Great Expectations
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www.SciAmMind.com SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND 1 (from the editor) Great Expectations A headline in the New York Times drew my eye this morning: “On a Battlefield of Civil Rights, Race Fades for Some Voters.” The story reported that “voters in an Alabama county that is more than 96 percent white chose a genial black man, James Fields, to represent them in the State House of Representatives.” Why, you might ask, is that front-page news more than 100 years after the Civil War? Part of the answer is that we are still using brains evolved over millions of years to prefer what social psychologists call our “in-group”—those with whom we identify, who historically could help us survive as members of our collabora- tive tribe or clan. Our brains use shortcuts for such social identification, swiftly categorizing others—and ourselves—to avoid the energy-intensive processing of conscious thought. Often we do not even realize how extensively subconscious stereotypes shape our reactions, as two feature articles in this issue reveal. The first, “The Social Psychology of Success,” by S. Alexander Haslam, Jes- sica Salvatore, Thomas Kessler and Stephen D. Reicher, looks at behavioral as- pects. It explains how people’s performance is shaped by awareness of stereo- types. For example, when solving math problems, Asian women who think of themselves as female (stereotypically worse at math as compared with males) will perform less well than if they think of themselves as Asian (stereotypically better at math). Turn to page 24 to learn how to throw off the yoke of expecta- tion. The second article, “Buried Prejudice,” by Siri Carpenter, digs into the neuroscience of implicit bias and how it affects cognition. Even basic visual pref- erences are skewed toward in-groups; studies show that we remember faces bet- ter if they match our own racial group. The article starts on page 32. Are we stuck with our mental stereotypes? Not at all. After all, knowledge (about the brain) is power. As Haslam and company conclude, we “can learn to use stereotypes as tools of our own liberation. In short, who we think we are determines both how we perform and what we are able to become.” EDITOR IN CHIEF: John Rennie EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Mariette DiChristina EDITORS: Karen Schrock, Ingrid Wickelgren ART DIRECTOR: Patricia Nemoto ISSUE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR: Bridget Gerety Small PRODUCTION EDITOR: Richard Hunt COPY DIRECTOR: Maria-Christina Keller COPY CHIEF: Daniel C. Schlenoff COPY AND RESEARCH: Rachel Dvoskin, Aaron Fagan, John Matson, Eugene A. Raikhel, Aaron Shattuck, Kenneth Silber, Kevin Singer, Michelle Wright EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATOR: Avonelle Wing SENIOR SECRETARY: Maya Harty CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Phil Cohen, David Dobbs, Robert Epstein, Jonah Lehrer BOARD OF ADVISERS: HAL ARKOWITZ: Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Arizona STEPHEN J. CECI: Professor of Developmental Psychology, Cornell University R. DOUGLAS FIELDS: Chief, Nervous System Development and Plasticity Section, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development S. ALEXANDER HASLAM: Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology, University of Exeter CHRISTOF KOCH: Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology, California Institute of Technology SCOTT O. LILIENFELD: Associate Professor of Psychology, Emory University JOHN H. MORRISON: Chairman, Department of Neuroscience, and Director, Neurobiology of Aging Laboratories, Mount Sinai School of Medicine VILAYANUR S. RAMACHANDRAN: Director, Center for the Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor, Salk Institute for Biological Studies DIANE ROGERS-RAMACHANDRAN: Research Associate, Center for the Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego STEPHEN D. REICHER: Professor of Psychology, University of St. Andrews Some of the articles in this issue are adapted from articles originally appearing in Gehirn & Geist. ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, PRODUCTION: William Sherman MANUFACTURING MANAGER: Janet Cermak ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER: Carl Cherebin PREPRESS AND QUALITY MANAGER: Silvia De Santis PRODUCTION MANAGER: Christina Hippeli CUSTOM PUBLISHING MANAGER: Madelyn Keyes-Milch HOW TO CONTACT US FOR GENERAL INQUIRIES OR TO SEND A LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Scientific American Mind 415 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10017-1111 212-451-8200 [email protected] Mariette DiChristina Executive Editor [email protected] COVER IMAGE BY AARON GOODMAN M IND BEHAVIOR • BRAIN SCIENCE • INSIGHTS
Transcript of Great Expectations
www.Sc iAmMind.com SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND 1
(from the editor)
Great ExpectationsA headline in the New York Times drew my eye this morning: “On a Battlefi eld of Civil Rights, Race Fades for Some Voters.” The story reported that “voters in an Alabama county that is more than 96 percent white chose a genial black man, James Fields, to represent them in the State House of Representatives.” Why, you might ask, is that front-page news more than 100 years after the Civil War?
