Professional Development With UW-Eau Claire and the Eau Claire Area School District “The Power of the Subconscious Mind: How people can inadvertently alter outcomes for other people” June 16, 2009 Aram deKoven UW-Eau Claire
Feb 08, 2016
RTI/CCP/ELL Professional Development
With
UW-Eau Claire and the Eau Claire Area School District
“The Power of the Subconscious Mind: How people can inadvertently alter outcomes for
other people”
June 16, 2009Aram deKovenUW-Eau Claire
Objectives:To reveal that racism is alive and well in
the United States todayTo demonstrate that the subconscious is a
powerful cognitive forceTo show how subconsciously held biases
can effect how you treat othersTo explain how the effects of subconscious
biases can change outcomes for others
FBI Data on hate crimes in the U.S.IncidentsFewer hate crimes now since the 50, 60,
and 70s but2005……..7,1632006……..7,7222007……..7,624
*The FBI numbers only reflect reported acts of violence and aggression
Southern Poverty Law Center“The Southern Poverty Law Center has
documented 926 hate groups operating in our country — a more than 50% increase since 2000.”
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/intrep.jsp
“Impossible to accurately record the number of hate crimes” Mark Potock, SPLC
The reporting of hate crimes in the mediaOnly the most egregious of hate crimes get
reportedMany don’t even make headlinesLeaving the public, especially white
members of the public to believe that hate crimes are down or done with altogether
The election of President Obama
Conscious Acts of Racism
Subconscious Acts of Racism
What is consciousness?Consciousness is a quality of the mind
generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's environment.
ControlWhen the thought is subconscious then you
can’t modify or control for its effects
Once it becomes conscious then you can work with it (if you want to)
If you can talk, write, or think about “it” then it is conscious
Psychological tactic called: Priming
Five words sets: Make a grammatical sentence out of each: “Scrambled sentence test”.
him was chocolate she alwaysfrom are Florida oranges temperatureball the throw time breadWendys give replace old thehe observes occasionally ice cream
PrimingStudents thought they came to take a
simple word testIn fact they were tricked and “primed” to
feel what?a) Oldb) Sleepyc) Hungryd) Pretty
John Barge Experiment“Priming”
Two groups of undergraduates used as subjects
All received scrambled sentence testsTwo groups with words mixed in like:
A) Rude, impatient, interrupt, aggressive, botherB) Respect, considerate, yield, polite, courteous
John Barge ExperimentAfter subjects took the word puzzle they
where then told to talk to someone else in another office down the hall to get the next steps in the study
In all cases, that someone else that subjects were to talk with was always busy talking to someone else
A confederate (an actor) recorded how subjects in each of the two groups behaved while waiting to speak to the person they had to speak with
What do you think they found?
What do you think?How did subjects act while waiting to speak
to the person they were “told to speak with”
Group A) Primed with: Rude, impatient, interrupt,
aggressive, botherB) Primed with: Respect, considerate yield,
polite, courteous
Results
+Primed with rude words: interrupted on average before 5 minutes
+Primed with polite words: 82% never interrupted at all (experiments ended after ten minutes)
How Powerful Is Our Subconscious Mind? I can make you less likely to fight by
changing the color of the wallsI can make you more productive at work by
changing the brightness of the lightsI can make you spend more money by
playing certain musicI can guess who you will hire for a job
based on the name of the applicant
Let us make a connection…You now know that subtle and subconscious
messages are able to affect your thinking and behavior (these effects can be seen in very short periods of time)
Now think about what the cumulative effect is for feeling, seeing, and hearing messages about a group of people
Where in society do these implicit and explicit messages come from?
Hidden Racism“Yeah I just found out the Cleopatra was actually
a Black woman.” “What?”“That can’t be true, Cleopatra was beautiful!”
(p124)
85-90% of the white population say that they are not racially biased but Dovidio and Gaertner are concerned that they may be acting in another way, a way that is not supportive of diversity. (page 133)
More evidence for the fact that what we say doesn’t always translate into what we do!
Dating…..On popular dating sites like match.com about
50% of white women and 80% of white men state that “race is not important”
However, 90% of these men sent e-mails only to white females and of the white females 97% sent e-mail only to white men
o S.D. Leveitt and S. J. Dubner
Are environmental and social factors a kind of priming?
Yes!The mind silently crunches all the data we take in from all the books, the TV shows, music we hear, people we meet, lessons we have learned, movies we have seen, and from the places that we have been and this information is used to form an opinion or a feeling.From these sources we learn about the people of this world and about ourselves.In some cases we do not know that these opinions even exist in our minds, and in some cases we do not know how they play out in the way we act toward others.
Now Lets Connect All the Parts….Do all people have subconscious thoughts?YesAre these thoughts powerful enough to change
your behaviors?Yes ( Especially so when pressed for time…the
brain automatically reverts to the subconscious when stressed or pressed for time)
Subconscious biases can impact the way one treats people, without even knowing it
Social and environmental factors can act as a sort of “priming” that send people messages about who they are and how much they are valued by society
Why do teachers especially need to be in contact with their subconscious?
Education holds (some of) the keys to breaking free from poverty and oppression….. “The Good Life”
Teachers are one of the first gate keepers
Teachers can inadvertently suppress the creativity, productivity, and intellect of a student
How can they do that?
Self Fulfilling ProphecyStudy Done By: Jacobson and Rosenthal“Harvard Acquisition of Knowledge”Teachers told who did well and who did notResults were bogus, actually subjects were
randomly assigned a groupActual test at the end of the year produced
significant and real differences in actual learning
What did the researchers observe?
Teachers held higher expectations and demanded more of students who they thought were smarter
Teachers treated students differently who they thought were smarterClimate: warm and supportiveInput: taught more materialResponse: given more air-time in classFeedback: more detailed feedback
If a teacher’s first impressions are positive, then this will help the student succeed. However, if the teacher has negative first impressions then the student will suffer. If teacher’s treatment of the student is consistent over time, then the student’s behavior will reflect the teacher’s expectations Teachers form first impressions of students almost immediately, causing some students to start at an advantage over other students. Gender Race Dialects Body build Physical attractiveness Beauty Socio economic status Language skills
It is simply not enough to say that we are “not racist”, we need to be “actively anti racist”. –B. Tatum
The hints of unchecked prejudice and racism can be seen in much more subtle acts like:Postureeye contactlaughter Hesitationfidgeting Silence and/or wait timeArms crossed
This in turn effects the person you are communicating with and they then feel uncomfortable or undervalued…and they may then treat you differently…and cycle continues.
What can you do?Acknowledge the power of the subconsciousAcknowledge that it is difficult to be in touch
fully with your subconsciousAdmit that people have biasesSeek to be “color conscious” not “color blind”Try to know your biases With others or on your own seek to understand
where these hidden biases originatedSimply knowing your biases is a good start
…..more you can doRemember, once you know you are being
“primed” it doesn't work anymoreMeet, work with, play with, and get to know
people from a wide variety of backgroundsBe reflective and contemplativeTurn off the emotional and intellectual
autopilot
Questions