Where Bias Begins: The Truth About Stereotypes (excerpt)
Stereotyping is not limited to those who are biased. We all use stereotypes all the time. They are a kind of mental shortcut.
成见不只局限于有偏见的人。我们都有成见，这是一种思考捷径。
金词:
- stereotype n. 老套, 模式化的见解, 有老一套固定想法的人;
- shortcut n. 捷径
[1] Psychologists once believed that only bigoted people used stereotypes. Now the study of unconscious bias is revealing the unsettling truth: We all use stereotypes, all the time, without knowing it. We have met the enemy of equality, and the enemy is us
金词:
- bigotedadj顽固的;心胸狭窄的;盲从的
金句翻译:
心理学家曾认为只有顽固的人才会有成见，而如今潜意识偏见的研究揭示了这
一令人不安的真相:我们一直都有，只不过自己还没意识到。我们已经遇到了平等的大敌，而敌人就是我们自己。
[2] Mahzarin Banaji doesn't fit anybody's ideal of a racist. A psychology professor at Yale University, she studies stereotypes for a living. And as a woman and a member of a minority ethnic group, she has felt firsthand the sting of discrimination. Yet when she took one of her own tests of unconscious bias. "I showed very strong prejudices," she says. "It was truly a disconcerting experience." And an illuminating one. When Banaji was in graduate school in the early 1980s, theories about stereotypes were concerned only with their explicit expression: outright and unabashed racism, sexism, anti-Semitism. But in the years since, a new approach to stereotypes has shattered that simple notion. The bias Banaji and her colleagues are studying is something far more subtle, and more insidious: what's known as automatic or implicit stereotyping, which, they find, we do all the time without knowing it. Though out-and-out bigotry may be on the decline, says Banaji, "if anything, stereotyping is a bigger problem than we ever imagined."
金词:
- racist /'resɪ st/n. 种族歧视者
- firsthand /'fɜ ː st'hænd/ adj. & adv. (得自)直接来源的〔地〕 , 第 一手的〔地〕
- discrimination /dɪ ,skrɪ mɪ 'neʃ ə n/n. 歧视
- prejudices /'prɛ dʒ ə dɪ s/ n. 成见, 偏见, 歧视
- illuminating /ɪ ˈ lumɪ ˌ netɪ ŋ /adj. 富于启发的
- explicit /ɪ k’splɪ sɪ t/ adj. 详述的, 明确的, 明晰的
- outright /'aʊ traɪ t/ adv. 完全地; 彻底地
- unabashed /ˌ ʌ nə ’bæʃ t/ adj. 不害臊的;不怕羞的;满不在乎的
- sexism /'sɛ k'sɪ zə m/ n. 针对女性的)性别歧视;男性至上主义
- anti-Semitism /ˌ æntiˈ sɛ mɪ ˌ tɪ zə m/ n. 反犹太主义
- subtle /'sʌ tl/ adj. 微妙的; 难以捉摸的; 细微的
- implicit /ɪ m'plɪ sɪ t/ adj. 暗示的;盲从的;含蓄的
- insidious /ɪ n'sɪ dɪ ə s/ adj. 隐伏的,潜在的,暗中为害的
- bigotry /‘bɪ ɡə tri/ n. 顽固;偏执;盲从
金句翻译:
And as a woman and a member of a minority ethnic group, she has felt firsthand the sting of discrimination.
一个女人，而且来自于少数民族，她曾切身感受到过被歧视之痛。
[3] Previously, researchers who studied stereotyping had simply asked people to record their feelings about minority groups and had used their answers as an index of their attitudes. Psychologists now understand that these conscious replies are only half the story. How progressive a person seems to be on the surface bears little or no relation to how prejudiced he or she is on an unconscious level—so that a bleeding-heart liberal might harbor just as many biases as a neo-Nazi skinhead.
金词:
- index /‘ɪndɛks/ n. 指数;索引;指标;指针
-progressive/prə'ɡrɛsɪv/ adj.不断前进的,有进展的,逐渐上升的
- neo-Nazi /ˌnioˈnɑtsi/ n. 新纳粹主义分子
金句翻译:
How progressive a person seems to be on the surface bears little or no relation to how prejudiced he or she is on an unconscious level— so that a bleeding-heart liberal might harbor just as many biases as a neo-Nazi skinhead. 一个人表面上思想先进的和他潜意识中的偏见程度没多大关系—一个超级自由 派人士可能和一个狂热的新纳粹主义分子的偏见程度差不多。
[4] As surprising as these findings are, they confirmed the hunches of many students of human behavior. "Twenty years ago, we hypothesized that there were people who said they were not prejudiced but who really did have unconscious negative stereotypes and beliefs," says psychologist lack Dovidio, Ph.D., of Colgate University "It was like theorizing about the existence of a virus, and then one day seeing it under a microscope."
金词:
- hunch/hʌntʃ/n.预感,直觉
- hypothesized/haɪ'pɑθəsaɪz/v.假设,假定,猜测
[5] The test that exposed Banaji's hidden biases—and that this writer took as well, with equally dismaying results—is typical of the ones used by automatic stereotype researchers. It presents the subject with a series of positive or negative adjectives, each paired with a characteristically "white" or "black" name. As the name and word appear together on a computer screen, the person taking the test presses a key, indicating whether the word is good or bad. Meanwhile, the computer records the speed of each response.
