pretty much center around increasing the general maturity of people. However, this is already by far the longest thing I’ve ever posted and, let’s face it, I don’t think anyone here has the background in social dynamics or even psychology in general to get much out of the brief version. One major thing that I can offer is that people need to educate themselves about prejudice so that they can learn to recognize it, both in others and, more importantly, in themselves, and to deal with it more effectively. I feel that most of the contemporary ways of dealing with prejudice are doomed to fail because the people formulating them and implementing them rarely have any significant understanding of the problem they are facing.
Another important thing to keep in mind is that, as prejudice is a purposive behavior, it is possible to sort of do away with it and yet not have any increase in maturity. If we change the social structure such that prejudice ceases to do a good job of getting people what they want, they'll stop doing it and start doing something else that works better. Likewise, making it "naughty" for people to express prejudice may stop them from doing so in social situations but rarely has much success reducing the level of prejudice in that person.
A personal commitment to education is so important. I’m asking you, if you think that this is an important issue, don’t just take my word for it. Read up on it yourself. The possibility for social and personal change is much greater in the second case, especially in terms of general maturity.
[ December 01, 2003, 11:50 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
People have brought up that non-religious or differently religious groups have committed the same types of atrocities and have the same bad aspects that I am ascribing to religious people. As I've said in multiple other instances, this is exactly my point. What I am describing is not an intrinsic quality of religion. Rather, it is common to just about all situations where there are immature people. Certain situations and social/belief structures encourage prejudice formation or are more appealing to prejudiced people. I feel that religion, as it commonly conceived in America, constitutes such a situation. I'd say the same for Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and pretty much any other thing you want to bring up. I'm not claiming that religion causes this and thus we should not expect it in non-religion social systems. Rather I am saying that it specifically those aspects that religions share with these other situations that cause these sorts of thing.
Look, I don't have a problem with religion per se. I find the subject fascinating from both an intellectual and a spiritual standpoint. It has never been my intention to attack religion or any specific religion as a concept. I remain an enthusiastic supporter of religion in most of its forms.
My answer to what I see as some severe problems in the current state of religions in America is not, and never has been, to do away with or destroy religions. Rather, I believe as some many other researchers on this topic do, that the people who self-identify as religious and yet are highly prejudiced are generally twisting their religion. I have a great respect for the dedicated religious person who, as I have described, tends to be less prejudiced. I have known such people in my life and I consider myself blessed because of it. My answer is that people should come to understand why these people are how they are and work to become more like them.
I think that our society can only become better if there is a marked increase in maturely religious people. That's my goal. Not just that, I feel that religion is probably one of the best places to foment the kind of things that are going to lead to a more mature society.
[ December 01, 2003, 11:51 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Thank you for your long explanation. I'm going to read and digest it more tomorrow, and hopefully come up with semi-intelligent question or two.
AJ
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Banna (is it ok that I always think of you as BananaOj?), Let me know if I didn't do a good job of explaining or linking to explanations of any of the concepts. I'm so immersed in the field that I sometimes assume people are going to understand things when I actually provide a woefully inadequate description. Also, I've got tons else more to write - that was the short version - so I'm willing to expand on any of the ideas there. I've got a wonderful little bit on the Chinese concept of li and Qing-Jao's teleological tracing of woodlines that I'm hoping to get around to.
Posted by Ralphie (Member # 1565) on :
quote:Thank you for your long explanation. I'm going to read and digest it more tomorrow, and hopefully come up with semi-intelligent question or two.
(Don't let Squick's scanner text recognition program and overweening ego make you use self-depricating language. I think he secretly likes it.)
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
I am a "whining rotter," according to the F-test. I scored a 1.8. What's that mean?
Posted by Maccabeus (Member # 3051) on :
So, Squicky...if you brought it up before, I've lost track. What do you believe constitutes mature religion?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
It means you have a kind heart, twinky. That's a good thing. Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
/sidebar Squicky, the reason why it is BannaOj instead of BananaOj is the result of a typo. My real name is Anna Jo, so it was an understandable typo at the time since my fingers are used to putting the Ns together. But I decided to keep it, because it is available as a screenname on most places I belong to.
