by PriamNevhausten » Thu Sep 25, 2008 12:13 am
There's actually been similar studies about differing social groups performing differently based on stereotypes and expectations. I don't remember the scientist's name, but he got a bunch of students (roughly equal parts Caucasian and African-American in ethnicity) in a lecture hall type setting, administered them a fairly difficult language test, and said "This is a test of your intellectual abilities," and let them have at it. You'd expect, stereotypically, the Caucasians to score higher, and that they did, by a significant margin. Something like 12 questions correct on average, versus the African-Americans' scores closer to 6 correct.
Then he got another group, similarly proportioned, in the same lecture hall, and said to them, "This is just some problems, doesn't really matter, do your best" kind of introduction that doesn't invoke stereotype pressure, and the groups scored about equally, at 9 to 10 questions correct on average.
The result is similar on math examinations between men and women (the stereotype prompt being something along the lines of "this test tends to show gender differences," where the other one is more "this test does not tend to show gender differences"), math examinations between white men and Asian men (though the Asians *did* outperform the white men under more neutral conditions, though not nearly in as great a margin), and many, many other group comparisons.
There's a lot to be said about expectations affecting outcomes. Norman Vincent Peale would even be shit-surprised.
"You haven't told me what I'm looking for."
"Anything that might be of interest to Slitscan. Which is to say, anything that might be of interest to Slitscan's audience. Which is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections."
--Colin Laney and Kathy Torrance, William Gibson's Idoru