Some People Are Just Always Running Their Fool Mouths
NOBODY likes to admit an uncomfortable truth about himself, especially when charged issues such as race, sex, age and even supersized waistlines come into play. That makes the task of the behavioural scientist a difficult one. Not only may participants in a study be lying to those running a test, but they may also, fundamentally, be lying to themselves. [...]
In a paper to be published next month in Social Cognition, a group of researchers led by Eugene Caruso of the University of Chicago report their use of a technique called conjoint analysis, which they have adopted from the field of market research and adapted to study implicit biases in more realistic situations. [...]
In their first study, Dr Caruso and his team recruited 101 students and asked them to imagine they were taking part in a team trivia game with a cash prize. Each student was presented with profiles of potential team-mates and asked to rate them on their desirability.
The putative team-mates varied in several ways. Three of these were meant to correlate with success at trivia: educational level, IQ and previous experience with the game. In addition, each profile had a photo which showed whether the team-mate was slim or fat. After rating the profiles, the participants were asked to say how important they thought each attribute was in their decisions. [...]
They would trade 11 IQ points—about 50% of the range of IQs available—for a colleague who was suitably slender. [...]
n a second study the team asked another group, this time of students who were about to graduate, to consider hypothetical job opportunities at consulting firms. [...]
In effect, they were willing to pay a 22% tax on their starting salary to have a male boss. [...]
From The Economist
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