I did have the nickname Banana for a long time and I still answer to it, so calling me Banana is cool. It was the result of a highlighter yellow swimsuit I wore when I was on the swim team playing water polo. Then the guys decided I was a vicious water polo player cause I could beat them up without resorting to dirty tricks which was how the nickname OJ was acquired. I answer to AJ too, or "Hey you!"
AJ /end sidebar
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Macc, That's sort of like asking what does a mature government look like. It's a mu question. Like I brought up before, what I'm talking about is the difference between genotypes and phenotypes. Institutions are phenotypes. They are the outward expression of the formative material of the people who make them up. A mature religion is one made up of mature people. I have no way of commenting on the range of other qualities that it might have. For example, it's quite within the range of values that a "mature" religion would believe that homosexuality is a sin. The main thing is that this wouldn't be a matter of prejudice, but rather a justified discrimination.
If that sounds like a cop out, that's because it is, in a way. We do know somethings that could aid this description. That is, we know some of what at least a form of a mature person looks like and what some maturing institutions look like.
What we can say about maturity from a scientific context is pretty much limited to talking about what it is not. We know that it is not immaturity and we have some scientifically justified ideas of what immaturity is. Other than that, it's kind of like asking a doctor what a healthy person looks like.
However, what we can do is look at people who are not immature to look for commonalities and form theories about maturity that we then put into practice. Hardly scientific, but that doesn't mean that it isn't valuable.
Thankfully, there's a tradition in psychology of systematically doing just that. For my money, nobody does it better than Abraham Maslow. Not only did he come up with some interesting theories, but his ideas about management, captured best in the book Maslow on Management (an edited and annotated collection of his earlier, much more disorganized writings on management), were applied in the real world. They were so successful that one of the companies who implemented his ideas set him up with a sinecure with the only directive being for him to keep working on his ideas.
[ December 02, 2003, 11:22 AM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :
Thanks, Squick. I feel this discussion is on a much more solid foundation now.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
A point I've been trying to get across and never seem to be able to is that there are two distinctly different ways of thinking that we're talking about here. Prejudicial thinking rests on unstable reasons for believing in something. The rightness of a statement, the respect given someone, the interest in looking at ideas are all determined by how well they fit in with a person's worldview. Proof for anything in this style of thinking is extremely subjective. ehhh...That's not really getting what I'm trying to say. It's more that a prejudiced person specifically looks only for subjective proof and avoid objective reasoning.
For there are objective reasons for things. For example, it's possible that psychology is objectively not a science. There is a set definition of what a science is, a list of requirements that has to be fulfilled before something can be considered a science. If psychology doesn't meet these characteristics, it isn't a science. There are definitely areas that don't meet these requirements, but there are also large areas that do. So I have to conclude that people who claim otherwise, unless they provide me with an explanation of how these parts don't fulfill the requirements, are either ignorant of the nature of science or of psychology.
Likewise, there are objective grounds for criticizing something, say religion. This certainly doesn't mean that any complaint against religion is worthy of respect. I said above that I am upset that the majority of criticisms brought against religion are ignorant and puerile. These people are themselves engaging in prejudice, or at the very least poor thinking.
One of the things drilled into my head in my training in psychology was how to determine what could justifiably said from a set of data. This sense of intellectual integrity was place foremost in important, before theory or measures or facts. So, yes, regardless of the issue, it bothers me when people form their opinions based on casual ignorance. As well as being an expression of the underlying insecurities I mentioned above, prejudice is also just about the supreme manifestation of this kind of thinking. It's one of the reasons that prejudiced people almost invariably turn their prejudicial thinking towards "intellectuals", focusing on the regretably abundant examples of immature, prejudicial people in intellectual roles to discount all "academics" and even the objective way of thinking.
