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The Unconscious Mind

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ski2bfree

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I'm reading a book right now that's really the best non-fiction book I've read in a long time. It's called "Blink" and it's all about the unconscious mind and how it's involved in making snap decisions for us. I know this sounds really abstract, but after reading into it, there are certain aspects of the theories of unconscious decision-making that hold a lot of merit.

One of my favorite examples in the book is the use of Implicit Association Tests (IATs) to analyze how we make associations. Give these IATs a shot and see what you think https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/. These have been used to demonstrate negative associations made according to race. The weird thing is, even black people made a negative association with their own race when taking this test.

Take it a step further: your unconscious mind can impact your behavior. I think this is really cool. A group of psychologists presented some college students with a sentence completion task. Within these tasks were hidden words associated with old age (wrinkle, bingo, retire, Florida, etc.). After taking the test, the students left the office much slower than the control group - they walked like old people! Weird, huh?

Another part of the book. We all know that tall people appear to have authority, right? They tower over others and their stature impresses the people around them. We make an unconscious association with taller people that they are somehow more like CEO material than the rest of us. A poll of the Fortune 500 list has shown that on average a CEO is 3 inches taller than the average American male. In the U.S., 14.5% of men are six feet or taller. Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number is 58%. We associate height with power and this enables a taller person to land a higher paying job with greater ease due to the unconscious association made by an employer. Think it's BS? Not long ago, researchers analyzed data from four large research studies that followed thousands of people from birth to adulthood. They calculated that, when corrected for age, gender, and other confounding variables, an inch of height is worth $789 a year in salary. That means a six foot tall employee makes, on average, $5,525 more than a 5'5" employee who is, aside from height, the same at the 6' employee.

Check out the IAT site and, if you have the time, definitely check out this book. It's called Blink and it's by Malcolm Gladwell. Enjoy.
 
A Crock of POOH!

There is a load of dung if I ever saw one. And to think the tests were administered by Harvard! Am I disappointed or what!

K, took 2 demo tests; the Gay or Straight one and the USA or Canada one. Now anyone with half a brain knows how I feel about Canada! And they know on a scale of 1-10 Canada wouldn't even hit the 1 mark. If it did it would only be because my sister and her family live here and I love the Miramichi River.

In addition to the well known fact of how patriotic I am to the Grand Old Flag of the USA and the Republican party, this test administered by Harvard places me as having a strong sense of pride (to paraphrase) to ...are you sitting down? Canada! Hellooo numb nuts what are you smoking in that pipe? They feel I am more supportive of Canada and somewhat anti-American! A-Holes!! The lot of them.

So my first test Gay or Straight, again DUH! I have absolutely no problem with **** and I support gay marriages. That is no secret, however, the test reveals that I have a strong preference for heterosexuals and not that accepting of ****! Again HELLOOOO! I think I am as open to others having gay relationships as any bleeding liberal! Even more so than Bill O'Reilly! Not that he is a Liberal however he does say he doesn't have a problem with people being gay.

I was so disgusted at the results that I didn't take the black or white test although I am sure I will nor did I take the fat or thin test. They will probably tell me I am a fat racist!:p

Try the test all you pro- Canadians and Americans and lets compare results. If you are up to the challenge!:thumbsup:
 
i did the light-skinned/dark-skinned one. i can tell you right now why the majority of people (of various races) "prefer" light-skinned people - it has nothing to do with race. you're asked to categorize between light-skinned and dark-skinned, and then good and bad words. we have a cultural connotation with dark=bad, light=good - just look at star wars. we're not making judgments of PEOPLE of those particular colors, we're just concentrating so hard on a solid split between light and dark and good and bad that our brains get confused. that was muddled but it made sense to me.
 
I found that they brought up words like happy, good, etc and I was suppose to press the letter for the Canadian side and poison and bad for the American side but I kept getting an x and had to do ti again because when I saw good words and feelings I automatically pushed the American side not the Canadian. Like naturally I was going to push all the favorable words toward the American side but no that meant somehow that I was not pro-American. Right and George Washington was really Georgia in drag! Psst! Got news for them.
 
