首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Obama’s Success Isn’t All Good News for Black Americans As Erin White watched the election results head towards victory for
Obama’s Success Isn’t All Good News for Black Americans As Erin White watched the election results head towards victory for
admin
2013-05-04
32
问题
Obama’s Success Isn’t All Good News for Black Americans
As Erin White watched the election results head towards victory for Barack Obama, she felt a burden lifting from her shoulders. "In that one second, it was a validation for my whole race," she recalls.
"I’ve always been an achiever," says White, who is studying for an MBA at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. "But there had always been these things in the back of my mind questioning whether I really can be who I want. It was like a shadow, following me around saying you can only go so far. Now it’s like a barrier has been let down. "
White’s experience is what many psychologists had expected—that Obama would prove to be a powerful role model for African Americans. Some hoped his rise to prominence would have a big impact on white Americans, too, challenging those who still harbour racist sentiments. "The traits that characterise him are very contradictory to the racial stereotypes that black people are aggressive and uneducated," says Ashby Plant of Florida State University. "He’s very intelligent and eloquent."
Sting in the Tail
Ashby Plant is one of a number of psychologists who seized on Obama’s candidacy to test hypotheses about the power of role models. Their work is already starting to reveal how the "Obama effect" is changing people’s views and behaviour. Perhaps surprisingly, it is not all good news: there is a sting in the tail of the Obama effect.
But first the good news, Barack Obama really is a positive role model for African Americans, and he was making an impact even before he got to the White House. Indeed, the Obama effect can be surprisingly immediate and powerful, as Ray Friedman of Vanderbilt University and his colleagues discovered.
They tested four separate groups at four key stages of Obama’s presidential campaign. Each group consisted of around 120 adults of similar age and education, and the test assessed their language skills. At two of these stages, when Obama’s success was less than certain, the tests showed a clear difference between the scores of the white and black participants—an average of 12. 1 out of 20, compared to 8.8, for example. When the Obama fever was at its height, however, the black participants performed much better. Those who had watched Obama’s acceptance speech as the Democrats’ presidential candidate performed just as well, on average, as the white subjects. After his election victory, this was true of all the black participants.
Dramatic Shift
What can explain this dramatic shift? At the start of the test, the participants had to declare their race and were told their results would be used to assess their strengths and weaknesses. This should have primed the subjects with "stereotype threat"—an anxiety that their results will confirm negative stereotypes, which has been shown to damage the performance of African Americans.
Obama’s successes seemed to act as a shield against this. "We suspect they felt inspired and energised by his victory, so the stereotype threat wouldn’t prove a distraction," says Friedman.
Lingering Racism
If the Obama effect is positive for African Americans, how is it affecting their white compatriots ( 同胞 ) ? Is the experience of having a charismatic ( 有魅力的 ) black president modifying lingering racist attitudes? There is no easy way to measure racism directly; instead psychologists assess what is known as "implicit bias", using a computer-based test that measures how quickly people associate positive and negative words—such as "love" or "evil"—with photos of black or white faces. A similar test can also measure how quickly subjects associate stereotypical traits—such as athletic skills or mental ability—with a particular group.
In a study that will appear in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Plant’s team tested 229 students during the height of the Obama fever. They found that implicit bias had fallen by as much as 90% compared with the level found in a similar study in 2006. "That’s an unusually large drop," Plant says.
While the team can’t be sure their results are due solely to Obama, they also showed that those with the lowest bias were likely to subconsciously associate black skin color with political words such as "government" or "president". This suggests that Obama was strongly on their mind, says Plant.
Drop in Bias
Brian Nosek of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who runs a website that measures implicit bias using similar tests, has also observed a small drop in bias in the 700, 000 visitors to the site since January 2007, which might be explained by Obama’s rise to popularity. However, his preliminary results suggest that change will be much slower coming than Plant’s results suggest.
Talking Honestly
"People now have the opportunity of expressing support for Obama every day," says Daniel Effron at Stanford University in California. "Our research arouses the concern that people may now be more likely to raise negative views of African Americans." On the other hand, he says, it may just encourage people to talk more honestly about their feelings regarding race issues, which may not be such a bad thing.
Another part of the study suggests far more is at stake than the mere expression of views. The Obama effect may have a negative side. Just one week after Obama was elected president, participants were less ready to support policies designed to address racial inequality than they had been two weeks before the election.
Huge Obstacles
It could, of course, also be that Obama’s success helps people to forget that a disproportionate number of black Americans still live in poverty and face huge obstacles when trying to overcome these circumstances. "Barack Obama’s family is such a salient (出色的) image, we generalise it and fail to see the larger picture—that there’s injustice in every aspect of American life," says Cheryl Kaiser of the University of Washington in Seattle. Those trying to address issues of racial inequality need to constantly remind people of the inequalities that still exist to counteract the Obama effect, she says.
