Empirical Article Assignment One

Posted: September 9th, 2013

Empirical Article Assignment One

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Empirical Article Assignment One

Part I.

In “my culture made me do it,” the researchers’ main aim is finding out how much the participants were ready to attribute their unconscious prejudice over minority groups to other influences such as culture rather than their own personality. People give different explanations for their prejudices over others in order to protect themselves from being considered racists. The main question in this research is the main things or issues that influence the explanations given by people over their prejudice. The authors hypothesize that people whose self-esteem is at risk are likely to use culture as their way of escaping from being branded racists than those that do not mind their reputation (Uhlmann & Nosek, 2012). The researchers here suggest that people who stand to lose their self-esteem or respect for being branded racists, were more likely to blame their prejudice on culture to avoid being branded racists. On the other hand, those who had little care for being branded racists, or did not stand to lose any respect, did not mind, and were more likely to admit when it was their own thinking.

The research utilizes experimental research where participants are observed through a case study, which they completed. The participants went through a test whose results were ranked according to strength such as strongly agreeing by a score of 7 while strongly refusing by a score of 1 (Uhlmann & Nosek, 2012). The independent variables within this experiment were the tests taken by the participants, which were not influenced by the experiment. On the other hand, the participants were also independent in this study. The dependent variable that was influenced by some of the tests is the participants’ character that was influenced by several factors such as cultural stereotypes and own thinking.

Considering the research was about prejudice over the minority, the participants tested were whites since they were the majority. The research aimed at testing what influenced their explanation to their prejudice. To test their ideas, the researchers issued several tests to the participants, which were ranked. The first tested self-discrepancy of the participants such as whether they would do some things to the minority groups. For instance, one of the questions asked was whether they would or should laugh at jokes that were addressed to minority stereotypes. The second test was focused on the threat or affirmation of possibly being branded racist. They were required to indicate their most valued personality trait from among 11 characteristics and later answered several questions concerning the feelings of certain events of prejudice and what they felt. Manipulation of the characteristics occurred where participants were separated from affirmative and threatened conditions. The final procedure was on attributions for prejudice where all participants were required to respond to questions on whether their actions and thoughts, at times when they experienced prejudice such as stereotypes, were out of cultural or personal thought.

In the results, it was realized that the participants would not agree to the idea that they should engage in racially prejudicing events. However, some agreed that they would engage in racially prejudicing events. The primary research on what influenced the explanation to prejudice was on the affirming vs. threatening and its influence on explanation of prejudice in terms of whether it was cultural or personal. It was realized that those in the threatened condition were more likely to attribute their prejudice to their culture. This was in an effort to protect their self-image from the rest of the people. Therefore, it was found that people who were sensitive to their ego were more likely to attribute their stereotype thoughts to culture while those with lower egos were more likely to admit to their own thought stereotypes. Therefore, the research hypothesis that keeping a good image influenced the explanation of prejudice as cultural was affirmed.

Part II.

            The research has connected to most of the materials covered in class concerning prejudice. One connection is that prejudice is socially created or conditioned where many people will attribute their racial prejudice to their cultural background. The interactions between people of different races contribute to most of the stereotypes that people carry on for many years. This is affirmed by the research where the participants, majority attributed their prejudice in social issues enshrined in their culture. Additionally, many people are concerned with their self-image and would want to protect in all ways possible. When they know culture will protect them from losing their ego, it attributes their prejudice to cultural background.

Prejudice serves several purposes concerning other cultures. In most cases, such prejudices are not conscious, and one may not realize when engaging in such. However, any prejudice originates from socialization between cultures. People will always comment about another culture, both positive and negative. This brings out stereotypes about other cultures, where one thinks all those who belong to that group are that way. A good number of people belonging to this culture could have the character described but not all. Hence, such stereotypes govern how one relates to other cultures. For instance, one could consider all Hispanics are poor in English. Therefore, when relating to them, one might try to make their English simple, so they could understand. Such stereotypes and prejudices will govern how people relate to other cultures. When one relates them in this way, they might cite cultural background as their excuse. This is another role played by prejudice and stereotypes, as well. Many use cultural background as a reason for their prejudice. This conforms to the hypothesis put forward in the research.

Part III.