Part of the answer is that we are still using brains evolved over millions of years to prefer what social psychologists call our “in-group”—those with whom we identify, who historically could help us survive as members of our collabora-tive tribe or clan. Our brains use shortcuts for such social identifi cation, swiftly categorizing others—and ourselves—to avoid the energy-intensive processing of conscious thought. Often we do not even realize how extensively subconscious stereotypes shape our reactions, as two feature articles in this issue reveal.
The fi rst, “The Social Psychology of Success,” by S. Alexander Haslam, Jes-sica Salvatore, Thomas Kessler and Stephen D. Reicher, looks at behavioral as-pects. It explains how people’s performance is shaped by awareness of stereo-types. For example, when solving math problems, Asian women who think of themselves as female (stereotypically worse at math as compared with males) will perform less well than if they think of themselves as Asian (stereotypically better at math). Turn to page 24 to learn how to throw off the yoke of expecta-tion. The second article, “Buried Prejudice,” by Siri Carpenter, digs into the neuroscience of implicit bias and how it affects cognition. Even basic visual pref-erences are skewed toward in-groups; studies show that we remember faces bet-ter if they match our own racial group. The article starts on page 32.
Are we stuck with our mental stereotypes? Not at all. After all, knowledge (about the brain) is power. As Haslam and company conclude, we “can learn to use stereotypes as tools of our own liberation. In short, who we think we are determines both how we perform and what we are able to become.”
EDITOR IN CHIEF: John RennieEXECUTIVE EDITOR: Mariette DiChristina EDITORS: Karen Schrock, Ingrid Wickelgren
ART DIRECTOR: Patricia NemotoISSUE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR: Bridget Gerety SmallPRODUCTION EDITOR: Richard Hunt
COPY DIRECTOR: Maria-Christina Keller COPY CHIEF: Daniel C. SchlenoffCOPY AND RESEARCH: Rachel Dvoskin, Aaron Fagan, John Matson, Eugene A. Raikhel, Aaron Shattuck, Kenneth Silber, Kevin Singer, Michelle Wright
EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATOR: Avonelle WingSENIOR SECRETARY: Maya Harty
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Phil Cohen,David Dobbs, Robert Epstein, Jonah Lehrer
BOARD OF ADVISERS :
HAL ARKOWITZ: Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Arizona
STEPHEN J. CECI : Professor of Developmental Psychology, Cornell University
R. DOUGLAS FIELDS: Chief, Nervous System Development and Plasticity Section, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
S. ALEXANDER HASLAM: Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology, University of Exeter
CHRISTOF KOCH: Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology, California Institute of Technology
SCOTT O. LILIENFELD: Associate Professor of Psychology, Emory University
JOHN H. MORRISON: Chairman, Department of Neuroscience, and Director, Neurobiology of Aging Laboratories, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
VILAYANUR S. RAMACHANDRAN: Director, Center for the Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
DIANE ROGERS-RAMACHANDRAN: Research Associate, Center for the Brain and Cognition, University of California, San Diego
STEPHEN D. REICHER: Professor of Psychology, University of St. Andrews
Some of the articles in this issue are adapted from articles originally appearing in Gehirn & Geist.
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, PRODUCTION: William Sherman MANUFACTURING MANAGER: Janet Cermak ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER: Carl Cherebin PREPRESS AND QUALITY MANAGER: Silvia De SantisPRODUCTION MANAGER: Christina Hippeli CUSTOM PUBLISHING MANAGER: Madelyn Keyes-Milch
HOW TO CONTACT US
FOR GENERAL INQUIRIES OR TO SEND A LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Scientifi c American Mind 415 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10017-1111 [email protected]
Mariette DiChristina Executive Editor
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MINDBEHAVIOR • BRAIN SCIENCE • INSIGHTS
