http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/18/doll.study.parents/index.html?hpt=Sbin
First, I have no trouble with the concept that racism is alive and well in the US.
Second, this seems like a horrible test to judge racism in the US.
There is a series of cartoon kids, ranging from light skinned to dark skinned. Then the test givers ask questions like "Who is the smart child?" "Who is the bad child?" or "Point to the mean child." They are happily touting these amazing results because kids often picked the white kid as good and the dark kid as bad.
However, these are five year olds... and the questions are all trick questions. At least it seems that way to me. I don't know of any five year olds that would give the correct answer: "There isn't enough information to determine good or bad or smart or dumb... what the hell kind of test are you running here, ya schmuck?!"
Since the kids likely don't realize that its a trick, they're gonna give a wrong answer, no matter what answer they try to give. IF the only available data is skin color, and the child believes that they must give an answer (and that the answer is available based on 'differences' in the pictures)... why is it surprising that they identified positively with the far left, light colored picture rather than the far right dark colored picture?
I am confused by CNN SCIENCE!!!!
How is it a trick question? The idea is to ask a child who is too young to dissemble what he thinks, as a barometer for how those children are being raised.
Did anyone notice that there are no actual results given, save for a single child?
[Edit: wait, I found it. Brb.]
Quote from: LMNO on May 18, 2010, 08:44:40 PM
Did anyone notice that there are no actual results given, save for a single child?
Nope. This isn't my kind of science
1, so I didn't read it. I've heard the story behind it, though. This isn't a new idea.
1 No giant robots or killer squid.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 18, 2010, 08:42:02 PM
How is it a trick question? The idea is to ask a child who is too young to dissemble what he thinks, as a barometer for how those children are being raised.
It's a trick question because the only right answer is "I don't know" or "There isn't enough information..."
A five year old, in my experience is unlikely to be able to grok that a grown up is asking a question (or asking them to do something) that doesn't have a right answer. So then, are they pointing to the 'dark picture' because they think "Kids with dark skin are bad!" Or is it because they are being asked a question and are trying to answer based on the only available data (skin color and position in the line)? I did a little experiment of my own over the weekend and all three five year olds I talked to answered unanswerable questions... mostly based on what was in front of them. I think that the test could simply be confusing these kids... If the adult says "Show me the Bad kid" the child will assume that one of the kids must be bad and select one based on the available data (in this case color and position in the line). Out of the three kids I poked at, they generally thought that good stuff was on the left side and bad stuff at "the end of the line". On top of that, if you watch the colors that kids choose to color with (at least in my limited experience) brighter colors tend to be used more than dark colors.
I know what they're aiming for, but I wonder if its indeed a barometer or if its just confusing the kids.
Quote from: Ratatosk on May 18, 2010, 08:55:29 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 18, 2010, 08:42:02 PM
How is it a trick question? The idea is to ask a child who is too young to dissemble what he thinks, as a barometer for how those children are being raised.
It's a trick question because the only right answer is "I don't know" or "There isn't enough information..."
A five year old, in my experience is unlikely to be able to grok that a grown up is asking a question (or asking them to do something) that doesn't have a right answer. So then, are they pointing to the 'dark picture' because they think "Kids with dark skin are bad!" Or is it because they are being asked a question and are trying to answer based on the only available data (skin color and position in the line)? I did a little experiment of my own over the weekend and all three five year olds I talked to answered unanswerable questions... mostly based on what was in front of them. I think that the test could simply be confusing these kids... If the adult says "Show me the Bad kid" the child will assume that one of the kids must be bad and select one based on the available data (in this case color and position in the line). Out of the three kids I poked at, they generally thought that good stuff was on the left side and bad stuff at "the end of the line". On top of that, if you watch the colors that kids choose to color with (at least in my limited experience) brighter colors tend to be used more than dark colors.
I know what they're aiming for, but I wonder if its indeed a barometer or if its just confusing the kids.
Leaving the thread now.
Dok,
Gets unreasonably upset when he sees the work "grok" used with a straight face.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 18, 2010, 09:42:46 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on May 18, 2010, 08:55:29 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on May 18, 2010, 08:42:02 PM
How is it a trick question? The idea is to ask a child who is too young to dissemble what he thinks, as a barometer for how those children are being raised.
