The Unbearable Accuracy of Stereotypes [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

The Unbearable Accuracy of Stereotypes [pdf]

rci.rutgers.edu

34 pointsnetworked22 comments

This is an academic exercise, as it implicitly accepts that there are natural "groups" in which members share the same attributes and as a result individuals within those groups can be expected to either 1) act together or 2) if apart act in a similar way as individuals. In fact there is nothing of the sort, groups are a creation of the social mind and the individual elements may or may not behave similar as individuals.

The brain naturally makes heuristics and clusters items that it finds similar into the same group. "Stereotypes," which may be globally common traits but are attributed with higher weight to certain socially constructed groups, can memetically reinforce those groupings by making them more cognitively "available."

There is no rational solution to this - as it's a biological process. Like Beer, pattern matching and grouping is the cause of and solution to all of our problems.

I think the population is a distribution and stereotype is the (estimated) mean of that distribution. So it has its right and wrong.

The most innocuous stereotype I can think of, is the 'typical' French stereotype of a man in beret and a black and white striped jumper cycling around with a baguette, an onion garland necklace, smoking gauloisies. Some stereotypes bear no relation to the estimated mean.

Except no one actually thinks that stereotype is true or still relevant. And I am certain at least some aspects of that stereotype were rooted in french fashion of the era.

No true stereotype, not relevant. Only stereotypes believed true and relevant are unbearably accurate.

A quick internet search reveals many think the stereotype is true to boot.

yeah, i watch some old french film, wearing beret was a real thing, especially for artists. anyway, fashion comes and goes, that stereotype might have become obsolete.

Whilst personally I believe stereotypes can be accurate (mostly as the outcome of self-fulfilling prophecies), I would question this research. Take a look at the studies listed on page 10, each of the studies looks at a different question about stereotypes, with the answer based on the response of a few hundred people (maximum was around 700). Furthermore, the people used for the studies are all college students. I wouldn't trust the scientific accuracy of any data on human opinion that relied on such small data sets, especially when the people being questioned are from a non-representative slice of society.

I think the point the article was making is there is no evidence that stereotypes are inaccurate and all the evidence we have is they are accurate. Of course it might be that all the studies are wrong, but the evidence to date doesn't point that way.

My point was that the evidence isn't strong enough. Asking a relatively small group of students about their views on stereotypes isn't enough to base any strong conclusions on the views of the population at large, larger studies (10000+ people) with a wider group of people (different ages, different backgrounds) would give a much stronger footing for this research.

Well as the authors pointed out we have two competing hypothesis: Stereotypes are accurate or stereotypes are inaccurate. So far all the evidence suggests that they are accurate with no evidence suggesting that the are inaccurate. While the evidence we have might be wrong for various reasons, but you don’t just get to dismiss it without other evidence - gut feeling is not evidence.

One of the more interesting things about the paper is the evidence we have for stereotypes being accurate is the evidence for this is some of the strongest in physiological studies. Almost everything else we know has less support.

As for how strong does evidence have to be before you will believe you need to provide us with a p value you consider would be convincing.

Not trying to be offensive, but did you feel the need to add the statement abut self-fulfilling prophecies because making a bare claim like "I believe in some stereotypes" is so politically sensitive that you're afraid of being judged as a racist or sexist? This is similar to the sort of complains the author has about older research into stereotypes assuming they were inaccurate without testing them - no doubt they made that assumption to protect themselves from allegations of racism/sexism/etc.

The self-fulfilling prophecy argument is a way to say "OK, they might be true, but the blame lies with some other group of oppressors and it's still not an innate quality of the subjects themselves, so it's still not really fundamentally true.". Why shouldn't it be an innate quality? Maybe women really do earn less than men because of something different in how men and women earn money, not because men oppress women with their stereotypes.

Without research, I don't think it's any more reasonable to say "stereotypes are mainly accurate because they're self-fulfilling prophecies" than to say "stereotypes are mainly accurate because groups of people are naturally different.".

> "Without research, I don't think it's any more reasonable to say "stereotypes are mainly accurate because they're self-fulfilling prophecies" than to say "stereotypes are mainly accurate because groups of people are naturally different."."

First of all, calm down, I'm not here to argue with you.

I made a statement about what I believe. I assumed that using the word 'believe' would make it clear that I was stating a personal opinion, it seems that wasn't clear enough.