Gordon Zahn, in his book German Catholics and Hitler's Wars responded to this type of thinking better than I can. It certainly lends a degree a credibility that Zahn, like a not insignificant number of the researchers who investigated the role of prejudice in religion, is religious, attached to a religious university, and publishing in a religious medium. Anyway, here's what he had to say:
quote:THE CATHOLIC SCHOLAR who would engage in research having the potential for controversy involved in the study to be presented in the forthcoming pages is forced to address himself at the very outset to a critical question. The question was clearly expressed by Yves Congar, O.P., in a recent issue of Perspectives:
- Can we, without imprudence, expose evils and abuses in the history of the Church and publish works of self-criticism and self-accusation? In researches and avowals of this kind is there not some risk of disturbing the confidence of the faithful and, in fact, of promoting a kind of religious indifferentism which is the very vestibule of neopaganism? -
This study does not set out to “expose evils and abuses”; it will, however, reveal some grievous mistakes in judgment and action, and perhaps some rather critical inadequacies in certain prevailing theological formulations. The question, therefore, is pertinent. Congar’s answer is pertinent, too. As he points out, the workings of the Holy Spirit within us begin with what he terms “His first act— to convince us of sin.” Thus what many may choose to dismiss or denounce as a public washing of dirty linen may also be viewed asa probing search for causes and consequences of moral failures which, if conducted and received in a spirit of honesty and humility, can only work to benefit and perfect the Church as a temporal social institution charged with a divine mission and responsibility.
But this is only part of the answer. Equally pertinent, though not stressed by Congar, is the professional responsibility of the scholar and scientist. Our age seems to have abandoned the true meaning of the word “profession” as a state of life entered upon in a spirit of total commitment to a special set of responsibilities and consecrated to the service of the truth. Except for religion, our professions are no longer marked by a public taking or “profession” of vows; where we do find some renmants of this practice—as in the medical and, to a lesser extent, legal professions—are generally regarded as little more than ceremonial formalities. Nevertheless the profession of the scholar must imply a conscious dedication to the service of the truth, the advancement of knowledge, and the correction and, wherever possible, elimination of error. In this light, then, the answer to our question given by the Catholic scholar who would remain true to his professional responsibilities has to be that mistakes and weaknesses—even evils and abuses— must be exposed wherever and whenever they are discovered. And he will expose them in the confident faith that, however much of an embarrassment his revelations might at first present, they will in the long run contribute to the welfare of the Church, which proclaims that Truth is One, and which therefore insists that any apparent divergence between fact and faith must be tested and explored and ultimately reconciled in that unity of truth.
To return to Congar:
- The Church considered as a community lives according to laws analogous, positis ponendis, to those of any other society. In the disordered conditions and the great tragedies in which a complex and finally collective responsibility must be acknowledged, there are nevertheless some persons responsible in the first degree and others in the second degree. That second-degree responsibility can come from cowardice or connivance. In the Church more than in other societies there is a connection between disordered conditions and great tradgedies. One might even say that tradgedies are the result of inveterate and accepted shortcomings at the level of everyday practice. Collective responsibility is incurred at the level of pastoral observances, of devotions, by what is preached and what is not preached.
edit:I tried to make it clearer what parts of the quoted section were themselves quotes.
[ December 02, 2003, 12:27 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:So I have to conclude that people who claim otherwise, unless they provide me with an explanation of how these parts don't fulfill the requirements, are either ignorant of the nature of science or of psychology.
Or else they've thought about it/studied it separately on their own, are personally satisfied with their opinions, musing out loud, and don't see the need to justify themselves.
That's possible, too.
------
I'm wondering what the role of experience plays. Surely being open-minded does not mean never taking into account the experiences and consequences that have come from previous actions.
[ December 02, 2003, 12:33 PM: Message edited by: katharina ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:MrSquicky said: People have brought up that non-religious or differently religious groups have committed the same types of atrocities and have the same bad aspects that I am ascribing to religious people. As I've said in multiple other instances, this is exactly my point.
Those examples were only brought up in response to this statement of yours:
quote:MrSquicky said: As to the second question, it is only a matter of personal belief that I believe that prejudice and authoritarianism is more dangerous in religious people than in other groups.