It's a trick question because the only right answer is "I don't know" or "There isn't enough information..."
A five year old, in my experience is unlikely to be able to grok that a grown up is asking a question (or asking them to do something) that doesn't have a right answer. So then, are they pointing to the 'dark picture' because they think "Kids with dark skin are bad!" Or is it because they are being asked a question and are trying to answer based on the only available data (skin color and position in the line)? I did a little experiment of my own over the weekend and all three five year olds I talked to answered unanswerable questions... mostly based on what was in front of them. I think that the test could simply be confusing these kids... If the adult says "Show me the Bad kid" the child will assume that one of the kids must be bad and select one based on the available data (in this case color and position in the line). Out of the three kids I poked at, they generally thought that good stuff was on the left side and bad stuff at "the end of the line". On top of that, if you watch the colors that kids choose to color with (at least in my limited experience) brighter colors tend to be used more than dark colors.
I know what they're aiming for, but I wonder if its indeed a barometer or if its just confusing the kids.
Leaving the thread now.
Dok,
Gets unreasonably upset when he sees the work "grok" used with a straight face.
I never have a straight face.
Also, feel free to replace it with "fully grasp the significance of an adult asking a question that doesn't have a right answer" if you like.
You could easily randomize that aspect by swapping the pictures around, so that sometimes the white kid is on the left and sometimes the right, and if you keep track of which is which it will show up in the results.
The questions are deliberately ambiguous because the experiment is to find out how they THINK, not what is correct. However, attributing this to racism in upbringing rather than some sort of kin selection is another point of bias. All of these things are elements which could be controlled, if the experiment is thought out and set up well enough. Wording of the questions, "which child do you think is smarter?", etc, would help a lot.
It's not the question ("Do young children react positively/negatively based on skin color?") that's bad, it's the experimental setup.
The test kindof lacks anything approaching different degrees. Even if you accept its detecting racism, it can't tell the difference between a knee jerk reaction and a future member of stormfront.
Rat: Of course the kids can't understand the test. Honest answers require keeping the test subject in the dark.
Quote from: Kai on May 18, 2010, 09:59:12 PM
It's not the question ("Do young children react positively/negatively based on skin color?") that's bad, it's the experimental setup.
I agree 100% Kai!
Quote from: Requia ☣ on May 18, 2010, 10:01:54 PM
The test kindof lacks anything approaching different degrees. Even if you accept its detecting racism, it can't tell the difference between a knee jerk reaction and a future member of stormfront.
Rat: Of course the kids can't understand the test. Honest answers require keeping the test subject in the dark.
Sure... except that it means these kids seem very likely to believe that there MUST be an answer and if there MUST be an answer it MUST be based on the available data...
Tester asks: "Which child is bad?"
Child thinks: "The one that is my color or the one that is not my color..."
I don't think that means the kid would necessarily think "dark colored kids are bad" as much as they might be thinking "I am not bad, so it must be the one not like me".
I think racism is a serious problem. In the area I grew up racism is alive and well... but I think this test might be a load of bullocks. At least, based on the currently available crap from CNN.
Speaking of pervasive racism, I am fascinated by the fact that more than one respondent in this thread seems to be assuming that all of the children in the study were white. I am also fascinated by people who choose to express opinions on studies they obviously haven't actually bothered to read.
I suggest that before you argue about the methods used in the study, you actually download and read it. The link is in the article.
Quote from: The Lord and Lady Omnibus Fuck on May 18, 2010, 10:27:40 PM
Speaking of pervasive racism, I am fascinated by the fact that more than one respondent in this thread seems to be assuming that all of the children in the study were white. I am also fascinated by people who choose to express opinions on studies they obviously haven't actually bothered to read.
I suggest that before you argue about the methods used in the study, you actually download and read it. The link is in the article.
I've read the methods. No where in there is a statement about removing left/right bias to the scale, and the questions are poorly worded.
The conclusion assuming racism rather than kin selection is premature as well.
And no where did I assume all the children were white.
Most of all, I hate how CNN has sensationalized this, just like every other study out there on any subject. Media always has to make science into a spectacle.
Why does all the shitty science make news? That's what I want to know.
