We all have our biases and pre-conceived notions, our stereotypes. Oh heck, let's use the direct word: prejudices.

Obviously, these can skew the data given on surveys, and become the bane of researchers. People will be reluctant to admit prejudices to a surveyor, and even may be unaware of their own biases. But researchers can test for them.

An on-line study, by Harvard and ther universities, includes several fascinating 10-minute tests to reveal your own unconscious bias.

These are fascinating, Wordnerd! thanks for the link.

Well, unfortunately, I associate male with science. I didn't think I did!

I found it interesting that I show a slight preference for older people over young. At first I thought "well, that's odd, given that I'm a children's librarian" but then I realized that they didn't include children in the mix at all. Guess this explains why my hubby is 8 yrs my senior. (hehehe - wish he were on the board to respond)

When I took it, the female was on the right and the male on the left. Then it had the female and liberal arts on the right and the male and science on the left. You had to really fast put the words in the right category, and I did it by remembering, "right, woman, liberal arts" and vice versa for "left, men, science." So, when they switched it, I assume I was slower with the "women & science" and vice versa. Shu tells me they have tested for that, but I wonder if it is all that reliable because of that.

I hope it is unreliable! I would hate to be one of those people who really believe that men should be scientists and doctors and engineers, while women should study liberal arts so that they can be a really informed wife!

I kind of wish we lived in a world where I could just concentrate on being a really well-informed wife! But how would we pay the bills? I suppose if my husband could obtain a wealthy patronness for his art (nature photography) rather than working for the state . . . but then the wealthy patronness would probably have me murdered or trivialized (at the very least) to get me out of the marriage bed . . . hmmm.

Anyway . . . Kalleh -I think it's like anything else, you have to take it with a grain of salt. You may have a certain slight hidden tendancy to think one way or another, but those little "subconscious" things don't matter nearly as much as how you act, what you say, the way you choose to live your life. Just like in Harry Potter, Harry had everything in his brain to be a Slytherin when they were sorted into houses at school, but he WANTED to be Gryffindor . . . it's your choices that make you who you are, not some latent ideas imbedded in your subconscious.

Also - I think it's really easy to cheat on that test once you've figured out their method. They switch things around like that and ask you to go quickly so that you will perhaps continue to associate "good" with "white" or "science" with "male" or whatever. If you make judicious mistakes in labelling, you could skew the results quite a bit.

I agree, CW and Kalleh. First of all Kalleh, don't worry - just because you show a 'preference' (not the best choice of words for them to use, I feel) for male and science, it doesn't mean you think only men should be scientists. To me, it means that you are more used to thinking of scientific roles being filled by men, and this is at least in part because it's what we see every day in society. Such a perception is very different from having a prejudiced opinion, conscious or not. I sometimes automatically assume for a split second that a 'Doctor X' I'm called in to see will be male, but I of all people certainly don't think that only men should be doctors! I've simply been influenced by the fact that most doctors I've seen have been male, so in a way I've been programmed by previous experience. Certain expectations can be programmed into us by what we experience, but they don't always automatically lead to bigotry. That said, research into this subject is incredibly important because of course societal programming can and does lead to prejudiced behaviour one isn't consiously aware of - I just don't think that the two are always mutually exclusive. I absolutely hate it when someone hears my Birmingham accent and assumes I must be stupid - and my accent isn't that broad!

Like you Kalleh, I think there's a potential problem with the order of the test. I appreciate they must have though about it and tested for it, but I too got into a pattern of left=X and right=Y so when it changed over I understandably made mistakes. I even put 'woman' into 'male', for goodness sake! I do wonder if I'd have made the same number of mistakes in the 'female / science' grouping if it had come first - I'd certainly trust the results more if it had. After all, the researchers are expecting us to show certain 'preferences', so maybe there was some unconscious preference at work in the construction of the test?

It's a really fascinating subject.