How does this previous statement agree with:
quote:MrSquicky said: What I am describing is not an intrinsic quality of religion. Rather, it is common to just about all situations where there are immature people. Certain situations and social/belief structures encourage prejudice formation or are more appealing to prejudiced people. I feel that religion, as it commonly conceived in America, constitutes such a situation. I'd say the same for Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, and pretty much any other thing you want to bring up. I'm not claiming that religion causes this and thus we should not expect it in non-religion social systems. Rather I am saying that it specifically those aspects that religions share with these other situations that cause these sorts of thing.
Is it the same? Is it more dangerous? This is not just a nit, this is an important point in the discussion as you framed it.
My point in my previous post about non-religious atrocities was that strong beliefs lead to strong actions. The “goodness” or “badness” of the beliefs will go a long way to determining if the results are good or bad.
I wish I had more time to participate in this discussion, but exams are coming up. I would like to ad one more substantive comment:
quote:MrSquicky said: In one experiment, the subjects were asked to associate names with faces. High prejudice subjects made more incorrect guesses in comparison to the low prejudice subjects, who were much more likely to say they had no idea and thus refuse to answer.
I’m really doubtful on this technique. I would say people more likely to admit they don’t know something have a greater need for definiteness. A person 70% sure of a fact who hazards a guess can be said to require less definiteness in acting on that knowledge than someone who won’t hazard a guess at all. I’m assuming the test-givers asked people to give names and did not instruct people to assign percent probabilities to the answers (this would fit my limited-to-undergraduate-psychology experience). If so, this isn’t testing “need for definiteness” as much as “willingness to be wrong.”
As to the autokinetic effect, I would say it does not demonstrate a “need for definiteness” so much as a quicker pattern acceptance reflex – that is, how fast someone derives a general rule from a specific instance of a pattern. Given that both high-“prejudiced” and low-“prejudiced” people anchor to their perceived pattern, the big difference is speed of pattern establishment, not need for definiteness.
The only thing we really know from this experiment is that people who are high-“prejudiced”
This is the root of my skepticism with these experiments – interpreting the results. And my overriding concern – and the reason I quote “prejudice” above – is not addressed in your excellent explanations above: How does someone test for high- or low- “prejudiced” attitudes?
Any problems with testing for the other characteristics are moot if there is no reliable way to test for prejudice. At best a psychologist can say “People who generally respond to test A in X manner also respond to test B in Y manner.” This may lead to predictive theories, but their explanatory value is highly questionable.
The same problem exists in quantum physics. It’s the most accurately predictive scientific theory (supporting predictions empirically validated to the 14th decimal point). It provides an excellent means for predicting how matter and energy will behave in certain conditions. However, it provides little guidance to thinking about the physical properties (other than those being predicted) of the universe, i.e., why the theory works so well.
Contrast this to special relativity, whose mathematical formulas are entirely entwined with a physical view of the cosmos. The theory is more satisfying and accessible because it is both predictive and explanative.
There is a much greater possibility for bias, conscious or unconscious, in the design, conduct, and interpretation of psychological experiments given their subjective nature.
Dagonee
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dagonee, While there are specific cases of structural and also doctrinal (government by divine right, for example) aspects of, well, Christianity that I believe exacerbate the problems presented by a prejudicial and authoritarian populace, that's not at all what was I saying by saying that they are dangerous. If you read my statements directly after that part you quoted, you'll notice that I focused on the impossibility of reality testing religious beliefs. Because there is no standard of proof that we can refer to as to the "rightness" of religious beliefs, it's harder to check the immature impulses that often get bound up in them.
The list of experiments I provided exploring the need for definiteness was by no means comprehensive. You need to understand the process that verification of a theory works in the field. People don't do two experiements and then call it a day. Rather, there are always objections that form the basis for other experiments. In a similar situation to QM gravity taking over from Newtonian, if the results of these experiments fit one explanation better than another, the old explanation is either revised or scrapped. Read an introduction to any experiemental psych article. You're going to find that it is necessary to sketch out the literature both for and against your hypothesis before you even start to present your own theory.
