September 2, 2012

Jussim on Stereotypes

Lee Jussim is the chairman of the psychology department at Rutgers and perhaps the leading expert on stereotypes and bias. He has a new academic book out:
Social Perception and Social Reality: Why Accuracy Dominates Bias and Self-Fulfilling Prophecy contests the received wisdom in the field of social psychology that suggests that social perception and judgment are generally flawed, biased, and powerfully self-fulfilling. Jussim reviews a wealth of real world, survey, and experimental data collected over the last century to show that in fact, social psychological research consistently demonstrates that biases and self-fulfilling prophecies are generally weak, fragile, and fleeting. Furthermore, research in the social sciences has shown stereotypes to be accurate.  
Jussim overturns the received wisdom concerning social perception in several ways. He critically reviews studies that are highly cited darlings of the bias conclusion and shows how these studies demonstrate far more accuracy than bias, or are not replicable in subsequent research. Studies of equal or higher quality, which have been replicated consistently, are shown to demonstrate high accuracy, low bias, or both. The book is peppered with discussions suggesting that theoretical and political blinders have led to an odd state of affairs in which the flawed or misinterpreted bias studies receive a great deal of attention, while stronger and more replicable accuracy studies receive relatively little attention. In addition, the author presents both personal and real world examples (such as stock market prices, sporting events, and political elections) that routinely undermine heavy-handed emphases on error and bias, but are generally indicative of high levels of rationality and accuracy. He fully embraces scientific data, even when that data yields unpopular conclusions or contests prevailing conventions or the received wisdom in psychology, in other social sciences, and in broader society.

The funny thing is that this successful academic has a rather non-academic style. Jussim has summaries of each chapter up online here.
Chapter 17. Pervasive Stereotype Accuracy 
Abstract  
    This chapter reviews every high quality study of stereotype accuracy that I could find.  It presents the evidence with respect to personal and consensual accuracy, using both correlations and discrepancy scores (see Chapter 16 for an explanation of what these are).  It includes sections reviewing the empirical research on racial, gender, and other stereotypes. When the original studies addressed conditions under which accuracy was higher or lower, that, too, is included here.  Furthermore, each study is critically evaluated, highlighting both its strengths and its limitations.  Overall, this review indicates that the high quality, scientific research consistently shows that stereotype accuracy is one of the largest effects in all of social psychology.   
EXCERPTS: 
  WARNING: TURN BACK NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE  
    This chapter contains contents that may be deeply upsetting to anyone committed to the view of stereotypes as inherently or generally inaccurate and irrational.  If you have read this book continuously, you undoubtedly do not need these warnings and know what to expect.  However, these warnings are necessary for anyone reading this chapter without reading the rest of the book.  
    Warning I: DO NOT READ THIS CHAPTER without having first read Chapters 10-12, 15 and 16.  You will need those chapters to understand what I mean by accuracy generally, and when I describe the results of the studies reviewed below as showing that people’s beliefs were “accurate,” “near misses” or “inaccurate” in this chapter. 
    Warning II: DO NOT READ THIS CHAPTER, unless you are willing to consider the possibility that stereotypes are often accurate. DO NOT READ THIS CHAPTER, if you think that merely considering the possibility that many of people’s beliefs about groups (stereotypes) have a great deal of accuracy makes someone a racist, sexist, etc.  DO NOT READ THIS CHAPTER if you believe that stereotypes are inherently inaccurate, flawed, irrational, rigid, etc., and this belief cannot be or should not be revised if empirical scientific data fail to fully support it.

44 comments:

IHTG said...

iSteve reader detected?

Anonymous said...

Boring...

TH said...

iSteve reader detected?

Jussim has been studying and publishing about this stuff for decades, but his conclusions are so unpopular that he has mostly just been ignored. Unfortunately, I don't think Malcolm Gladwell will base his next book on Jussim's research ("Stereotype Accuracy: Embracing Your Inner Racist").

