Beating Down the Weary

"People with low self-esteem show more signs of prejudice." e! Science News, 23 Feb. 2011. Web. 13 Oct. 2011.

The new article that I read had to deal with self esteem itself. in the article, Jeffery Sherman is quoted to have said, "This is one of the oldest accounts of why people stereotype and have prejudice: It makes us feel better about ourselves." Prejudice is something definitely still applicable into today's lifestyle.Sherman used a test designed to assess people's automatic responses  and reactions to words, phrases, pictures, etc. People were shown positive and negative words, and pictures of black or white faces. The first time, they were told to press one key for negative words and black faces, and another key for positive words and white faces. The next time, it was reversed. Positive with black, and negative with white. By measuring response time, they determined which test was more difficult for the person. If the first was more difficult and their response time was slower, they weren't prejudice. the opposite for the second test. They also did one more experiment. Sherman had the people take an incredibly difficult test. No person got more than two answers correct. Half of the participants were given their tests and told that the average score was nine, to make them feel bad about themselves, and the other half was told that their test would be graded later. the participants then repeated the first test with the words and faces, and there was indeed a change in those who were feeling bad about themselves. They also applied a mathematical model to the situation that processes the data. There was in fact a difference in people and Sherman believed it to be a correct assumption that there is a difference in people and their prejudice when they are feeling bad about themselves.

It is apparent that all in all, people can't avoid being bias. It seems like people can't avoid being prejudice about something or other, especially when they are upset about something. The author of the article did a good job of showing the results of Sherman's work, but the entire article's intent was confusing. The experiments themselves are a little juvenile, and there results wouldn't be respectable to a statician or a scientist. Also the assumption to make a distinctions among simple "faces" on a screen is simplistic and silly.

I think that this topic has promise in general, but I would venture to experiment about it in other ways. It is too simplistic in my opinion. I like the topic, but I don't think it would work for me, simply because I don't like how they went about experimenting. It may be good for others, because they would be more satisfied with simple results, but in my opinion, it isn't in depth enough.