Quote from: Kai on May 18, 2010, 11:48:05 PM
Quote from: The Lord and Lady Omnibus Fuck on May 18, 2010, 10:27:40 PM
Speaking of pervasive racism, I am fascinated by the fact that more than one respondent in this thread seems to be assuming that all of the children in the study were white. I am also fascinated by people who choose to express opinions on studies they obviously haven't actually bothered to read.
I suggest that before you argue about the methods used in the study, you actually download and read it. The link is in the article.
I've read the methods. No where in there is a statement about removing left/right bias to the scale, and the questions are poorly worded.
The conclusion assuming racism rather than kin selection is premature as well.
And no where did I assume all the children were white.
Most of all, I hate how CNN has sensationalized this, just like every other study out there on any subject. Media always has to make science into a spectacle.
Concluding that the children chose the lighter figures as "good" and the darker figures as "bad" because of kin selection presupposes that the children were white. If you read the study than surely you saw that their selection of study subjects was designed to equalize familiarity preference across demographics, right?
Think of the Milgram experiments which have shown that many people would injure random strangers if they are told so by an authority. In that race test the participants don't even have to go that far, they just have to make statements. And given that they accept the authority of scientists, they most likely will assume that one of the child on that pictures must be the bad one (like Ratatosk said). And it doesn't take much that a child partially adopts racist opinions from adults. Children learn very fast and I think one of the basic operations of learning is telling differences and similiarities. Also, a quite basic thought of humans is "things which are similiar to me are better" (as mentionned in the article).
This study may give valuable information about racism in parenting, but only if it tries to eliminate such biases as good as possible.
Maybe a statement can be racist if given by an adult, but you have to look for other judgement if a 5 year old gives it?
Quote from: The Lord and Lady Omnibus Fuck on May 19, 2010, 12:47:22 AM
Quote from: Kai on May 18, 2010, 11:48:05 PM
Quote from: The Lord and Lady Omnibus Fuck on May 18, 2010, 10:27:40 PM
Speaking of pervasive racism, I am fascinated by the fact that more than one respondent in this thread seems to be assuming that all of the children in the study were white. I am also fascinated by people who choose to express opinions on studies they obviously haven't actually bothered to read.
I suggest that before you argue about the methods used in the study, you actually download and read it. The link is in the article.
I've read the methods. No where in there is a statement about removing left/right bias to the scale, and the questions are poorly worded.
The conclusion assuming racism rather than kin selection is premature as well.
And no where did I assume all the children were white.
Most of all, I hate how CNN has sensationalized this, just like every other study out there on any subject. Media always has to make science into a spectacle.
Concluding that the children chose the lighter figures as "good" and the darker figures as "bad" because of kin selection presupposes that the children were white. If you read the study than surely you saw that their selection of study subjects was designed to equalize familiarity preference across demographics, right?
Yeah, and that the same would happen with the black children, except opposite. If in fact kin selection was at play. Is this not what I said?
Edit: I think you are refering to this statement:
QuoteYou could easily randomize that aspect by swapping the pictures around, so that sometimes the white kid is on the left and sometimes the right,
By which I assumed you knew that the darker skinned example would be switched conversely. I could have said "black kid" and it would have meant exactly the same thing. We're semantic quibbling, we both agree that the study included black and white children.
Quote from: Kai on May 18, 2010, 09:59:12 PM
However, attributing this to racism in upbringing rather than some sort of kin selection is another point of bias.
Quote from: The Lord and Lady Omnibus Fuck on May 19, 2010, 02:11:04 AM
Quote from: Kai on May 18, 2010, 09:59:12 PM
However, attributing this to racism in upbringing rather than some sort of kin selection is another point of bias.
Edit: Never mind, I see what you're saying.
Quote from: The Lord and Lady Omnibus Fuck on May 19, 2010, 12:47:22 AM
Quote from: Kai on May 18, 2010, 11:48:05 PM
Quote from: The Lord and Lady Omnibus Fuck on May 18, 2010, 10:27:40 PM
Speaking of pervasive racism, I am fascinated by the fact that more than one respondent in this thread seems to be assuming that all of the children in the study were white. I am also fascinated by people who choose to express opinions on studies they obviously haven't actually bothered to read.
I suggest that before you argue about the methods used in the study, you actually download and read it. The link is in the article.
I've read the methods. No where in there is a statement about removing left/right bias to the scale, and the questions are poorly worded.