Jim Bowery said...

Thank goodness this guy doesn't look like one of those goddamn WASPs, or we might have to call the SPLC on Rutgers.

Silver said...

Jussim reviews a wealth of real world, survey, and experimental data collected over the last century to show that in fact, social psychological research consistently demonstrates that biases and self-fulfilling prophecies are generally weak, fragile, and fleeting. Furthermore, research in the social sciences has shown stereotypes to be accurate.

Hard to imagine how learning could have ever taken place were all this not true. (By "learning" I don't mean "indoctrination.")

Anonymous said...

Liberals: evolution has made us very bad at recognizing patterns in nature.

Conservatives hate academia and with good reason. But the good thing is that academics live in a publish or perish world. They've gone as far left as they can get, all they can do now is start debunking all they junk that's been published in recent decades.

Anonymous said...

I can feel a co-ordinated two minutes hate developing.

Anonymous said...

I read recently that if 10% of a population's educated elite accept a new theory/finding and are firmly and deeply convinced of its veracity, the theory/finding will inevitably spread. It looks like HBD is beginning to approach that tipping point perhaps. The Stephen Jay Gould (RIP) "lie at all costs" brigade meanwhile is shrinking.

Quagmire's toolkit said...

Jussim is an interesting guy. Dig around a bit in his webpage at Rutgers.

He also has had graduate students publish theses under him that basically demonstrated that people who are talking politically correct are lying their asses off:

"Thesis: Measuring Brain Activity While Lying to Appear Unprejudiced: An ERP Study
Chris performed the first social cognitive neuroscience study associated with
my lab. ERP's are Event Related Potentials, which are pattens of electrical activity
in the brain. Lying has been demonstrated to evoke a unique pattern of ERP's.
In this study, people's ERP responses to the PC scale
were found to be similar to those occurring when telling blatant lies
(e.g., it is 90 degrees outside today -- when "today" is a typical December day in New Jersey).

Thesis: Politically Correct Responding.
Romain's honors thesis involves two experimental studies
assessing the validity of the PC Scale. Romain's thesis
received an award for being one of the top psychology
theses of 2002, and a slightly revised version was published in
The Rutgers Scholar, volume 4. Click here to read this paper.
His thesis is currently being expanded and combined with Sachelle's
and will soon be submitted for publication.

Thesis: Assessing a Scale Measuring Lying to Appear Unprejudiced.
Kristin performed research validating the PC Scale (see Work in Progress for more details).
The higher people scored on the PC Scale (a new scale assessing lying to appear unprejudiced)
the more they claimed to know about nonexistent civil rights leaders and organizations.
This thesis won a Henry Rutgers Scholar Award, which is the highest
award Rutgers gives for an undergraduate thesis.


Also, that threatening whitey with the scarlet R (that is, "Racist" not "Rutgers") makes them give preferential treatment to blacks:

Thesis: Bending Over Backwards: When White’s Threatened
Egalitarianism Causes Excessive Leniency towards African Americans.
Reshma performed an experiment examining hypothesis about why
Whites often are more lenient (favorable) in their evaluations of
the work of African Americans than in their evaluations of work
of Whites. (Lots of folks may find the mere existence of this
basic pattern surprising, but see Harber, 1998, Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology for some of the earlier evidence). Her
hypothesis was that Whites do so because they are motivated
to prove that they are egalitarian and not racists. To test this,
she either threatened Whites' egalitarianism or affirmed it.
Exactly as predicted, Whites were most lenient when their
egalitarianism was threatened (because they then really had to prove
how non-racist they were); and they were no more lenient when
evaluating African Americans than when evaluating Whites
when their egalitarianism had been affirmed (because they no
longer needed to prove they were not racists).
This has become part of a paper that was recently accepted for publication
in Journal of Applied Social Psychology."



