Tatter - Episodes Tagged with “Social Psychology”

Episode 38: Just Theory (w/ John Jost & Jim Sidanius)

Michael Sargent — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 05:00:00 -0400

ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Historically, many activists and organizers have struggled to enact their visions of social justice, and many do so to this very day. What role, if any, can and should social psychology play in such struggles? Do we have a role to play? Or do the risks of such engagement outweigh any potential rewards? In this episode, I discuss such issues with social psychologists John Jost and Jim Sidanius. Jost co-crafted system justification theory, and Sidanius co-crafted social dominance theory, each a theory relevant to social justice.

LINKS
--John Jost's NYU profile
--Jim Sidanius's Harvard profile
--"Digital Dissent: An Analysis of the Motivational Contents of Tweets From an Occupy Wall Street Demonstration," by Langer, Jost, et al. (2018)
--"Ethnic and National Attachment in the Rainbow Nation: The Case of the Republic of South Africa," by Sidanius, Brubacher, and Silinda (2019)

Special Guests: Jim Sidanius and John Jost.

Episode 20: The Humean Stain, Part 2

Michael Sargent — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 15:00:00 -0400

ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Implicit bias has been studied by many social psychologists, and one particular measure, the Implicit Association Test (or IAT) has often been used in that research. It has also been used by practitioners, often for purposes of raising participants' awareness of their own biases. And millions have completed IAT's online at the Project Implicit website.

In this episode, I continue a discussion with six people who have all thought about the IAT, with the conversation covering such topics as (a) how well the IAT predicts discriminatory behavior and other behavior, (b) whether it's appropriate for the Project Implicit website to give individualized feedback to visitors who complete online IAT's there, and (c) the content and effectiveness of implicit bias training. My guests are psychologists Calvin Lai, Brian Nosek, Mike Olson, Keith Payne, and Simine Vazire, as well as journalist Jesse Singal.

LINKS
--Interpreting correlation coefficients (by Deborah J. Rumsey)
--Project Implicit (where you can take an IAT)
--Brian Nosek's departmental web page
--Calvin Lai's departmental web page
--"Psychology's favorite tool for measuring racism isn't up to the job" (Jesse Singal, in The Cut)
--Keith Payne's departmental web page
--Michael Olson's departmental web page
--Simine Vazire's departmental web page
--The Black Goat (podcast on which Simine Vazire is a co-host)
--"Understanding and and using the Implicit Association Test: III. Meta-analysis of predictive validity (Greenwald, Poehlmann, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009)
--"Statistically small effects of the Implicit Association Test can have societally large effects" (Greenwald, Banaji, & Nosek, 2015)
--"Using the IAT to predict ethnic and racial discrimination: Small effects sizes of unknown societal significance" (Oswald, Mitchell, Blanton, Mitchell, & Tetlock, 2015)
--"Arbitrary metrics in psychology" (Blanton & Jaccard, 2006)
--"The bias of crowds: How implicit bias bridges personal and systemic prejudice" (Payne, Vuletich, & Lundberg, 2017; access is subscription-controlled)
--"Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The Implicit Association Test" (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998)
--A summary of David Hume's thoughts on the association of ideas
--Two Psychologists Four Beers (podcast featuring psychologists Yoel Inbar and Mickey Inzlicht)
--Very Bad Wizards (podcast featuring psychologist David Pizarro and philosopher Tamler Sommers)

Cover art credit: "Still Life with Bottles, Wine, and Cheese," John F. Francis (1857; public domain, from Wikimedia Commons, copyright tag: PD-US)

Special Guests: Brian Nosek, Calvin Lai, Jesse Singal, Keith Payne, Michael Olson, and Simine Vazire.

Episode 19: The Humean Stain, Part 1

Michael Sargent — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 05:00:00 -0400

On April 12, 2018, Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson, two African-American men, were arrested for trespassing at a Philadelphia Starbucks. They were waiting for another person to join them for a meeting, when a manager called the police because they hadn't made a purchase. In the face of ensuing controversy, Starbucks closed stores nationwide one afternoon at the end of May in order to hold anti-bias training sessions for employees. As in this case and elsewhere, the topic of implicit racial bias has captured many imaginations.

Implicit bias has been studied by many social psychologists, and one particular measure, the Implicit Association Test (or IAT) has often been used in that research. It has also been used by practitioners, often for purposes of raising participants' awareness of their own biases. And millions have completed IAT's online at the Project Implicit website.

In this episode, I talk with six people who have all thought about the IAT, with the conversation covering such topics as (a) what kinds of mental associations might be revealed by performance on the IAT, (b) how reliable is it as a measure, and (c) whether or not the research debates surrounding the IAT are an example of good science. My guests are psychologists Calvin Lai, Brian Nosek, Mike Olson, Keith Payne, and Simine Vazire, as well as journalist Jesse Singal.

LINKS
--Scientific American Frontiers episode on implicit bias
--Project Implicit (where you can take an IAT)
--Brian Nosek's departmental web page
--Calvin Lai's departmental web page
--Michael Olson's departmental web page
--Keith Payne's departmental web page
--Simine Vazire's departmental web page
--"Psychology's favorite tool for measuring racism isn't up to the job" (Jesse Singal, in The Cut)
--"Statistically small effects of the Implicit Association Test can have societally large effects" (Greenwald, Banaji, & Nosek, 2015)
--"Using the IAT to predict ethnic and racial discrimination: Small effects sizes of unknown societal significance" (Oswald, Mitchell, Blanton, Mitchell, & Tetlock, 2015)
--A summary of David Hume's thoughts on the association of ideas

Cover art credit: "Still Life with Bottles, Wine, and Cheese," John F. Francis (1857; public domain, from Wikimedia Commons, copyright tag: PD-US)

Special Guests: Brian Nosek, Calvin Lai, Jesse Singal, Keith Payne, Michael Olson, and Simine Vazire.