Also, I thought I explained that the verification for tests of prejudice is a complicated process that, as one of its steps, involved testing them against the level of prejudicial behavior. Apparently I didn't do a good enough job. If people who score high on a test of prejudice aren't more likely to act in a prejudicial manner, the test isn't any good. In testing, discrimination takes yet another meaing. In psychometrics, a test is only considered valid if it can be shown to discriminate between the groups that it is testing.
How do I put this nicely? You seem to be very quick to make dedinite pronouncements about a field that you don't seem to know much about. To me, your objections are boringly innaccurate. They are statements seemingly without any factual basis. By that I mean that you seem to know little about the field but make statements that are only justifiable if you did. Thus, I feel that your confidence is unwarrented.
I will state once, very clearly for the record, that psychologists are not all immature, religion-hating, unscientific people whose only method of proof is "yeah, that sounds right." We know about bias and about the subjectivity of our results. We know test reliability and accuracy. There is a profound concern for intellectual integrity that undergirds the field.
My claim is that these facts are evident to anyone who knows about the field. I could be wrong about any of those statements. I could be wrong that you know little about psychology. I am willing to entertain any questions about any specific areas you want to talk about. However, like I mentioned, the primacy of intellectual integrity has been drummed into my head. You are certainly free to make derrogatory claims about a field you know little about. In the eyes of an educated audience, I think that it helps demonstrate my point. However, I am certainly not obligated to take you seriously.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:MrSquicky said: If you read my statements directly after that part you quoted, you'll notice that I focused on the impossibility of reality testing religious beliefs. Because there is no standard of proof that we can refer to as to the "rightness" of religious beliefs, it's harder to check the immature impulses that often get bound up in them.
I gave empirical examples that contradicted your “assumption” from your first post. I read the statement after that. My point is that while theoretically your point about proof in religion may sound reasonable, it hasn’t held up to practice in this century. This is probably because the underlying doctrines of these mass murders were also not conducive to objective proof.
My underlying philosophy here is that NO moral code is subject to objectively physically verifiable proof. No amount of logical contortions can validly take you from “Such and such is a physically verifiable fact” to “People ought to do so and so.” I didn’t go into that because it seemed extraneous to the topic at hand.
quote:MrSquicky said: How do I put this nicely? You seem to be very quick to make dedinite pronouncements about a field that you don't seem to know much about. To me, your objections are boringly innaccurate. They are statements seemingly without any factual basis. By that I mean that you seem to know little about the field but make statements that are only justifiable if you did. Thus, I feel that your confidence is unwarrented.
I haven’t made “definite pronouncements.” I’ve very clearly used words like “doubtful” and “reservations.” I’ve also stated prima facie reasonable objections to the studies you’ve outlined. If they’re wrong, instead of calling them “boringly inaccurate” you could use this opportunity to educate some intelligent people outside your profession about certain aspects of it. You seem to have chosen to retreat to authority. “If you knew the truth you wouldn’t say that.”
quote:MrSquicky said: I will state once, very clearly for the record, that psychologists are not all immature, religion-hating, unscientific people whose only method of proof is "yeah, that sounds right." We know about bias and about the subjectivity of our results. We know test reliability and accuracy. There is a profound concern for intellectual integrity that undergirds the field.
I have never said that “all immature, religion-hating, unscientific people.” You have repeatedly taken statements in this thread well beyond their facial meanings. However, laypeople are under no compulsion to take your field’s word for its findings. I’m not talking about deliberate falsification or scientific fraud. Maybe this is just a bias from my chosen field of study, but conclusory statements are highly suspect. The reasoning and evidence undergirding the conclusion is what counts. Almost all of your posts about the state of study in this field are conclusory – e.g., quicker anchoring in autokinetic tests indicates a need for definiteness.
Given my admitted skepticism toward the field, I won’t take that at face value.
quote:MrSquicky said: You are certainly free to make derrogatory claims about a field you know little about. In the eyes of an educated audience, I think that it helps demonstrate my point. However, I am certainly not obligated to take you seriously.
I am free to use my not insubstantial reasoning abilities to evaluate the information from your field presented in a discussion forum. You are free to dismiss my evaluation, to simply list more information without relating it to the evaluation, to provide additional facts applicable to my evaluations, or to provide analysis that speaks to the evaluation.