This and his book are all things we in the Steve-o-sphere have basically known in a qualitative manner for many years, but which lefties vehemently deny. Nice to have quantitative support. It would be interesting to see if the lefties' ERP patterns also matched lying when faced with other inconvenient truths.

Anonymous said...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/31/what-obama-understands-about-jews.html

Anonymous said...

After millions of years of evolution, there is no more powerful tool in assessing and responding to one's environment than the human brain.
The 'higher minds' of the liberal, elite institutions have spent the last 50+ years asserting that one should not trust one's mind in 'multicultural' scenarios that could (and very often do) prove dangerous or fatal.
For some reason they continually fail in squashing reality.

Whiskey said...

I wonder how quickly he will be fired for heresy?

Anonymous said...

Much ado about nothing, Mr. Lee is not recognized. He will have no influence.

Anonymous said...

How could they NOT be accurate and who would deny them other than willfully delusional liberals. What is called a "stereotype" is really a market consensus, reached after billions of transactions between peoples, individuals, tribes, gangs, clans et al. They are the received wisdom of the human race, not arbitrary collections of nasty facts. EVERYONE except the pathologically deluded knows that to disregard them is to run a huge risk. Even liberals, who cross the street when they see X coming, know this at the gut level,

Geoff Matthews said...

Someone has tenure.

Luke Lea said...

Not boring.

dearieme said...

It's time to stop stereotyping stereotypes.

dearieme said...

Who must know these things already?

Marketing men, perhaps? Recruiters for the armed services? Teachers of one type or another?

Anonymous said...

Interesting. Too bad the book is $79.00. This could have been a big seller.

Anonymous said...

Interesting; might have to look at this.
Btw, what kind of name is "Jussim"?

Anonymous said...

"On my analysis of the entirety of the evidence, I found Mr B. an unimpressive, and inherently unreliable, witness, who regarded truth as a transitory, flexible concept, which could be moulded to suit his current purposes," the judge said.

Will you correctly guess who yesterday was the recipient of this heartfelt, if somewhat stereotypical declaration?

Anonymous said...

But there are two kinds of stereotypes:

populist-disseminated and elitist-enforced.

populist-disseminated stereotype about blacks is 'high crime level', but the elitist-enforced stereotype about blacks is 'magic negro'.

Both seem to have great sway over Americans.

Saint-gay is another elitist-enforced stereotype.

Anonymous said...

Some stereotypes are the result of actual experience and observation.

This may explain the greater sympathy for blacks among Europeans. Many Americans for decades saw and felt the sting of black crime. But in Europe in the past decades, the only image of blacks many Europeans had were of BBC news about those poor poor blacks, Cosby Show, jazz musicians, and etc.

The stereotype-on-the-ground that Palestinians have of Jews is 'pushy', 'ruthless', and 'aggressive', but most Americans know Jews through the media as 'funny', 'endearing', 'caring', and 'poor helpless victim'.

Who controls the media controls the stereotypes. "THE ANGRY WHITE MALE."

Steve Sailer said...

Jewish, I would imagine.

Anonymous said...

How about 'stereotype' means generalizations based on what people have seen and heard of real reality...

and 'stereoHYPE' means images(often false)propagated about certain groups by powerful forces--such as big media?

Anonymous said...

But there are two kinds of stereotypes:

populist-disseminated and elitist-enforced.

populist-disseminated stereotype about blacks is 'high crime level', but the elitist-enforced stereotype about blacks is 'magic negro'.

Both seem to have great sway over Americans.

Saint-gay is another elitist-enforced stereotype.


Yes, I guess they could be called natural and artificial stereotypes. Two artificial stereotypes that Hollywood seems to love are that good looking women are martial arts experts and black men are the go-to-guys for high tech wizardry. From the sonar operator on "Hunt For Red October" to the evil computer nerd in the first "Die Hard", to the research team leader in "Terminator 2" to about two dozen Samuel L. Jackson films, there he is. There must be folks in places like Mongolia and Bolivia who are convinced that black guys pretty much keep America at the cutting edge of high technology.