The conclusion assuming racism rather than kin selection is premature as well.
And no where did I assume all the children were white.
Most of all, I hate how CNN has sensationalized this, just like every other study out there on any subject. Media always has to make science into a spectacle.
Concluding that the children chose the lighter figures as "good" and the darker figures as "bad" because of kin selection presupposes that the children were white. If you read the study than surely you saw that their selection of study subjects was designed to equalize familiarity preference across demographics, right?
Er, I could be interpreting the report wrong, but they didn't say that the kids all chose white, they talked about
'preferred race' 'self selected skin tone' in the results section.
Edited to correct for my memory after rechecking the results section.
Great job trolling that girl's mom, CNN!
I don't have much to say about the study itself, but I agree that using the made-up word "grok" in all seriousness is absolutely retarded and could possibly provoke a violent and completely justified reaction if said in the wrong company.
Quote from: Exit City Hustle on June 09, 2010, 04:10:45 PM
I don't have much to say about the study itself, but I agree that using the made-up word "grok" in all seriousness is absolutely retarded and could possibly provoke a violent and completely justified reaction if said in the wrong company.
Weirdly, I started using it long before I read any Heinlein... it came from hanging out in computer geek circles many years ago and pops out of my mouth quite often. However, I'll see what I can do about eschewing it around here since it apparently impairs communication. :roll:
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 09, 2010, 04:15:20 PM
Quote from: Exit City Hustle on June 09, 2010, 04:10:45 PM
I don't have much to say about the study itself, but I agree that using the made-up word "grok" in all seriousness is absolutely retarded and could possibly provoke a violent and completely justified reaction if said in the wrong company.
Weirdly, I started using it long before I read any Heinlein... it came from hanging out in computer geek circles many years ago and pops out of my mouth quite often. However, I'll see what I can do about eschewing it around here since it apparently impairs communication. :roll:
Interestingly, the reason it bugs the shit out of me is that I DID read Heinlein; Stranger in a Strange Land was one of the first novels I ever read and pretty much everyone uses grok FUCKING WRONG.
Uninterestingly, the reason it bugs the shit out of me is because it's friggin' stupid.
There's an interesting one in Freakonomics where they get people to click on words or people that symbolise
Good or White
Good or Black
Evil or White
Evil or Black
Basically there's a consistent but tiny delay in Good or Black, compared to Good or White (one employee says he managed to eliminate the gep one day after he'd been watching the olympics in the morning).
Calling it rascism is a bit of a misnomer, but in terms of measuring unconcious attitudes, the kids experenent sounds interesting.
you've gotta be really careful when asking young children questions, because they don't answer rationally. This is, oddly, something that experimental psychology has only recently figured out.
For example, you know when they give the kid a doll and tell the kid "point to where the bad man touched you"?
Well it turns out that if you give a kid a doll with orifices and genitals which are not present on any doll the kid has ever seen, and you ask them just about anything, "point to the doll's nose", the kid is going to point to the doll's mystery hole or wee carrot or barn hole.
also: I am adding "grok" to my list of words to use whenever possible :lulz:
What was left out of this is the whole "it takes a village to raise a child" angle. In other words, the easy conclusion is that it's all the parents' fault. But, I think another point to consider is the role of the culture and environment. I say this particularly in light of the reporting on the article that mentioned black children also tended to point to the light skinned child as being smarter. I have a suspicion that part of what is being reflected here isn't solely the values of the parents, but the values of the community and society the children are living in. Kids are far more observant than they are often given credit for and absorb quite a bit, from TV, etc.,
And really CNN, was it really necessary to put some well-meaning parents through the emotional ringer like that? Leave the kids and parents alone and conduct these experiments on conservative talk show hosts instead.
Quote from: Cramulus on June 10, 2010, 05:05:35 PM
also: I am adding "grok" to my list of words to use whenever possible :lulz:
We should start grokking our memes all the time.
:awesome:
To further the derail, Rat has been using "grok" pretty much forever as far as I can remember. Why get worked up about it now?
Dok has called him out on it before.
The kin selection thing isn't consistent with what the link says;
Quoteblack children also have a bias toward white but not nearly as strong as the bias shown by the white children.