Given your repeated “you don’t know enough to comment” statements, I have to ask again: “Why did you post this to a general discussion board?” If only psychologists are “qualified” to comment, why didn’t you go post this on a psychology board.
Did you post this to discuss? Or just to elicit comments you could ridicule and dismiss?
Dagonee
Posted by Jacare Sorridente (Member # 1906) on :
Dagonee- why don't you just admit that psychology is too technical a field for you to ever truly grasp without earning an advanced degree? The whole reason that we have experts on any given subject is so that they can tell us what to think about a given subject which we cannot possibly comprehend.
Perhaps you should just take Squicky's word for it that the religious are on average more immature and hence more dangerous.
When the religious finally come to understand their delusion for what it is our society will finally be able to make some progress towards a true utopian society in which the wise and learned among us guide the ignorant to the fountain of light.
Honestly, I should have expected that people on a science fiction forum would understand this. Haven't any of you read the Lathe of Heaven? Ursula LeGuin understood what a perfect world could be provided if we trusted those who have the real truth.
Posted by Maccabeus (Member # 3051) on :
Jacare, you are speaking ironically, aren't you? Because I hope you aren't missing the irony in what you're saying.
Posted by Lissande (Member # 350) on :
I can't swear to it, not having read the LeGuin book referenced, but I suspect that an active Mormon posting blatantly overblown blbost about religious people is, in fact, aware of the irony. Posted by Maccabeus (Member # 3051) on :
D'oh!
I keep forgetting who Jacare is. Thank you, Lissande.
Posted by Lissande (Member # 350) on :
It's all good; we're cool. See? See how cool we are? We have this:
Posted by Maccabeus (Member # 3051) on :
You're much too cool for me, Lissande. Posted by Jacare Sorridente (Member # 1906) on :
Heh, I like to keep 'em guessing every now and then. Of course, anyone who knows much about me won't be guessing for long as Lissande pointed out.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Not knowing you at all, I was drafting a scathing response in my head until I got to the third sentence.
Nicely done.
Posted by Jacare Sorridente (Member # 1906) on :
Thanks Dagonee. I have been impressed with your posts in this thread. Old Squick usually has some good things worth saying, but he so often goes into "authoritarian" mode that having a discussion with him about his points is fairly difficult.
quote: Not knowing you at all...
I went into lurker mode some time before you showed up. I generally still tend to take a peek at the religion threads as well as some of the more eye-catching ones from time to time.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Thanks, Jacare. Nice to meet you.
[ December 04, 2003, 02:46 PM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote: Dagonee- why don't you just admit that psychology is too technical a field for you to ever truly grasp without earning an advanced degree? The whole reason that we have experts on any given subject is so that they can tell us what to think about a given subject which we cannot possibly comprehend.
Perhaps you should just take Squicky's word for it that the religious are on average more immature and hence more dangerous.
When the religious finally come to understand their delusion for what it is our society will finally be able to make some progress towards a true utopian society in which the wise and learned among us guide the ignorant to the fountain of light.
Honestly, I should have expected that people on a science fiction forum would understand this. Haven't any of you read the Lathe of Heaven? Ursula LeGuin understood what a perfect world could be provided if we trusted those who have the real truth.
So you do get it, Jacare.
I'm not going to say that there aren't people out with an immature anti-religion prejudice that would take what I posted as justification for something like that. There certainly are such people and they would twist what I said so that it was the opposite of what I actually said and, more ironically, exhibit the same tendencies for prejudice and authoritarianism that I was specifically decrying.
I've been trying to go out of my way to say that these people are out there. The highs, lows, and middles of maturity are found in religious and non-religious people. However, the data from studies in America shows that there are proportionally more prejudiced people in religion. Saying "Well, non-religious people do it too." as a reason for why it's not a problem with religion is no more valid than someone claiming that religious equals prejudiced.
I had a couple new thoughts while I was writing this. It would interesting to see if taking the levels of dedication to other organizations in the non-religious people would result in the same curivlinear relationship to prejudice. That would be an interesting study. I don't know if anyone has done it yet.
