Well, I must say, I’m sad that this class is ending. At first, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this class, and I must say, I am thoroughly impressed. I really loved that I was encouraged to take charge of my learning, and study topics I am passionate about. Naturally, for me, many of my blogs dove into biases that are activated without our knowledge. I feel that these are very relevant to the work I plan to do in the future, counselling.
The one strategy that seemed to continuously come up was the use of counterstereotypic information to decrease stereotypes. Throughout this course, I have come across many studies that have tested this method, and have found it to be useful. One of the first studies I came across that used this method is a study by Blair, Ma, and Lenton (2001). In this study, participants used counterstereotypic mental imagery to decrease implicit stereotypes. These researchers did a number of studies, which shows that this strategy is generalizable.
I ended up doing a comment about the Obama effect. It turns out that the Obama effect is based on the fact that Obama is counter stereotypical. An article by Columb, and Plant (2011) looked at how the Obama effect decreased prejudice against black people. I found this article to be the most interesting, throughout the entire semester. This could be due to the fact that I had no idea the Obama effect was a real phenomenon.
And finally, a comment I did just recently that looked at a study by Hu, Antony, Creery, Vargas, Bodenhausen, and Paller (2015) where sounds were paired with counterstereotypic information. These sounds were then played during slow wave sleep. The researchers found this experiment was effective in decreasing implicit gender and racial biases for a period of one week.
These studies can be very useful to show that counterstereotypic information can decrease implicit and explicit stereotypes and biases. As part of my own growth, I am going to implement this strategy in my own life, and I hope to see a decrease in my own personal biases. Thank you for reading my blog, take care.
References
Blair I. V., Ma J. E., Lenton A. P. (2001). Imagining stereotypes away: The moderation of implicit stereotypes through mental imagery. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 828–841.
Columb, C., & Plant, E. A. (2011). Revisiting the obama effect: Exposure to obama reduces implicit prejudice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(2), 499-501. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2010.11.012
Hu, X., Antony, J., Creery, J., Vargas, I., Bodenhausen, G., & Paller, K. (2015). Unlearning implicit social biases during sleep. Science, 348(6238), 1013-1015. doi:10.1126/science.aaa3841
Exploration of Social Cognition 