Hello - Here is a request that will no doubt bother some of you, but that I strongly feel will be a good addition to my research methods class. The last topic I cover in this class is cultural bias in research - my catch-all for provocative questions involving gender, ethnic, and cultural differences. We talk about, for example, questions regarding cultural fairness of IQ tests. One thing that I think is difficult to get across to students is just how much of a problem this has been historically - they haven't been around long enough to remember the more blatant forms that bias has taken in social science (or society at large) and therefore may see discussions of bias as mere political correctness or splitting hairs. I think that one way to give them some perspective and, honestly, grab their attention would be to open with a sampling of quotes, preferably from well-known social scientists, that are blatantly biased. For example, I ran across the following quote by Harry Harlow: "Isolation-reared monkeys were forever confined to a stage of infantilism, which wasn't so bad if you were a female." I'd appreciate any other quotes in the same vein that any of you might be able to send my way.
Let me stress here, as I repeatedly do with my students, that the point is not to negate the accomplishments of these people because they showed some kind of prejudice. It's just intended to give an idea of what sorts of biases and prejudices have historically been a problem in psychology, and to lead in to discussion of how those biases (we all have them to one degree or another) might be mitigated when designing, doing, and interpreting research. -- Dr. Michelle Miller Assistant Professor Department of Psychology Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ 86001-5106 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~mdm29/ NAU Department of Psychology: http://www.nau.edu/~psych/naupsy.html --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