Limitation of the Study

Although the research was able to prove its hypothesis on egocentrism as a motivating influence to attribution of prejudice to cultural background, some limitations exist. One of the limitations is the number of participants that were used in the study. The research used 49 undergraduate participants. This represents a little part of the completely white community. More so, it was conducted on people in one area, while different areas could have different influences. Additionally, all the participants were undergraduate students, meaning they were all at the same level. Being students, they are probably influenced by many things that could influence their response. To generalize the results using this group would not represent all people at different levels of life. To make this generalization, it would have been better to select participants randomly from different levels and areas. This is because people in one area might be influenced by one common factor that might not be present in another area. Therefore, using a small group of people from one area was not sufficient for generalizing.

Moreover, the participants were only white people, meaning it was meant to look at prejudice against minority. Considering the hypothesis was not about white people only, it sought to find out why people will, irrespective of race, attribute their prejudice to cultural background rather than their own thinking. This means that the research only considered the white to have prejudice over African Americans. However, it does not matter whether one is a minority or part of a majority in order to have prejudice over another race or culture. Therefore, to make the generalization that people concerned about protecting their ego will attribute prejudice to culture; there is a need to use people across different races to confirm.

Strengths of the Study

Although the participants used may have caused a limitation, the study has several strengths that make the result quite usable. The main strength of the research discussed here is the use of quantitative statistical data in presenting the results to verify the qualitative analysis. Using both qualitative and quantitative research comes in as a compliment to qualitative results. While qualitative will be giving results of the research in generalized forms and creating ideas, the quantitative data gives verification of the generalizations made by providing statistical proof. In this case, the study has provided both qualitative and quantitative data to support its findings. This has its advantages to the study.

Strength of the qualitative part of the research is that the researchers are engaged with the participants at personal levels to get the information from the horse’s mouth without any distortions. This allows for more probing that could not be done without such closeness. Almost all the valuable information in the study was collected this way. This is a strong way of getting personal materials. Additionally, this provides a holistic view of the whole issue where quantitative research will only show a part which is later used as part of making a conclusion. On the other hand, the statistical data is well used to support the qualitative study. The statistics provides the scores obtained from the tests conducted on the participants, which proves the ideas brought across in the discussion and conclusion. Although the data was collected through a qualitative study through giving the participants three types of tests, representing the results in a statistical manner ensures that the researchers cannot make any untrue conclusions that do not relate to the statistical results. Thus, it serves as a way of preventing the researcher from altering results to support their thesis. As long as the statistical data is verifiable, due to its ability to detach the researcher and results, researchers would not make conclusions tat are not based on the truth. The statistics provide hard numerical results that show an organized research and offers a higher probability of making better conclusions.

Implications and Applications of the study

Every research has its implication. The proof that people who feel threatened will attribute their prejudice to culture means that many people do the same. This means that cultural prejudice is an accepted issue considering that people use it as a way of defending themselves from being branded racists. Therefore, many people might continue practicing racial and cultural prejudice both unconsciously as well as consciously since any person can attribute their prejudice to culture, which will be considered right. Taking it from the research, only those who are affirmative are likely to agree that their prejudice is from their own thoughts. Therefore, not all other people whose prejudice is out of their egocentrism might concede to doing it consciously. The fact that an escape route is always available offers a chance for continued cultural and racial prejudice.

The conclusion and results provided by this research is quite useful and can be applicable for informing people what makes our prejudice persist. It provides the users of this information with a good understanding of prejudice, which is the first basic step towards eliminating it. Many people have no knowledge of such issues about how they engage in racial discrimination without knowing they are. Therefore, giving them information that could help them understand when they engage in it helps them to avoid such prejudice if they can. Ensuring to educate people about such issues in the society always acts as a strong way of fighting anything. As always, knowledge remains to be power, and educating people will be the start to help them in realizing when engaging in prejudice in order to stop. For instance, if someone does not know that he or she treats another person with a difference due to their cultural background, understanding this will create a good chance of helping the individual overcome such prejudice by first knowing they are engaging in it.

Reference

Uhlmann, E. L., Nosek, B. A. (2012). My culture made me do it: Lay theories of responsibility for automatic prejudice. Social Psychology, 43, 108-113.