What you're describing are conscious associations and decisions that you've made, Anglo. There's a major difference between the conscious and the unconscious mind. I'm not racist, but when I took the IAT, it showed that I have an unconscious preference toward whites. I'm not homophobic, but the IAT showed that I have an unconscious preference toward heterosexuals.

Think of it this way: the unconscious mind is like a locked room in the brain. It can help make decisions and control the rest of the brain that's outside that locked door, but only for brief periods because the conscious mind, in most cases, doesn't recognize the unconscious mind. Here's an example. A speed dating service in Manhattan asks participants to rate in a survey how attracted they were to various personality traits before the dating session, after the dating session, then a few days later. What they found is that after the first survey, people's opinions shifted to describe the dater who they were most interested in, then two days later shifted back to their original opinion. They made an unconscious change in their dating goals to conform to one person, then changed back.

The very foundation of psychology is in relating the conscious and unconscious minds to social behaviors. Freud, the controversial founder of psychology, made a living out of analyzing the unconscious mind. Since then, it's been a cornerstone of psychology, so don't be quick to judge Harvard just because you don't agree with the results you got on these tests. You might not consciously recognize some of your unconscious tendencies, but I bet if you were videotaped having a conversation with an openly gay man, your posture and expressions would be more closed (ie: arms folded, leaning back slightly, less smiling, etc.) than when you're talking to a straight man. You'd also be less likely to engage in the conversation with involved questions and jokes.

Don't take offense to it, you can't change the views of your unconscious mind because it's deeper than your consciousness. It's abstract and kind of hard to understand, but anyone who studies psychology knows there's merit to it.
 
I saw this book on Amazon.ca, I actually was very interested in reading it. I tried one of the tests....but was interrupted. But the results seem realistic...I will try again when I won't be interrupted, as well as trying out all of the tests.
 
If At First You Don't Succeed!

ski2bfree said:
... so don't be quick to judge Harvard just because you don't agree with the results you got on these tests. You might not consciously recognize some of your unconscious tendencies, but I bet if you were videotaped having a conversation with an openly gay man, your posture and expressions would be more closed (ie: arms folded, leaning back slightly, less smiling, etc.) than when you're talking to a straight man. You'd also be less likely to engage in the conversation with involved questions and jokes.

Don't take offense to it, you can't change the views of your unconscious mind because it's deeper than your consciousness. It's abstract and kind of hard to understand, but anyone who studies psychology knows there's merit to it.
Click to expand...

I will try the tests again. And I will try not to be too harsh on Harvard. AS for videotaping me talking to anyone gay or straight, you will find that I never lean into a person with whom I am having a conversation. I back away from anyone invading my personal space. I also avoid asking personal questions. If one volunteers information about themselves, fine but I tend not to pry. As far as arms crossed, I am not consciously aware of doing that but I will pay closer attention next time I am engaged in a conversation with anyone.
Thanks for the insight, ski2bfree!:thumbsup:
 
ANGLOIRISH said:
In addition to the well known fact of how patriotic I am to the Grand Old Flag of the USA and the Republican party, this test administered by Harvard places me as having a strong sense of pride (to paraphrase) to ...are you sitting down? Canada! Hellooo numb nuts what are you smoking in that pipe? They feel I am more supportive of Canada and somewhat anti-American! A-Holes!! The lot of them.
Click to expand...
You're missing the point of the results Anlgo. Since you were quicker to associate positive ideas to the U.S. over associating positive things to Canada, you actually do like the U.S. more, associating good things with Canada makes you think more. You balk at it, and thus the positive. Positive in this sense not meaning good, but rather an affermative connection. I got the reverse results you did, meaning that I had an easier time associating Canadian faces and images with good things than I did with the U.S. It doesn't mean actual preference, but rather a stronger association whether positive or negative.
 
I do believe I am getting the hang of it now, Black Mage. I did further testing and found I am pro Christian, pro thin, pro white, anti- Muslim and so forth. What I Had done was marked that I was Canadian when I was taking the test. I went back and said I was American and got the results that did fit me! If I have time someday I will take tests as an American and then on another day take the tests as a Canadian and see what the difference may be.
 
Yea, I took a few. They said somethings I didn't expect and some I did.
 
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