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posted by martyb on Friday May 29 2015, @11:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the bias-removal-or-indoctrination? dept.

When the desired behavior is performed, a sound is played. When the test subjects reach deep sleep, that same sound is played repeatedly. Subjects were then more likely to perform the desired behavior.

The article, "Unlearning implicit social biases during sleep" appears in the journal Science; an abstract and full report are available.


[Original Submission - Ed.]

 
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by aristarchus on Saturday May 30 2015, @12:39AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday May 30 2015, @12:39AM (#189920) Journal

    who wouldn't want to learn it when it can help you in every aspect of your life?

    Yes, a very good question. But the obvious answer is, "racists".

    There are two schools of thought, the cognitive, and the operantive. Cognitives think that thinking is the answer to everything. It appears you are in this school. It goes back to my predecessor, Socrates, who used to say "To know the good is to do the good." The inverse of this, of course, is that if someone is doing wrong they must not know, really, what they are doing, and think what they are doing is actually good. This is where we would place our racists who do not know they are racists, they do not think they are doing wrong. So accordingly, we just send them to the re-education camps, teach them critical thinking, and viola, problem solved. No one would chose to be a racist once they understood what racism is, right?

    Which brings us to the operant school, represented most clearly by Plato's student Aristotle. Aristotle thought that even if one cognitively understands what the right thing to do is, unless they have the cultivated ability to act on that understanding, we could have a case of cognitive dissonance. In other words, critical thinking is not enough. So for Aristotle being a good person requires not just study, but practice as well. Now this is where the Sleep thingy comes in: if you realize you have racist reactions (for example, sexist if you prefer, NOT!), this is a way to train yourself to not have them. An earlier version was called "aversion therapy", illustrated as I mentioned before in the novel and movie "A Clockwork Orange". And this is not all that unusual. I have heard stories of persons with friends of different races, who shared a cigarette, but viscerally reacted at having something in their mouth that was just in the mouth of another race. Knowing that this was an irrational and immoral reaction did not make any difference in still having the reaction.

    Now the danger is in separating the two schools. Operant conditioning may be effective, but it is also mindless, so we get the "what could go wrong?" questions. If we can use this therapy to eliminate racist tendencies, then quite obviously we could use the same technology to inculcate racism! The APA would be on board, because this is just like reverse engineering the Survival, Escape, Resistance and Evasion training given to US military personnel to resist torture into a program to enhance "interrogation" in the Global War on Terra. But this relativism is really indefensible on any rational grounds. The cognitive approach says we have to convince the wrong doer that what they are doing is in fact wrong, respecting their freedom of thought. So we need to first appeal to racists on rational grounds, by means of critical reasoning, and then making available such help as they can voluntarily submit to. Fair enough?

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  • (Score: 1) by Murdoc on Saturday May 30 2015, @03:11AM

    by Murdoc (2518) on Saturday May 30 2015, @03:11AM (#189967) Homepage

    I suppose that my comment was too short for me to be clear on what I meant, but in actuality I totally agree with you, that both approaches are needed to be integrated for best effect. Well, not the brainwashing mentioned in the article, but yes, the "practice" as you mentioned. Everyone already knows how to think critically at least a little bit, but like most skills, there are many levels of competence. And also, even the skills that people have they don't necessarily use all the times they should, so that would be part of the practice.

    But thank you for clarifying the subject for me. I didn't have all that background information.

    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday May 30 2015, @05:06AM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday May 30 2015, @05:06AM (#189988) Journal

      I agree that we may be looking at a bunch of very scared racists who thing they may be forced or tricked in to not being racist anymore, but our common point is that that really can't happen. I always have liked the line by the teacher at the beginning of the Joss Whedon movie "Serenity": "We're not telling people what to think, we're just trying to show them how!"

      • (Score: 1) by Murdoc on Saturday May 30 2015, @07:12AM

        by Murdoc (2518) on Saturday May 30 2015, @07:12AM (#190006) Homepage

        I liked that line too, but in the case of Serenity, I think that the teacher was using that line as a way to cover up the sins of the Alliance. Although I loved the movie and Firefly, I didn't really like the message Joss (or at least Mal) was trying to assert that "You can't make people better." I think you can, and we have even succeeded to a degree so far, and that we know plenty about how to do more, without it being sinister like on Miranda, just by doing the stuff we've been talking about.

        • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday May 30 2015, @08:21AM

          by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday May 30 2015, @08:21AM (#190025) Journal

          "Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave. "
          Capt. Malcolm Reynolds.

          Now that may be the great outlaw libertarian mantra, put in such great context by the genius of Joss Whedon. But I have to ask, " Can I make a suggestion that doesn't involve violence, or is this the wrong crowd for that? " (Wash, the pilot of Serenity).

          So you and I, out of the thousands of Soylentils, have come to the conclusion that it is only through the discipline of critical thinking that the pox of racism, sexism, and overall dickish behaviour shall be cured. I take your hand, brother, for truly you are such, and we together will face the onslaught of racists who think that just having different thoughts means that all thought is equally valid! But you realize the downside of this responsibility: Reavers, we made them! (Wash, again. Not surprising that he is the only crew member who gets killed off. )

          Not malicious, it is only that when racists are confronted with the logical implications, they tend to cut on themselves and others. So if we can get them to change their behavior when they are asleep, I am all for that, and I imagine Joss is too.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2015, @12:10PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2015, @12:10PM (#190078)

            and we together will face the onslaught of racists who think that just having different thoughts means that all thought is equally valid!

            Most bigotry hinges on the idea that being human requires one to have a specific amount of melanin, a specific set of genitals, a specific sexual orientation or identity, or worship a specific god. Anyone with half a brain sees how fallicious this is; bigotry is, by definition, delusional; it is not and never will be valid.

          • (Score: 1) by Murdoc on Sunday May 31 2015, @02:01AM

            by Murdoc (2518) on Sunday May 31 2015, @02:01AM (#190282) Homepage

            Yeah, I liked Wash's comment there too.

            So why do you think that so many people here seem against these ideas? They generally seem in favor of more critical thinking education in other threads, so is it just this issue? Maybe it's just random chance who happened to comment; not everyone sees every post and comment. I saw the responses to your recent 'troll' post, and while people did bring up some valid additional factors, they were far from as useful of solutions to the problem. Such as "more diversity", etc. Well, to get that, you pretty much have to reduce the racism first, don't you? But with CT, you can teach people that, not for the purpose of changing their minds about racism directly, but to help them in their lives, such as careers, relationships, education, avoiding scams, etc., and I can't see many people not wanting that (one term I like is "intellectual self-defence"). Then, once they are good at it, they'll have to apply it to their racism/sexism/whatever, and if they are good enough, they will change their minds. One strategy I'd like to try for instance is teaching them about meme allergies [lucifer.com]. If you can get them to agree that they are bad, and that looking for your own and eradicating them is a good idea, they'll practically do it themselves (although some may need help with that). A more comprehensive CT program would likely work even better, I think.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2015, @07:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2015, @07:42PM (#190199)

    viola

    It's voila goddamn it! (or actually voilĂ  but the former ASCII projection will do)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @07:11AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 01 2015, @07:11AM (#190588)

      Or, I could have been referring to the effect of the lower range member of the violin family, for when truth becomes apparent. (Et tu, grammaricus docentur? )