RTI/CCP/ELL
Professional Development
With
UW-Eau Claire and the Eau Claire Area School District

The Power of the Subconscious Mind: How people can inadvertently alter outcomes for other people

June 16, 2009

Aram deKoven

UW-Eau Claire

Objectives:

To reveal that racism is alive and well in the United States todayTo demonstrate that the subconscious is a powerful cognitive forceTo show how subconsciously held biases can effect how you treat othersTo explain how the effects of subconscious biases can change outcomes for others

FBI Data on hate crimes in the U.S.

IncidentsFewer hate crimes now since the 50, 60, and 70s but2005..7,1632006..7,7222007..7,624*The FBI numbers only reflect reported acts of violence and aggression

Southern Poverty Law Center

The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented 926 hate groups operating in our country a more than 50% increase since 2000.http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/intrep.jsp Impossible to accurately record the number of hate crimes Mark Potock, SPLC

The reporting of hate crimes in the media

Only the most egregious of hate crimes get reportedMany dont even make headlinesLeaving the public, especially white members of the public to believe that hate crimes are down or done with altogetherThe election of President Obama

Conscious
Acts of Racism

Subconscious Acts of Racism

What is consciousness?

Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's environment.

Control

When the thought is subconscious then you cant modify or control for its effectsOnce it becomes conscious then you can work with it (if you want to)If you can talk, write, or think about it then it is conscious

What do you see here?

What do you see here?

Psychological tactic called: Priming

Five words sets: Make a grammatical sentence out of each: Scrambled sentence test.him was chocolate she alwaysfrom are Florida oranges temperatureball the throw time breadWendys give replace old thehe observes occasionally ice cream

Priming

Students thought they came to take a simple word testIn fact they were tricked and primed to feel what?a) Oldb) Sleepyc) Hungryd) Pretty

John Barge Experiment
Priming

Two groups of undergraduates used as subjectsAll received scrambled sentence testsTwo groups with words mixed in like:A) Rude, impatient, interrupt, aggressive, botherB) Respect, considerate, yield, polite, courteous

John Barge Experiment

After subjects took the word puzzle they where then told to talk to someone else in another office down the hall to get the next steps in the studyIn all cases, that someone else that subjects were to talk with was always busy talking to someone elseA confederate (an actor) recorded how subjects in each of the two groups behaved while waiting to speak to the person they had to speak withWhat do you think they found?

What do you think?

How did subjects act while waiting to speak to the person they were told to speak withGroup A) Primed with: Rude, impatient, interrupt, aggressive, botherB) Primed with: Respect, considerate yield, polite, courteous

Results

+Primed with rude words:

interrupted on average before 5 minutes

+Primed with polite words:

82% never interrupted at all (experiments ended after ten minutes)

How Powerful Is Our Subconscious Mind?

I can make you less likely to fight by changing the color of the wallsI can make you more productive at work by changing the brightness of the lightsI can make you spend more money by playing certain musicI can guess who you will hire for a job based on the name of the applicant

Let us make a connection

You now know that subtle and subconscious messages are able to affect your thinking and behavior (these effects can be seen in very short periods of time)Now think about what the cumulative effect is for feeling, seeing, and hearing messages about a group of peopleWhere in society do these implicit and explicit messages come from?

Hidden Racism

Yeah I just found out the Cleopatra was actually a Black woman. What?That cant be true, Cleopatra was beautiful! (p124)85-90% of the white population say that they are not racially biased but Dovidio and Gaertner are concerned that they may be acting in another way, a way that is not supportive of diversity. (page 133)

More evidence for the fact that what we say doesnt always translate into what we do!

Dating..On popular dating sites like match.com about 50% of white women and 80% of white men state that race is not importantHowever, 90% of these men sent e-mails only to white females and of the white females 97% sent e-mail only to white menS.D. Leveitt and S. J. Dubner

Are environmental and social factors a kind of priming?

Yes!The mind silently crunches all the data we take in from all the books, the TV shows, music we hear, people we meet, lessons we have learned, movies we have seen, and from the places that we have been and this information is used to form an opinion or a feeling.From these sources we learn about the people of this world and about ourselves.In some cases we do not know that these opinions even exist in our minds, and in some cases we do not know how they play out in the way we act toward others.

Now Lets Connect All the Parts.

Do all people have subconscious thoughts?YesAre these thoughts powerful enough to change your behaviors?Yes ( Especially so when pressed for timethe brain automatically reverts to the subconscious when stressed or pressed for time)Subconscious biases can impact the way one treats people, without even knowing itSocial and environmental factors can act as a sort of priming that send people messages about who they are and how much they are valued by society

Why do teachers especially need to be in contact with their subconscious?

Education holds (some of) the keys to breaking free from poverty and oppression.. The Good LifeTeachers are one of the first gate keepers Teachers can inadvertently suppress the creativity, productivity, and intellect of a student How can they do that?

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

Study Done By: Jacobson and RosenthalHarvard Acquisition of KnowledgeTeachers told who did well and who did notResults were bogus, actually subjects were randomly assigned a groupActual test at the end of the year produced significant and real differences in actual learning

What did the researchers observe?

Teachers held higher expectations and demanded more of students who they thought were smarterTeachers treated students differently who they thought were smarterClimate: warm and supportiveInput: taught more materialResponse: given more air-time in classFeedback: more detailed feedback

If a teachers first impressions are positive, then this will help the student succeed. However, if the teacher has negative first impressions then the student will suffer.

If teachers treatment of the student is consistent over time, then the students behavior will reflect the teachers expectations Teachers form first impressions of students almost immediately, causing some students to start at an advantage over other students. GenderRaceDialectsBody build Physical attractiveness Beauty Socio economic status Language skills

It is simply not enough to say that we are not racist, we need to be actively anti racist. B. Tatum

The hints of unchecked prejudice and racism can be seen in much more subtle acts like:Postureeye contactlaughter Hesitationfidgeting Silence and/or wait timeArms crossedThis in turn effects the person you are communicating with and they then feel uncomfortable or undervaluedand they may then treat you differentlyand cycle continues.

What can you do?

Acknowledge the power of the subconsciousAcknowledge that it is difficult to be in touch fully with your subconsciousAdmit that people have biasesSeek to be color conscious not color blindTry to know your biases With others or on your own seek to understand where these hidden biases originatedSimply knowing your biases is a good start

..more you can do

Remember, once you know you are being primed it doesn't work anymoreMeet, work with, play with, and get to know people from a wide variety of backgroundsBe reflective and contemplativeTurn off the emotional and intellectual autopilot

Questions