858 research outputs found
The Mark of the Plural: Generic Generalizations and Race
We argue that generic generalizations about racial groups are pernicious in what they communicate (both to members of that racial group and to members of other racial groups), and may be central to the construction of social categories like racial groups. We then consider how we should change and challenge uses of generic generalizations about racial groups
Generics Articulate Default Generalizations
Generic sentences express generalizations about kinds, such as âtigers are striped,â âducks lay eggs,â and âticks carry Lyme disease.â I present and review emerging evidence from adults and children that suggests that generics articulate cognitively default generalizationsâi.e., they express basic, early-developing generalizations concerning kinds. In contrast, quantified statements articulate cognitively more sophisticated and taxing generalizations. Further evidence suggests that generic generalizations donât depend solely on information about prevalence. Instead, these fundamental generalizations are sensitive to a number of content-based factors, such as whether the property in question is dangerous or otherwise striking, or is an essential or characteristic property of the kind. This suggests that our most basic means of forming inductive generalizations is sensitive to rich, content-based factors.Les phrases gĂ©nĂ©riques expriment des gĂ©nĂ©ralisations sur les espĂšces, comme « les tigres ont des rayures », « les canards pondent des Ćufs », « les tiques transmettent la borrĂ©liose ». Je prĂ©sente et examine de nouvelles donnĂ©es dâadultes et dâenfants qui suggĂšrent que les gĂ©nĂ©riques expriment des gĂ©nĂ©ralisations cognitivement par dĂ©faut â câest-Ă -dire quâils expriment sur les espĂšces des gĂ©nĂ©ralisations basiques et prĂ©coces du point de vue du dĂ©veloppement. Au contraire, les Ă©noncĂ©s quantifiĂ©s expriment des gĂ©nĂ©ralisations cognitivement plus Ă©laborĂ©es et ardues. Dâautres donnĂ©es suggĂšrent que les gĂ©nĂ©ralisations gĂ©nĂ©riques ne dĂ©pendent pas uniquement de la prĂ©valence. Ces gĂ©nĂ©ralisations fondamentales sont plutĂŽt sensibles Ă un certain nombre de facteurs liĂ©s au contenu, comme la possibilitĂ© que la propriĂ©tĂ© en question soit dangereuse ou bien surprenante, ou quâelle est une propriĂ©tĂ© essentielle et caractĂ©ristique de lâespĂšce. Cela suggĂšre que notre moyen le plus basique de former des gĂ©nĂ©ralisation inductives est sensible Ă des facteurs sĂ©mantiques riches
Towards Countering Essentialism through Social Bias Reasoning
Essentialist beliefs (i.e., believing that members of the same group are
fundamentally alike) play a central role in social stereotypes and can lead to
harm when left unchallenged. In our work, we conduct exploratory studies into
the task of countering essentialist beliefs (e.g., ``liberals are stupid'').
Drawing on prior work from psychology and NLP, we construct five types of
counterstatements and conduct human studies on the effectiveness of these
different strategies. Our studies also investigate the role in choosing a
counterstatement of the level of explicitness with which an essentialist belief
is conveyed. We find that statements that broaden the scope of a stereotype
(e.g., to other groups, as in ``conservatives can also be stupid'') are the
most popular countering strategy. We conclude with a discussion of challenges
and open questions for future work in this area (e.g., improving factuality,
studying community-specific variation) and we emphasize the importance of work
at the intersection of NLP and psychology.Comment: Workshop on NLP for Positive Impact @ EMNLP 202
The frequency of "brilliant" and "genius" in teaching evaluations predicts the representation of women and African Americans across fields
Women and African Americans-groups targeted by negative stereotypes about their intellectual abilities-may be underrepresented in careers that prize brilliance and genius. A recent nationwide survey of academics provided initial support for this possibility. Fields whose practitioners believed that natural talent is crucial for success had fewer female and African American PhDs. The present study seeks to replicate this initial finding with a different, and arguably more naturalistic, measure of the extent to which brilliance and genius are prized within a field. Specifically, we measured field-by-field variability in the emphasis on these intellectual qualities by tallying-with the use of a recently released online tool-the frequency of the words "brilliant" and "genius" in over 14 million reviews on RateMyProfessors.com, a popular website where students can write anonymous evaluations of their instructors. This simple word count predicted both women's and African Americans' representation across the academic spectrum. That is, we found that fields in which the words "brilliant" and "genius" were used more frequently on RateMyProfessors.com also had fewer female and African American PhDs. Looking at an earlier stage in students' educational careers, we found that brilliance-focused fields also had fewer women and African Americans obtaining bachelor's degrees. These relationships held even when accounting for field-specific averages on standardized mathematics assessments, as well as several competing hypotheses concerning group differences in representation. The fact that this naturalistic measure of a field's focus on brilliance predicted the magnitude of its gender and race gaps speaks to the tight link between ability beliefs and diversity