Anonymous said...

Good thing he has tenure because his view on diversity is probably different from most of his colleagues:

"However, if you are not particularly political, or if you are a centrist, libertarian,
or a conservative, or deeply religious, I warmly encourage you to join us...Social psychology
particularly needs you for its own good."

http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~jussim/diversity.html

IHTG said...

http://vimeo.com/8260466

Yup.

Anonymous said...

And the stereotypes about redneck meth addicted anti semites are true as well

Anonymous said...

Kylie, the stereotypes are true. You confirm them to me

Kylie said...

"Kylie, the stereotypes are true. You confirm them to me."

Really? What was it about me? My prison tats or my mouth-breathing?

If you think any addict thinks about anything except what s/he's addicted to, you really are as stupid as your comment would suggest.

Anonymous said...

"what kind of name is Jussim?"
"Jewish, I would imagine."

Thanks for the answer; if anyone knows for sure though, I'd appreciate it. I've never heard that name before and somehow it sounds vaguely mid-eastern to me.

Auntie Analogue said...

What is with us humans who seem to have always to reinvent or rediscover the wheel? There is nothing new under the sun:

"Birds of a feather will gather together.” - Robert Burton (1577-1640)

Anonymous said...

Stereotyping is just applying the duck test.

Dahlia said...

"Anonymous said...

And the stereotypes about redneck meth addicted anti semites are true as well".

There are two few Jews living around rednecks for the rednecks to be able to form a stereotype about them based on experience. By rednecks, I assume you mean lower-class, mostly Southern and/or rural.
Everyone once in awhile, I come across someone like yourself on the internet who believes that rednecks have Jews on the brain when in actuality Jews are kind of like Canadians: not thought of at all.
Middle-class Southerners tend to have warm feelings toward Jews for various reasons, mostly religious, even though they have almost no contact with them.

Svigor said...

WARNING: TURN BACK NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE

Haha, sounds like a must-read.

Liberals: evolution has made us very bad at recognizing patterns in nature.

Hahaha, that was pretty good.

He also has had graduate students publish theses under him that basically demonstrated that people who are talking politically correct are lying their asses off:

"Thesis: Measuring Brain Activity While Lying to Appear Unprejudiced: An ERP Study
Chris performed the first social cognitive neuroscience study associated with
my lab. ERP's are Event Related Potentials, which are pattens of electrical activity
in the brain. Lying has been demonstrated to evoke a unique pattern of ERP's.
In this study, people's ERP responses to the PC scale
were found to be similar to those occurring when telling blatant lies
(e.g., it is 90 degrees outside today -- when "today" is a typical December day in New Jersey).


Hahaha *puts Jessim on Christmas card list*

Thesis: Assessing a Scale Measuring Lying to Appear Unprejudiced.
Kristin performed research validating the PC Scale (see Work in Progress for more details).
The higher people scored on the PC Scale (a new scale assessing lying to appear unprejudiced)
the more they claimed to know about nonexistent civil rights leaders and organizations.


That's beautiful. Just beautiful.

"On my analysis of the entirety of the evidence, I found Mr B. an unimpressive, and inherently unreliable, witness, who regarded truth as a transitory, flexible concept, which could be moulded to suit his current purposes," the judge said.

ANNNTIIIIII-SEEEEMIIIIITE!!!!

But there are two kinds of stereotypes

Well, as usual, the libtard obsession is projection; they need to examine their stereotypes, because they're bullshit.

Jewish, I would imagine.

My first guess was Arab or the like, but you're probably right.

How about 'stereotype' means generalizations based on what people have seen and heard of real reality...

and 'stereoHYPE' means images(often false)propagated about certain groups by powerful forces--such as big media?


That's actually pretty good. I knew we kept you around for something.

Kylie, the stereotypes are true. You confirm them to me

It's a fair trade: you confirm Jewish stereotypes (and have been for some time, "Anon").