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I think this is connected, in a way. In my TV magazine this week, there's an article on Eastenders (soap opera set in London full of dreadful characters) with two photos both showing fights (see what I mean? ) - one between male characters and one between females. The caption for the male fight reads: 'Trouble for Tommy...Den gets his revenge' and for the female: 'Claws out! A cat-fight erupts between Zoe and Sharon'. The article, though not necessarily the captions, is written by a woman, so we can probably assume she's not a misogynist, consciously or unconsciously - but the words do suggest some sort of (programmed?) opinion on fights between women as being somewhat trivial and laughable.

Because of more of my never ending computer problems I took one of the tests twice. It didn't put the pairings in the same position the second time. I think that they are chosen randomly and then mathematically manipulated to remove the left/right bias.

The researchers are really interested in how the great mass of the public responds and by presenting them randomly gets a more reliable overall picture even though from the point of view of an individual it might look biased.

(For the record I appear to be just slightly biased towards older, male and English and moderately - and this one surprised me - biased towards black.)

Ah - that would explain it. It must be just coincidence that the two I took (age and male/science) ordered themselves in the way I described. I'll have to do them again.

What did interest me was that my questionnaire responses, where you're basically asked what you expect your results to be, exactly matched my test results. Seems I know myself better than I thought!

Since everyone else is confessing, I associate male with science and have a slight preference for young. Which brings up another thought. I try not to stereotype on account of age (and everything else, but let's stick to one thing ) - not least because one's attitude is more important than one's chronological age: I knew a girl at school who was 'middle-aged' before her 16th birthday, and I have friends whose date of birth classifies them as middle-aged but who have very 'youthful' outlooks. I'm attracted to such outlooks rather than the physical age of a person.

The problem with this negative age stereotype lies in two main areas, I think. The first is with the language itself. We associate such charcteristics as being stuck in one's ways, being resistant to change, closed-mindedness etc as belonging only to old people, and vitality, open-mindedness and flexibility being only for young people... but I bet we all know people who challenge both these stereotypes. And yet we continue, as I did in the previous paragraph, to use words such as a 'youthful outlook', which you all will have instinctively understood, despite it not being an outlook expressed only by young people. If only we could change the words to age-neutral ones, I think that would be a start. It's the same with 'male brains' and 'female brains'. The terms I believe were coined because more men have mainly 'male-brained' characteristics and vice versa, but this has led to much negativity towards people with more f-brain qualities because of the idea (thankfully becoming more outdated) that anything female is inferior. 'Brain type A' and 'brain type B' - or something similar - would have been preferable and perhaps helped to avoid this sort of association, in my opinion.

The second problem, of course, lies in the fact that many (but not all!) stereotypes exist because enough people have behaved in a certain way for them to be created in the first place. When I meet an old person for the first time, I do have a preconceived idea about what they're going to be like, but the important thing is that I'm aware of it and always work against it, giving the other person the space to show me who they are for themselves. It can be hard to challenge yourself, and I'm by no means perfect, but I hate it when people generalise and make false assumptions about me without bothering to find out the truth, so I try not to do it to others. My guess is that my online friends here do the same as me - but I wouldn't dream of assuming!

It just figures. Now I have a strong prejudice for young versus old! I am finding out a lot of things that I don't like about myself!

I started to fill out the "young vs. old" survey, but stopped when I realized that there is no definition of "young" or "old." When I was a kid, thirty years was old. Now it's young. My definition of "old" is anyone older than me and "young" as anyone my age or younger. When I'm 98, I'll still be young! Perhaps the survey purposely left it up to interpretation.

Tinman

Doing some creative writing with my (adult) class today we started out with describing a character to use in the story. One of my students wrote

"He was an old man of almost forty."

I suddenly felt like an old man when I read it.

Ugh - isn't that the worst feeling, Bob? I was having a conversation with one of my staff last week about books (imagine that!) and mentioned a book published 15 years go. She said "I read that in 3rd grade." nnnnnnnnnice!

Aren't we all about the same age? 12?

