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, 2009Aram deKovenUW-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 mediaOnly the most egregious of hate crimes get

reportedMany don’t even make headlinesLeaving the public, especially white

members of the public to believe that hate crimes are down or done with altogether

The 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.

ControlWhen the thought is subconscious then you

can’t modify or control for its effects

Once 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

PrimingStudents 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 subjects

All received scrambled sentence testsTwo groups with words mixed in like:

A) Rude, impatient, interrupt, aggressive, botherB) Respect, considerate, yield, polite, courteous

John Barge ExperimentAfter 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 study

In all cases, that someone else that subjects were to talk with was always busy talking to someone else

A confederate (an actor) recorded how subjects in each of the two groups behaved while waiting to speak to the person they had to speak with

What 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 with”

Group 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 people

Where 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 can’t 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 doesn’t 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 important”

However, 90% of these men sent e-mails only to white females and of the white females 97% sent e-mail only to white men

o S.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 time…the

brain automatically reverts to the subconscious when stressed or pressed for time)

Subconscious biases can impact the way one treats people, without even knowing it

Social 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 Life”

Teachers 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 ProphecyStudy Done By: Jacobson and Rosenthal“Harvard Acquisition of Knowledge”Teachers 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 smarter

Teachers 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 teacher’s 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 teacher’s treatment of the student is consistent over time, then the student’s behavior will reflect the teacher’s expectations Teachers form first impressions of students almost immediately, causing some students to start at an advantage over other students. Gender Race Dialects Body 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 crossed

This in turn effects the person you are communicating with and they then feel uncomfortable or undervalued…and they may then treat you differently…and 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 blind”Try 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 doRemember, 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