Anonymous said...

it's like trigger warnings on feminist blogs!

"they see me rollin', they hatin', me smilin'"

"people's ERP responses to the PC scale
were found to be similar to those occurring when telling blatant lies "

The study reporting that low-effort thinking correlated with conservatism and the same with high blood alcohol level would agree.

Kylie said...

"Kylie, I think you mentioned that you live in the Midwest like I do. You're right -- people who are into meth don't think about much except getting/making meth. They sure don't think much about Jews, and they wouldn't know what 'Semitic' even means. I know rednecks who are openly racist about blacks, but I've never met one who had any strong opinion about Jews. They just aren't on a redneck's radar."

Aaron, that's been my experience exactly. Around here, people, whether they're rednecks or just unworldy small-town types, don't seem aware of Jews at all. After ten years here, I literally don't recall ever hearing anyone even mention Jews.

And meth addicts, contrary to what that dumb Anonymous has decided, don't think about anything but meth, period.

Anonymous said...

Jussim Family Tree

Abraham Jussim (1902 - 1992) Levittown, Bucks County, PA (Pennsylvania), 19054

Julius Jussim (1923 - 2000) New City, Rockland County, NY (New York), 10956

Jeanette Jussim (1907 - 2003) Levittown, Bucks County, PA (Pennsylvania), 19054

Fred Jussim (1898 - 1972) Brooklyn, Kings County, NY (New York), 11235

Edythe Jussim (1928 - 2000) Fort Lauderdale, Broward County, FL (Florida), 33321

Kate Jussim (1898 - 1980) Bronx, Bronx County, NY (New York), 10463

Boris Jussim (1890 - 1979) Valley Stream, Nassau County, NY (New York), 11580

Mollie Jussim (1895 - 1978) Forest Hills, Queens County, NY (New York), 11375

Sonya Jussim (1919 - 2004) New York, New York County, NY (New York), 10001

Marilyn S Jussim (1935 - 2007) Calabasas, Los Angeles County, CA (California), 91302

Solomon Jussim (1895 - 1994) Briarcliff Manor, Westchester County, NY (New York), 10510

International Jew said...

Jussim is probably Jewish. If you Google the most plausible Hebrew spelling of it -- יוסים -- you get lots of hits on Israeli web sites. Off hand, Jussim (with the J pronounced like a Y) strikes me as Iranian-Jewish. On the other hand, there are quite a few Yusim's with Russian first names. Those are unlikely to be of Iranian origin moreover j=y isn't an Iranian thing at all.

There's some chance also that Jussim is the Yiddish diminutive form of some name from the Hebrew Bible, but I can't think of any likely ones.

Following up on the Russian angle, I got bunch of hits for Юсым (one of a couple likely Russian spellings of Jussim). Most of these Юсым's are in the Ukraine actually...




Sword said...

If he is one of us, then we should think long and hard as to not do the kiss of Judas on him.

Anonymous said...

Take a look at Ancestry.com for Jussim. Lots of immigration records. First names like Abraham, Elie, Basche, Feige, Sonie, Mechmed (?), Dawid (?), Dina, Julius, Svetlana.

A few "Jusim"s on the other hand are to be found under "Romania - Jewish names from the Central Zionist Archive" - which sounds like the kind of organisation to give some of your readers bad dreams.

Beware of the allure of family history - the easiest way for an adult to waste hours on a PC since Solitaire on Windows 3.1.

Aria said...

Look guys, if he is one of the rare social psychologists who is actually pushing the truth instead of PC liberal lies, I don't care if he's a mixed race Martian/Hasidic from Africa named Mohammed Luther King Goldstein. More power to him.

Anonymous said...

I believe that Stephen Goldberg one-time Chairman of the Department of Sociology at Columbia University also did a comparison of stereotype beliefs with empirical data back in the 1990's. Goldberg arrived at the conclusion that almost all stereotypes are supported by the empirical evidence.