Second - this is sort of based on the intrinsic religious orientation and the quote by Gordon Zahn (which I thought was pretty cool. I expected at least someone to say something about it.) - I wonder if there is a greater underlying factor here. Something like a dedication to truth, especially over loyalty.
I was particularly impressed by Zahn's statement:
quote:And he will expose them in the confident faith that, however much of an embarrassment his revelations might at first present, they will in the long run contribute to the welfare of the Church, which proclaims that Truth is One, and which therefore insists that any apparent divergence between fact and faith must be tested and explored and ultimately reconciled in that unity of truth.
especially in regards to the contrary attitude that a lie that is good for the church is better than a truth that hurts it. As such, I wonder if we could some how measure a person's dedication to truth over other concerns, if that would correlately negatively with prejudice and immaturity in general. I'm willing to be that it would.
That's a little vague maybe. A large part would be bound up in believing that the best way to get someone on your side is to help them mature and be able to see the truth rather than prosteletyze them or trick them into your viewpoint. If you really beleive that what you believe is true, then anyone well able to recognize truth and, for example, distinguish prejudice from good thinking, is going to believe it without you trying to get them to. I took Zahn's point to be that, if the Church is true, you're only hurting it by hiding the truth about things that are originally going to hurt it. Instead, these should be seen as indications of where the Church has fallen from the truth and made to make it better.
[ December 05, 2003, 04:38 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:MrSquicky said: Saying "Well, non-religious people do it too." as a reason for why it's not a problem with religion is no more valid than someone claiming that religious equals prejudiced.
No one has said this. You were the one who compared the "immature" phsychology of religious and non-religious groups.
Dagonee
Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
I find it interesting that the posters can't agree on a definition of prejudice. Squicky has said that it's not how one feels about something but how they act on those feelings. But the Christian God holds us to a higher standard. "You have heard it said 'Do not commit adultery.' But I say to you, any man who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart." -Matthew 27,28 So if God tells us our thoughts need to be pure, but psychology tells us only our actions need to be pure, how can psychology define prejudice in any way Christians can agree with? Unfortunetly, the religious and non-religious are approaching the world from radically differnt points of view.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dagon, Jacare did. He posted a sarcastic characterization of what a prejudiced anti-religious person would say. As I said, that's more towards my point than against it.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:MrSquicky said: Dagon, Jacare did. He posted a sarcastic characterization of what a prejudiced anti-religious person would say. As I said, that's more towards my point than against it. "
No, he didn’t. He might have made a pointed statement about intellectuals based on your attitude in this thread, but nowhere did he use his attack on intellectuals to say that “it's (the “immature” thinking described in your first post) not a problem with religion.”
I think his point was that your immediate dismissal of pretty much everyone’s arguments about and against your main point has more than a little parallel to a fundamentalist’s dismissal of the attitudes of “heathens” because they “just aren’t saved.” Not to excuse one with the other, but to point out that you seem to have a need for definiteness, demand acknowledgment of the authority of psychologists, view types of religion in a dichotomy (immature/mature), blame others’ disagreement with your post on the others’ lack of knowledge you haven’t shared, and shown an extreme institutional loyalty to the accepted paradigms of psychology.
It’s called irony.
Dagonee P.S., And you’ve still never addressed anyone’s disagreements with the second point (your assumption that immature attitudes are more dangerous in the religious than the non-religious) from the first post in this thread.
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
Dang it, I'm really starting to become fond of Dagonee.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
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'Tis true, I have no Hebrew texts with Latin footnotes.![[Confused]](confused.gif)
, though. ![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
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2.966666666666667 score.![[Embarrassed]](redface.gif)
My real name is Anna Jo, so it was an understandable typo at the time since my fingers are used to putting the Ns together. But I decided to keep it, because it is available as a screenname on most places I belong to. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I answer to AJ too, or "Hey you!"![[Kiss]](graemlins/kiss.gif)
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See? See how cool we are? We have this: ![[Hat]](graemlins/hat.gif)
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