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Others may be unconsciously judging your features in ways you don't realise

bbc.com

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Re: Others may be unconsciously judging your features in ways you don't realise

#51

Post by slipjack »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #37
slipjack wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being swayed by superficial cues is not irrational if they correlate to the underlying qualities you are trying to judge. I'd be pretty careful about this line of argument. What we think of as a clue to underlying qualities is cultural... for example, one of the biggest superficial differences in people is the color of their skin. What underlying qualities does skin color clue us in to? In the US and Europe, we hav…

The history of seeking correlations between visible and invisible qualities has been largely successful. For instance, it's fairly well known that border collies can be successfully trained to herd sheep, but wolves cannot. Experiments have provided significant evidence that these behavioral traits are genetic: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/dogs-b... Further, in the US and Europe, we also have…

Do you have any studies about humans? Because I'm not aware of many that are clear-cut (of course, there's environment-gene interplay, but that is way more murky than anything talked about in the article or in the OP's comment).

I'm not saying that those claims were false and therefore all such claims are false. I'm saying that in the West we've spent a lot of time trying to prove that non-white men are inferior in different ways. Arguments like "unconscious bias comes from evolution" ignore that long history of non-white-male qualities being judged inferior.

Re: Others may be unconsciously judging your features in ways you don't realise

#52

Post by pixl97 »

toolsadmin wrote: post #11

More PC rubbish. Soon we'll all have to wear brown paper bags over our heads and speak through a gender-neutral, computer generated microphone voice lest someone gets upset or gets an "unfair" advantage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron

Re: Others may be unconsciously judging your features in ways you don't realise

#53

Post by StavrosK »

slipjack wrote: post #49
StavrosK wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What underlying qualities does skin color clue us in to What underlying qualities does height clue us in to? Are you sure that, even though traits regularly correlate with other traits, skin color is the one trait that has no correlation with absolutely anything else? I don't find that very likely, personally.

Er... my point was that most superficial qualities don't have a 1-to-1 mapping on internal qualities. Height is another great example.

The GP isn't talking about 1-to-1 mapping, they're talking about correlation, though.

Re: Others may be unconsciously judging your features in ways you don't realise

#54

Post by StavrosK »

pixl97 wrote: post #50
StavrosK wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What underlying qualities does skin color clue us in to What underlying qualities does height clue us in to? Are you sure that, even though traits regularly correlate with other traits, skin color is the one trait that has no correlation with absolutely anything else? I don't find that very likely, personally.

>What underlying qualities does height clue us in to? Possibly more than you think. http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1820836,0...

That's my point.

Re: Others may be unconsciously judging your features in ways you don't realise

#55

Post by yummyfajitas »

firethief wrote: post #46
yummyfajitas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been shown in at least one experiment that superficial appearances are correlated with underlying qualities. Specifically, simply by looking at two people one can choose the one better at math 55% of the time! https://mega.co.nz/#!6UxzVLIA!BVUOujU76VnhZM45QE4N2oFz0yLRTf... The title and abstract of the study (discussing gender stereotypes) more or less ignores the truly interesting bits of this study. Gender ste…

I'd rather not install an app to read that, but presumably they are measuring who is better educated in math. I would expect the correlation to be mostly explained by different ethnic groups in the location the study was conducted having different access to education, cultural values, and expectations placed on them. It would go a long way toward distinguishing between those two possibilities if a computer judged the…

You don't need to install an app, if you do the right pattern of clicks you can download it. But here is an ungated preprint (wasn't available when I first downloaded the paper): http://www.ereuben.net/research/StereotypesWomensCareer.pdf

They could indeed be observing that "asians are good at math" stereotypes are a useful predictor, the study doesn't really give enough info to determine that one way or the other.

Re: Others may be unconsciously judging your features in ways you don't realise

#56

Post by pavel_lishin »

noir_lord wrote: post #45
pavel_lishin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up there until I was ten. My mom used to joke that if a stranger is smiling at you in the street, they've already got your wallet.

haha. Yeah the Russian I knew told me a story about if you where walking past a queue you joined it, didn't matter if you knew what was at the other end whatever it was could be bartered. They where incredibly innovative in how they dealt with the lack of resources, bit like Cuba and keeping 60 year old cars on the road I guess, needs must when the devil drives.

I was trying to remember an old joke about waiting in line, and obviously went to Wikipedia.

Amusingly, both the Russian Jokes page and the Russian Political Jokes page appear to have no Russian translations...

Re: Others may be unconsciously judging your features in ways you don't realise

#57

Post by plonh »

StavrosK wrote: post #47
slipjack wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being swayed by superficial cues is not irrational if they correlate to the underlying qualities you are trying to judge. I'd be pretty careful about this line of argument. What we think of as a clue to underlying qualities is cultural... for example, one of the biggest superficial differences in people is the color of their skin. What underlying qualities does skin color clue us in to? In the US and Europe, we hav…

> What underlying qualities does skin color clue us in to What underlying qualities does height clue us in to? Are you sure that, even though traits regularly correlate with other traits, skin color is the one trait that has no correlation with absolutely anything else? I don't find that very likely, personally.

The question is what relevant correlations there are. You won't do well to hire a taller programmer just because taller people are healthier.

See also adverse section paradox.

Re: Others may be unconsciously judging your features in ways you don't realise

#59

Post by plonh »

jdbernard wrote: post #29
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who tend toward bitterness, mistrust, anger, or anxiety - will look it This is total pseudo-science, like a modern phrenology. Your resting face and how that's interpreted is meaningless. For example, in some cultures no one smiles in photos and smiling at others on the street or in the workplace is a very weird thing to do, but here in the US its extremely common. If an American went to one of those culture…

> This is total pseudo-science, like a modern phrenology. How do we know? I haven't heard of any studies that compare people's first impressions against the person's actual disposition or personality. For example, this article pointed out that honesty was a trait people tend to read from faces, but it didn't ask the question: are people's reading accurate? It assumes that an honest-looking face has no bearing on a pe…

When making up theories, the burden of proof is on you.

Re: Others may be unconsciously judging your features in ways you don't realise

#60

Post by plonh »

Alex3917 wrote: post #8
zachb wrote: post #4

The author completely glosses over a crucial fact: an individual's face is representative of the lifestyle that he or she lives. Fat; thin; tan; pale; bearded; bald. Is your hair buzzed military grade, or does it spill over your shoulders? Do you take care of your skin? Do you wax your eyebrows? Our faces certainly tell some sort of story, but there's more to it than bone structure and brow size.

Also, even your facial structure most likely changes throughout your life depending on the last couple years of your levels of dominance, trustworthiness, competence, etc. Just look at Dick Cheney.

What??
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