Though Plant’s findings were more positive, she too warns against thinking that racism and racial inequalities are no longer a problem. "The last thing I want is for people to think everything’s solved."These findings do not only apply to Obama, or even just to race. They should hold for any role model in any country."
There’s no reason we wouldn’t have seen the same effect on our views of women if Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin had been elected," says Effron. So the election of a female leader might have a downside for other women.
Beyond Race
We also don’t yet know how long the Obama effect—both its good side and its bad—will last. Political sentiment is notoriously changeable; What if things begin to go wrong for Obama, and his popularity slumps?
And what if Americans become so familiar with having Obama as their president that they stop considering his race altogether? "Over time he might become his own entity," says Plant. This might seem like the ultimate defeat for racism, but ignoring the race of certain select individuals—a phenomenon that psychologists call subtyping—also has an insidious (隐伏的) side. "We think it happens to help people preserve their beliefs, so they can still hold on to the previous stereotypes." That could turn out to be the cruelest of all the twists to the Obama effect.
What is the focus of Ashby Plant’s study?
选项
A、Racist sentiments in America.
B、The power of role models.
C、Personality traits of successful blacks.
D、The dual character of African Americans.
答案
B
解析
推理判断题。本题是问Ashby Plant的研究焦点是什么,在第一个小标题下的第一句中就提到了这个人的研究,Ashby Plant is one of a number of psychologists who seized on Obama’s candidacy to test hypotheses about the power of role models.(Ashby Plant是众多抓住奥巴马选举事件来测验关于行为榜样力量假说的心理学家之一)。据此可推断出,Plant想要研究的是role model.,所以答案选择B。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/SJB7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
Imagineamagazinethatclaimedtorankalloftheyear’smusicreleasesin【C1】______orderof"quality".No.1mightbethe【C2】
A、Uncertain.B、Optimistic.C、Pessimistic.D、Ignorant.B女士询问男士,Aircuise是否已经投入生产了。男士说还没有,但他说有很多人都在关注。由此可见,他对Aircruise的前景是乐观的。故答案为B
GameTheory:ClimateTalksDestinedtoFailAmodestlysuccessfuloutcomefromthelatestroundofinternationalclimatecha
GameTheory:ClimateTalksDestinedtoFailAmodestlysuccessfuloutcomefromthelatestroundofinternationalclimatecha
A、Theweather.B、Thecultures.C、Thecustoms.D、Thefamilymember.D事实细节题。短文提到亚洲东部一些国家的人碰到陌生人时会以提问对方一些私人问题开始他们的谈话,如家庭、家或工作。这些问题被
A、Todevelopasavingsplan.B、Tosetupabankaccount.C、Tosetclearinvestinggoals.D、Toworkoutthebudget.C信息明示题。文章第二段开
A、Thetopicoftheconversation.B、Terriblerevenge.C、Executedeathtomurder.D、AnunbelievableguiltyC对话一开始,男士问“你听到今天的新闻报道说谋
Wearequitesurethat______(今天我们所做的不只是捐一些钱).
LearningLiberalArtsinaTechnologicalAge1.人文学科在今天这个科技时代是经常被忽视的2.然而只掌握科技信息是并不全面的3.大学应该加强人文学科的教育
随机试题
一、背景A施工单位承包某外商投资的工业厂房,机电工程项目工程内容有:厂房内通风除尘、空调、消防、电气、给水排水、蒸汽锅炉、蒸汽管道、纯水系统等,其中中央空调冷冻机组、蒸汽锅炉、纯水处理设备及管道材料等为进口,由建设单位采购;纯水处理系统由建设单位
下列关于有效边界上的切点(证券组合T)的说法中,正确的有()。I.T是有效组合中唯一一个不含无风险证券而仅由风险证券构成的组合Ⅱ.有效边界FT上的任意证券组合,均可视为无风险证券F与T的再组合Ⅲ.切点(证券组合T)完全
用多余现金购买3个月期债券,表现为现金净流出。()
下列关于股份有限公司收购自身股份奖励给本公司职工的规则的表述中,符合公司法律制度规定的有()。
下列项目中,会形成应纳税暂时性差异的是()。
下列传染病主要通过血液传播的是()。
放眼世界、海纳百川,通过______、消化、______,努力推动我国科学技术跨越式发展。填入划横线部分最恰当的一项是()。
ThehistoryofAfrican—Americansduringthepast400yearsistraditionallynarrated【C1】______anongoingstruggleagainst【C2】___
劳动力成为商品,是货币转化为资本的前提。但劳动力商品是特殊商品,与一般商品对比,其特殊性具体表现在()
下列有关主键的叙述错误的是()。
最新回复
(
0
)