I don't think this is true, and that kind of derails his argument. What's frowned upon is taking a stereotype and assuming it's true for everyone in the group---applying the general to the...
And yet, most of us have had it beaten into our heads that ‘stereotypes are inaccurate’.
I don't think this is true, and that kind of derails his argument. What's frowned upon is taking a stereotype and assuming it's true for everyone in the group---applying the general to the specific. Even if something is true about a group, individuals in the group should be treated as individuals. Yes, that includes political groups too!
Edit: Decided to read the rest of the article to completion.
In the face of such logic, we must still proceed with care when deciding whether or not to apply our stereotypes to an individual. Stereotypes are almost never perfectly accurate, and some of them are highly inaccurate. Political stereotypes are both accurate and inaccurate. People know quite a lot about the differences in political positions between those on the left versus right of the political spectrum, but people also consistently exaggerate those differences, typically believing partisans hold more extreme views than they really hold. For example, people generally know that liberals are more pro-choice and support gay marriage more so than do conservatives. However, both liberals and conservatives tend to see liberal/conservative differences on these issues as considerably larger than they actually are.
Typically, when people have clear, definitive, relevant information, they rely on that information almost exclusively. [...] On the other hand, when personal information is absent, or ambiguous, people do rely on their stereotypes, although even in these situations, stereotype biases are not very large.
Okay, I don't really disagree with what the author seems to be saying---sure, most stereotypes have a kernel of truth to them---but I'm having a hard time seeing his point. Is he arguing that, because of this, it's okay to rely on stereotypes when meeting new people until they prove otherwise? That much I don't agree with.
I think many of these discussions can be boiled down to the fact that many people still believe in the Age of Enlightenment ideas of Reason being attainable and necessarily good. Our brains are...
I think many of these discussions can be boiled down to the fact that many people still believe in the Age of Enlightenment ideas of Reason being attainable and necessarily good. Our brains are not perfect machines and they rely heavily on intuition, extrapolation and emotions to let us act fast and not get caught in slow loops of thought. That doesn't mean they are correct; instead, they are heuristics that we can't avoid and can be helpful but that we can refine if we don't take at face value. But that's all we can do: refine the heuristics, we'll never be able to be Mentats. When people start thinking about this, sometimes they go the other way around and try to rationalize intuitions, stereotypes and emotions (because, again, Enlightenment ideas are very deeply internalized and everything must have a reason) and write pieces like this one.
My point is, I think we should accept that we are screwed, that we will never be perfectly rational, and we should move on and try to hurt as little as possible, keep learning from our mistakes and work on our neuroplasticity to adopt new ideas and refine our heuristics as we gather data.
Of course, everything I've said is the opinion of someone who is not a neuroscientist so take it with a grain of salt. But this approach to life works pretty well for me!
I stand by this, @wise! The original article, to me, merited as popularization of bias--variance tradeoff in decision problems. But it was IMO laden with pitfalls, exaggerated hypothetical...
The original article, to me, merited as popularization of bias--variance tradeoff in decision problems. But it was IMO laden with pitfalls, exaggerated hypothetical examples, and strawmen, it felt bordering the "not even wrong" realm. Personally I felt as if reading an apology for the confirmation bias.
And I am in general agreement with your scepticism about big-R Rationality or Reason. From the link above:
Mercier and Sperber’s argument runs, more or less, as follows: Humans’ biggest advantage over other species is our ability to coöperate. Coöperation is difficult to establish and almost as difficult to sustain. For any individual, freeloading is always the best course of action. Reason developed not to enable us to solve abstract, logical problems or even to help us draw conclusions from unfamiliar data; rather, it developed to resolve the problems posed by living in collaborative groups.
To the extent that confirmation bias leads people to dismiss evidence of new or underappreciated threats—the human equivalent of the cat around the corner—it’s a trait that should have been selected against. The fact that both we and it survive, Mercier and Sperber argue, proves that it must have some adaptive function, and that function, they maintain, is related to our “hypersociability.”