An important difference between my personal opinion and the science in the linked article is that I never attempted to pass off my opinion as scientifically proven. If the linked article had merely stated some compelling evidence to consider, then I wouldn't have bothered replying. My argument against it is that it makes large claims based on very limited evidence. Perhaps that's the best evidence we have so far, but I certainly wouldn't say it's in any way strong enough for the conclusions being pointed to.

As for my own beliefs, I don't think they're controversial, nor am I attempting to hide anything. I believe that stereotypes can (note: not in all cases) be true because they become a self-fulfilling prophecy. How so? By setting expectations on accepted behavior.

Consider the following: It is a common stereotype that men are more prone to have stronger sexual urges, and this is used to excuse many different behaviours. Sexual objectification of women is one such behaviour, we see this as normal because of the stereotype that men are overwhelmed by such stimulus, and so cannot be held as responsible for such behaviour. The more common the stereotype becomes, the more people use the stereotype to set expectations, which influences what becomes normal for the group in question, regardless of whether it was originally true or not.

It's OK to argue. That's how we learn to see different viewpoints, rather than pretending to agree for sake of making everyone happy.

I see you're talking about what I would call culture or customs, rather than the broader range of qualities that stereotypes can include - things that might (if they were true) apply to those same groups across different cultures.

There's a kind of moral leap people are making if they say "Men have a harder time controlling their sexual urges, therefore it's OK for men to objectify women." You could still have the same stereotype with a different conclusion by saying "Men have a harder time controlling their sexual urges, so we should be more vigilant about men when we're trying to catch somebody objectifying women." This seems to be how it ended up with blacks and crime. I'd say the outcomes that we don't like don't require the stereotypes, so the stereotypes themselves aren't harmful and it's OK if they turn out to be fundamentally true.

> "It's OK to argue. That's how we learn to see different viewpoints, rather than pretending to agree for sake of making everyone happy."

Discussion is fine, disagreement is fine, but arguing is more than just disagreement. If we can discuss respectfully then we can continue.

> "This seems to be how it ended up with blacks and crime. I'd say the outcomes that we don't like don't require the stereotypes, so the stereotypes themselves aren't harmful and it's OK if they turn out to be fundamentally true."

Regarding blacks and crime, which statistics is this backed up by? I suspect the truth may be more nuanced than a simple correlation, but lets start with the statistics.

700 people is more than enough to get a very representative sample: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sample_size_determination

Depends on what you're measuring, and what proportion of the total possible sample size is being taken.

If you're measuring the education quality at a University of a few thousand students, then 700 students (from across different faculties) is ample. If you're attempting to measure the perceived accuracy of stereotypes across society at large, then you need to show that your sample is representative of that society, as personal backgrounds and personal experience are likely to play large factors in determining how others are perceived.

The sample you pick from matters. To give an example, imagine asking 700 people in the ethnic majority of a society about the effects of racism in that society.

The authors want to introduce pure binary logical reasoning into social science. Therefore, from a logical point of view, if a statement or belief about a group is accurate, the it must old for all members of the group. Following their pseudo logical reasoning, it follows that a single counter example imply that the belief is not true, and thus inaccurate. Which invalidate any further statistical analysis.

They said that in the first couple of pages. I know it's long and wordy, but it gets more practical and down to earth the further into it you go. They have addressed your concern in quite a lot of detail.

My point is that they kind of dismiss previous approaches using this only logical argument, which is not applicable anyway. Using such a rigorous logical reasoning in the realm of social science demonstrate either a misunderstanding of logic or a purpose to mislead the reader.

I agree that whole argument seemed quite artificial. I took it as a way to complain about other researchers who apparently had assumed that all stereotypes are somehow false, whatever false means. I'm sure they didn't mean it must hold for each individual in the group to be accurate.

But the definition that they use is "a stereotype is a set of beliefs about the personal attributes of a social group." How can that be interpreted as anything but something that holds true for each individual of a group?

While I am simptethic to the notion that social "POLICY" should not be set by logical arguments alone. Social "SCIENCE" is another animal and logic and sound science is the only way to understand reality. How can we hope to design effective social policy if we refuse to try and understand reality? What are we misunderstanding about logic? I find your comment about misleading the reader especially ironic.

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