Do Lions Have Manes? For Children, Generics Are About Kinds Rather Than Quantities
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90604/1/j.1467-8624.2011.01708.x.pd
Memory Errors Reveal a Bias to Spontaneously Generalize to Categories
Much evidence suggests that, from a young age, humans are able to generalize information learned about a subset of a category to the category itself. Here, we propose thatâbeyond simply being able to perform such generalizationsâpeople are biased to generalize to categories, such that they routinely make spontaneous, implicit category generalizations from information that licenses such generalizations. To demonstrate the existence of this bias, we asked participants to perform a task in which category generalizations would distract from the main goal of the task, leading to a characteristic pattern of errors. Specifically, participants were asked to memorize two types of novel facts: quantified facts about sets of kind members (e.g., facts about all or many stups) and generic facts about entire kinds (e.g., facts about zorbs as a kind). Moreover, half of the facts concerned properties that are typically generalizable to an animal kind (e.g., eating fruits and vegetables), and half concerned properties that are typically more idiosyncratic (e.g., getting mud in their hair). We predicted thatâbecause of the hypothesized biasâparticipants would spontaneously generalize the quantified facts to the corresponding kinds, and would do so more frequently for the facts about generalizable (rather than idiosyncratic) properties. In turn, these generalizations would lead to a higher rate of quantifiedâtoâgeneric memory errors for the generalizable properties. The results of four experiments (NÂ =Â 449) supported this prediction. Moreover, the same generalizableâversusâidiosyncratic difference in memory errors occurred even under cognitive load, which suggests that the hypothesized bias operates unnoticed in the background, requiring few cognitive resources. In sum, this evidence suggests the presence of a powerful bias to draw generalizations about kinds.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112247/1/cogs12189.pd
My Heart Made Me Do It: Childrenâs Essentialist Beliefs About Heart Transplants
Psychological essentialism is a folk theory characterized by the belief that a causal internal essence or force gives rise to the common outward behaviors or attributes of a categoryâs members. In two studies, we investigated whether 4Ăą to 7Ăą yearĂą old children evidenced essentialist reasoning about heart transplants by asking them to predict whether trading hearts with an individual would cause them to take on the donorâs attributes. Control conditions asked children to consider the effects of trading money with an individual. Results indicated that children reasoned according to essentialism, predicting more transfer of attributes in the transplant condition versus the nonĂą bodily money control. Children also endorsed essentialist transfer of attributes even when they did not believe that a transplant would change the recipientâs category membership (e.g., endorsing the idea that a recipient of a pigâs heart would act pigĂą like, but denying that the recipient would become a pig). This finding runs counter to predictions from a strong interpretation of the Ăą minimalistĂą position, an alternative to essentialism.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138236/1/cogs12431_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138236/2/cogs12431.pd
Community College Faculty Self-Efficacy in Student Centered Teaching
The purpose of this study was to investigate if faculty self-efficacy beliefs impacted their choice of teaching methods in the classroom. Self-efficacy beliefs help to explain teacher instructional activities and their orientation toward the education process. Findings have implications for higher education as the strategies faculty use in the classroom are linked to student success
Reflections on the first year of integrity hour: An online community of practice for academic integrity
Integrity Hour first convened in March 2020, in response to the rapid pivot to emergency remote teaching during COVID-19. After a year, this online community of practice (CoP) is still going strong. We collectively reflect on how the first year of Integrity Hour has informed our understanding of how to uphold and enact academic integrity and impacted how we work with students, support our colleagues, and make decisions
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