>
>
> - Show quoted text -
> On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 2:33 PM, Wojtek Sokolowski <swsokolowski at yahoo.com>wrote:
>
>> - Show quoted text -
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Philip Pilkington <pilkingtonphil at gmail.com>
>>
>>
>> Then they proceed to ask you questions through the standard procedure of a
>> questionnaire. Unfortunately, as most social-psychologists have come to
>> realise, when people are asked questions they tend to self-reflect on them
>> and put forward what they would like to think about themselves (what Freud
>> called their "ideal-ego" - which, incidentally, isn't helped by telling
>> the
>> participants in bold print that they're being observed). Thus if most
>> people
>> are asked whether they would have tortured someone under the Nazi regime
>> they self-reflect and say "no". But if they are put under experimental
>> conditions, they tend to do the complete opposite of what they thought
>> they
>> would do.
>>
>> Funny that the authors recognise that people "don't always 'know their
>> minds'" and then go on to write such an epitemologically dubious test.
>> Have
>> these people never even heard about focus groups (especially those that
>> try
>> to manipulate swing-voters - no need to study psychology, just ask your
>> last
>> Democrat president about that one...), free association or the infamous
>> Milgram experiments?
>>
>> [WS:] I think the test is rubbish for a reason different than the
>> psychological theory about human cognition. In this particular case, I
>> believe, that theory is is that the first response is a more accurate
>> refection of our "emotional intelligence" - which really drives our behavior
>> than a "reasoned" or perhaps "rationalized" response. AFAIK, there is
>> evidence supporting such a theory.
>>
>> My point, however, is that the test they designed to test racial prefrence
>> conflates several different things that have nothing to do with racial
>> preferences, such as psychomotor coordination necessary to hit the right
>> keys with speed and precision, or the ability to function under specific
>> type of stress e.g. induced by being timed.
>>
>> I do very poorly on psychomotor coordination (that is why I can only type
>> using the two-finger method) and equally poorly under timing-induced stress.
>> My results showed no racial preference and a *slight* preference for Obama
>> over McCain. I was laughing my ass off, because I expected strong
>> preference for Obama and a slight preference for whites - which one is to
>> expect as most people have natural preference for their "own" kind of people
>> simply because they are more familar with them. It is obvious when one
>> consider everyday interaction, such as dating. People generally date with
>> their "own kind" not because they are racists but because they go for the
>> more familiar in situations of uncertainty.
>>
>> My partner, who has no psychomotor coordination problems and performs
>> better than myself under stress (as most females do) scored strong
>> preference for blacks and no preference for Obama/Mccain. She again laughed
>> her ass off at the results. This makes me suspicious that any white who did
>> not hesitate to associate blacks with "good words" on the test was scored as
>> to "prefer" blacks - on the assumption that a "natural" or perhaps "neutral"
>> reaction would be to go with the stereotypes. If so, that is rubbish.
>> - Show quoted text -
>>
>>
>> Wojtek
>>
>>
>>
>> ___________________________________
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>
>
>
> I still think that my epistemological points were more important. Everyone
> in advertising knows that you don't questionnaire people in order to know
> what they really want. You focus group them. You let them speak in an
> honest, "open" manner in a room full of their peers. Or you put them under
> psychoanalysis. Either way, though, that's where you get the facts, that's
> where you see what they really think.
>
> Why are advertisers more psychologically advanced in this regard than most
> psychologists?
>
> Perhaps because when these groups were actually set up in the mid-60s the
> results were horrifying. If you want commentary on this and aren't of the
> type that's squeamish from such documentary evidence check out Adam Curtis'
> documentary "The Century of the Self", its available on Google Video and
> YouTube.
>
A summary:
http://www.rosenoire.org/reviews/century.php
"Groups such as the Esalen Institute attempted to change peoples perception of themselves and others through the use of encounter groups. The example used in the series was of an encounter between a group of white liberals and a group of black militants. It didn't quite go to plan, the whites being harangued and abused by the angry and alienated blacks."
That's the part you're looking for...