A. A. Milne provided my first reading material. The real Christopher Robin was only ten years older than I.

Oh, Jerry, thanks for that link. I have always loved AA Milne. I am not surprised to hear that he wrote his pieces out of nostalgia for his childhood because his stories and poems appeal so much to adults. I just love the story where Pooh gets stuck in the hole, and the rabbit so honestly tells him it's from "too much honey!" Only a child would be that honest. And his poems! My very favorites are "The King's Breakfast," "The Dormouse and the Doctor," "Missing," "Lines and Squares," "Disobedience," and "At the Zoo." I must go upstairs now and find some of those books!

Aren't we all about the same age? 12?

Maybe not twelve, but I get your point. I will never forget one Thanksgiving my mom saying to me, "Sometimes I think how amazing it is that I, just this little girl, can make such a fantastic meal." I didn't get it at all. I looked at her and thought she was crazy. Now I get it.

quote:

---

"He was an old man of almost forty."

I suddenly felt like an old man when I read it.

---

Back on my home planet forty is early adolescence.

So - in general - what age do you really FEEL like you are? This question is for everyone!

Oh, CW..you just keep on keeping on!

I feel like I'm 29... but my driver's license would tell a different story.

A.A. Milne... (Kalleh)... "You must never go down to the end of town, unless you go down with me." I'm NOT getting up to see if I quoted correctly. I feel the need for a "little something"...

OOh - I was raised on A.A. Milne, too.

Christopher Robin goes hoppety hoppety hoppety hoppety hop
whenever I ask him politely to stop it he says he can't possibly stop
If he stopped hopping he couldn't go anywhere
Poor little Christopher, couldn't go anywhere
And that's why he always goes hoppety hoppety hoppety hoppety hop


And. . .
" . . . a little bit of butter for the royal slice of bread"

So... at what age does one stop being too young to die?

"So... at what age does one stop being too young to die?" quoth arnie.

Ask me again next year. At this point I'm too young to know.

I'm still waiting to be "old enough to know better."

Whenever I walk in a London street,
I'm ever so careful to watch my feet;

Oh, thanks, KHC and CW for reminding me of those delightful poems. I really became enamored with AA Milne from reading to my children.

I think I feel as though I am 30.

I definitely do something wrong when I take these tests. First off, I tested strong preference for Black versus White. I don't see that I am racist. However, get this! It said that I have "little or no preference for Bush over Kerry." Now...I don't want to get political or anything, but anyone who has known me for the last year knows that is ridiculous!

Either the test is highly unreliable, or I do something very wrong when taking it.

Well, I looked at the tests - when I have a spare hour or so I'll have a go!

quote:

So... at what age does one stop being too young to die?

Yesterday, my wife noted the passing of our eye doctor's brother. "Oh," she said, "he was so young."
I asked how old he was, since he had been working for his brother for years.
"He wasn't old at all. Only 68. So young. It's terrible."
I told her he hadn't been young for fifty years and got a nasty look, probably since she is the same age as the deceased.
But when do you no longer merit "young" as an adjective?

I'd say 20s and 30s are still youngish, at least.

The sad thing about the post you quoted (by Jerry) is that Jerry died in 2009.

It's all relative. Mostly, anyone about your own age or younger counts as young.

I figure it's when your body ceases to grow more new healthy new cells than it loses. I suppose that means anyone over about age thirty is old.

Geoff, who is 2 1/3 times old

I received one of the best backhanded complements a few years ago (ok, several years ago). I was taking some classes at a community college and several students (mostly Japanese and around 17 to 19 years old) and I were walking back to our homes. On the way we passed though an apartment complex. There was a low chain across the driveway, and I hopped over it. One of the Japanese students murmured something and one of the American students said, "You have to understand something about Richard. He's like a 19-year-old in an old body." I was 47 at the time.

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I once was shopping for lipstick in Nordstrom's. The clerk (21 maybe?) said that I should try some lip gloss instead. "It's not just for young girls," she said. "Even my mother wears it!"

As arnie said, it's all relative. My grandfather said he never wanted to get old and be an obligation for anyone. So God (or whatever you believe in) gave him his wish - he died at 62.