I started doing an article on a Jewish Neo-Nazi (later changed my subject) for high school, and came across other research looking at how attitudes towards race can be easily adopted by kids viewing the same kinds of steriotypes. They talked about black kids treating golliwog dolls worse than the white dolls as one example.
While the CNN link says that, it doesn't seem to appear in the actual study.
Or not! They released an expanded paper, with all the questions and most of the data. Useful, as the first paper failed to explain key terms in the results section. I can see that in the paper now (though, it only seems to apply to some of the questions, black kids apparently want black kids as classmates, but not as friends* for example).
Also, I now have a better idea of what exactly 'self selected skin tone' is, its the skintone the kid wants to have. There's a bias at play here, the things you want always seem better than the things you don't want (it occurs to me I know next to nothing about the ontology of biases, this may not be present in children). It seems a strange way to manipulate the data too.
What really bugs me now is that half the questions are apparently about what adults or teachers think. Questions about what a person believes and what a person thinks other people believe get different answers. People are both more able to recognize bias in others, and have a bias against admitting to traits seen as negative. Its possible this doesn't apply to children, but this is still sloppy.
Also, to address an earlier point of Ratatosk's, a number of the kids actually did refuse to answer the questions, sometimes as many as half the kids for a given question.
*Hyperbole.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on June 11, 2010, 08:24:02 AM
While the CNN link says that, it doesn't seem to appear in the actual study.
Or not! They released an expanded paper, with all the questions and most of the data. Useful, as the first paper failed to explain key terms in the results section. I can see that in the paper now (though, it only seems to apply to some of the questions, black kids apparently want black kids as classmates, but not as friends* for example).
Also, I now have a better idea of what exactly 'self selected skin tone' is, its the skintone the kid wants to have. There's a bias at play here, the things you want always seem better than the things you don't want (it occurs to me I know next to nothing about the ontology of biases, this may not be present in children). It seems a strange way to manipulate the data too.
What really bugs me now is that half the questions are apparently about what adults or teachers think. Questions about what a person believes and what a person thinks other people believe get different answers. People are both more able to recognize bias in others, and have a bias against admitting to traits seen as negative. Its possible this doesn't apply to children, but this is still sloppy.
Also, to address an earlier point of Ratatosk's, a number of the kids actually did refuse to answer the questions, sometimes as many as half the kids for a given question.
*Hyperbole.
YAY! More Data = More sense... I hate the 24 hour news cycle and their reporting of bits and pieces of useless drivel. Thanks for the update Requia.
Quote from: Cramulus on June 10, 2010, 05:05:35 PM
you've gotta be really careful when asking young children questions, because they don't answer rationally. This is, oddly, something that experimental psychology has only recently figured out.
For example, you know when they give the kid a doll and tell the kid "point to where the bad man touched you"?
Well it turns out that if you give a kid a doll with orifices and genitals which are not present on any doll the kid has ever seen, and you ask them just about anything, "point to the doll's nose", the kid is going to point to the doll's mystery hole or wee carrot or barn hole.
This - it's amazing that sociology/psychology as a field doesn't do the same level of method and model validation as other sciences. I've been going through a lot of old chemistry/medicine notebooks lately, and those scientists spend at least a thousand pages of documentation
each on answering questions like "Is the amount of Drug X (or its metabolites) in the rat's urine a good indicator of the amount of Drug X in the rat's blood plasma?" and even "Which analytical techniques give accurate measures of the amounts of Drug X in this animal bodily fluid?" repeated for every combination of drug/metabolite, test animal, and kind of bodily fluid. In sociology/psychology it seems like all you need to do is come up with a questionnaire and run with it. (The important tests - the ones with somebody's name and the word "Scale" in the title - do get validation. I'm thinking more about the ones that get used in one study and then never again, while the conclusions drawn from it [which are not the same as the results] get endlessly parroted across news media, popular psychology books, and textbooks.)
For this study, I would have liked to see nonsense/control type questions among those asked.
Show me the child who has the most dinosaur toys.
Show me the tallest child.
Show me the child who eats the most carrots.
Show me the child who is really a space alien.
Show me the child with a red bicycle.
Show me the child with a blue bicycle.
Show me the child who has a pet turtle.
Keep in mind that the people running this weren't sociologists or psychologists, they were CNN employees.
Though, they were bright enough to not put their names on the paper, so maybe they aren't a complete loss.