金词:
- dismay/dɪs'meɪ/ n.沮丧，灰心;惊慌
[6] A glance at subjects' response times reveals a startling phenomenon: Most people who participate in the experiment—even some African-Americans—respond more quickly when a positive word is paired with a white name or a negative word with a black name. Because our minds are more accustomed to making these associations, says Banaji, they process them more rapidly. Though the words and names aren't subliminal, they are presented so quickly that a subject's ability to make deliberate choices is diminished—allowing his or her underlying assumptions to show through. The same technique can be used to measure stereotypes about many different social groups, such as homosexuals, women, and the elderly.
金词:
- phenomenon /fə'nɑmɪnən/ n. 现象
- subliminal /ˌ sʌ b’lɪ mɪ nl/ adj. <心>阈下的,潜意识的 - deliberate /dɪ ’lɪ bə rə t/ adj. 故意的, 蓄意的
- homosexuals /ˌ homə ’sɛ kʃ uə l/ n. 同性恋者
THE UNCONSCIOUS COMES INTO FOCUS
[7] From these tiny differences in reaction speed—a matter of a few hundred milliseconds—the study of automatic stereotyping was born. Its immediate ancestor was the cognitive revolution of the 1970s, an explosion of psychological research into the way people think. After decades dominated by the study of observable behavior, scientists wanted a closer look at the more mysterious operation of the human brain. And the development of computers—which enabled scientists to display information very quickly and to measure minute discrepancies in reaction time—permitted a peek into the unconscious.
金词:
- mysterious /mɪ ’stɪ rɪ ə s/ adj. 神秘的; 难以理解的
- discrepancy /dɪ s’krɛ pə nsi/ n. 差异, 不符合
- peek /pik/ n. 偷看;一瞥，看一眼
[8] At the same time, the study of cognition was also illuminating the nature of stereotypes themselves. Research done after World War II—mostly by European emigres struggling to understand how the Holocaust had happened—concluded that stereotypes were used only by a particular type of person: rigid, repressed, authoritarian. Borrowing from the psychoanalytic perspective then in vogue, these theorists suggested that biased behavior emerged out of internal conflicts caused by inadequate parenting.
金词:
- cognition /kɑɡ’nɪ ʃ ə n/ n. 认识; 认识力
- rigid /‘rɪ dʒ ɪ d/ adj. 严格的;僵硬的，死板的;
- repressed /rɪ ’prɛ st/ adj. 被抑制的,被压抑的
- authoritarian /ə ,θɔ rə ’tɛ rɪ ə n/ adj. 权力主义的,专制的
- Holocaust /‘hɑlə k/ n. 大屠杀
[9] The cognitive approach refused to let the rest of us off the hook. It made the simple but profound point that we all use categories—of people, places, things—to make sense of the world around us. "Our ability to categorize and evaluate is an important part of human intelligence," says Banaji. "Without it, we couldn't survive." But stereotypes are too much of a good thing. In the course of stereotyping, a useful category—say, women—becomes freighted with additional associations, usually negative. "Stereotypes are categories that have gone too far," says John Bargh, Ph.D., of New York University. "When we use stereotypes, we take in the gender, the age, the color of the skin of the person before us, and our minds respond with messages that say hostile, stupid, slow, weak. Those qualities aren't out there in the environment. They don't reflect reality."
金词:
- profound /prə’faʊnd/ adj. 深度的; 深切的; 深远的
[10] Bargh thinks that stereotypes may emerge from what social psychologists call in-group/out-group dynamics. Humans, like other species, need to feel that they are part of a group, and as villages, clans, and other traditional groupings have broken down, our identities have attached themselves to more ambiguous classifications, such as race and class. We want to feel good about the group we belong to—and one way of doing so is to denigrate all those who aren't in it. And while we tend to see members of our own group as individuals, we view those in out-groups as an undifferentiated—stereotyped—mass. The categories we use have changed, but it seems that stereotyping itself is bred in the bone.
金词:
- dynamic /daɪ ’næmɪ k/ adj. 有活力的, 强有力的
- clans /klæn/n. 宗族;部族
- ambiguous /æm’bɪ ɡjuə s/ adj. 引起歧义的; 模棱两可的, 含糊不清的 - denigrate /‘dɛ nɪ ɡret/ vt. 诋毁,诽谤
金句翻译:
每个人都对自己所从属的群体感觉良好，而且让自己感觉更良好的其中一个方 方式，就是诋毁那些不在这群体中的人。当我们倾向于把自己的群体看作个体 时，就把那些外群体看作是未分化且已形成刻板印象的群体。我们所用的分类 词变了，但其中的成见仍根深蒂固。
[11] Though a small minority of scientists argues that stereotypes are usually accurate and can be relied upon without reservations, most disagree—and vehemently. "Even if there is a kernel of truth in the stereotype, you're still applying a generalization about a group to an individual, which is always incorrect," says Bargh. Accuracy aside, some believe that the use of stereotypes is simply unjust. "In a democratic society, people should be judged as individuals and not as members of a group," Banaji argues. "Stereotyping flies in the face of that ideal.”
金词:
- vehemently /‘viə mə ntli/ adv. 激烈地;暴烈地;强烈地
- kernel /‘kɝ nl/ n. 核心，要点;精髓;内核;
来自《天天用英语》栏目