To me it's not surprising that reason may have a social root in it. Many of our traits, glorified as virtues in some essentialist sense, could well be some kind of cognitive and emotional "default modes" that bind us to mates, offspring, brethren, tribe, land -- the "primitives" of our socially embodied existences. Intelligence, compassion, ethics, virtue, spirituality -- those could well be natural outpouring of the primitives, still evolving in our bodies, largely imperfect (just look around and read the news), difficult even for us to come to terms with, and full of contradictions and messiness.
I don't think it makes much sense to put any of the capital-initial traits, Reason, etc., on a pedestal, to regard them as some kind of crown jewels. At some level, they're always embodied in our thickness of life and our connection to the land.
I basically came to the comments to write exactly this. They sort of defined an issue that doesn't really exist...and then answered it in a way that no one really disagrees with. Ultimately...
I basically came to the comments to write exactly this. They sort of defined an issue that doesn't really exist...and then answered it in a way that no one really disagrees with.
Ultimately something can be true for a group of people while not being true for everyone in the group. Some will fit the stereotype perfectly, otherwise will reject it completely.
I think the author's point is just that stereotypes are not "generally" inaccurate, to which I have to say - "so?" Prejudice is the issue of stereotyping.
I don't think this is true, and that kind of derails his argument. What's frowned upon is taking a stereotype and assuming it's true for everyone in the group---applying the general to the specific. Even if something is true about a group, individuals in the group should be treated as individuals. Yes, that includes political groups too!
Edit: Decided to read the rest of the article to completion.
Okay, I don't really disagree with what the author seems to be saying---sure, most stereotypes have a kernel of truth to them---but I'm having a hard time seeing his point. Is he arguing that, because of this, it's okay to rely on stereotypes when meeting new people until they prove otherwise? That much I don't agree with.
I think many of these discussions can be boiled down to the fact that many people still believe in the Age of Enlightenment ideas of Reason being attainable and necessarily good. Our brains are not perfect machines and they rely heavily on intuition, extrapolation and emotions to let us act fast and not get caught in slow loops of thought. That doesn't mean they are correct; instead, they are heuristics that we can't avoid and can be helpful but that we can refine if we don't take at face value. But that's all we can do: refine the heuristics, we'll never be able to be Mentats. When people start thinking about this, sometimes they go the other way around and try to rationalize intuitions, stereotypes and emotions (because, again, Enlightenment ideas are very deeply internalized and everything must have a reason) and write pieces like this one.
My point is, I think we should accept that we are screwed, that we will never be perfectly rational, and we should move on and try to hurt as little as possible, keep learning from our mistakes and work on our neuroplasticity to adopt new ideas and refine our heuristics as we gather data.
Of course, everything I've said is the opinion of someone who is not a neuroscientist so take it with a grain of salt. But this approach to life works pretty well for me!
I stand by this, @wise!
The original article, to me, merited as popularization of bias--variance tradeoff in decision problems. But it was IMO laden with pitfalls, exaggerated hypothetical examples, and strawmen, it felt bordering the "not even wrong" realm. Personally I felt as if reading an apology for the confirmation bias.
For one thing, knowing more facts about some individual may not necessarily imply a change of judgement from stereotypes. We are notoriously flaky in letting facts correct us.
And I am in general agreement with your scepticism about big-R Rationality or Reason. From the link above:
To me it's not surprising that reason may have a social root in it. Many of our traits, glorified as virtues in some essentialist sense, could well be some kind of cognitive and emotional "default modes" that bind us to mates, offspring, brethren, tribe, land -- the "primitives" of our socially embodied existences. Intelligence, compassion, ethics, virtue, spirituality -- those could well be natural outpouring of the primitives, still evolving in our bodies, largely imperfect (just look around and read the news), difficult even for us to come to terms with, and full of contradictions and messiness.
I don't think it makes much sense to put any of the capital-initial traits, Reason, etc., on a pedestal, to regard them as some kind of crown jewels. At some level, they're always embodied in our thickness of life and our connection to the land.
I basically came to the comments to write exactly this. They sort of defined an issue that doesn't really exist...and then answered it in a way that no one really disagrees with.
Ultimately something can be true for a group of people while not being true for everyone in the group. Some will fit the stereotype perfectly, otherwise will reject it completely.
I think the author's point is just that stereotypes are not "generally" inaccurate, to which I have to say - "so?" Prejudice is the issue of stereotyping.