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AVOIDING BIASED LANGUAGE

AVOIDING BIASED LANGUAGE. PSY 311. Are people who use biased language evil?. “When we are not careful, we take mental shortcuts that allow us to describe a group of individuals quickly , but that description could be far from accurate .” Problem: How do we describe participants? .

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AVOIDING BIASED LANGUAGE

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  1. AVOIDING BIASED LANGUAGE PSY 311

  2. Are people who use biased language evil? • “When we are not careful, we take mental shortcuts that allow us to describe a group of individuals quickly, but that description could be far from accurate.” • Problem: How do we describe participants?

  3. SOLUTION • In psychological research: Concise & Accurate OVERLY concise & Vague

  4. EXAMPLE • Schizophrenics • Those individuals with paranoid schizophrenic symptoms

  5. “view people as individuals first”

  6. “view people as individuals first” PEOPLE ARE MORE THAN LABELS • LABELS: • Sexual orientation • Racial & ethnic identity • Disabilities • Occupations • Gender

  7. EXAMPLE • Diabetics People with diabetes • High self-esteem students Students who report high self-esteem

  8. LABELS: • Sexual orientation • Sexual orientation vs. sexual behavior • Lesbian, gay man, bisexual man, bisexual woman (APA, 2010) • Racial & ethnic identity • Race vs. ethnicity • Ethnicity: self-identify (e.g., American Indians, African Americans, Latinos, Chinese, etc.) • Race: ? • Disabilities • Individuals with disabilities vs. disabled people • Avoid emotionally charged words (e.g., crippled, handicapped, retarded, physically challenged, stroke victim, etc.) • Occupations • Titles often contain gender bias • e.g., fireman, chairman, policeman/policewoman, male nurse, woman doctor, etc. • Gender

  9. GENDER • AVOID • he or she whenever possible

  10. SOLUTIONS: • Drop the pronoun • Biased: The experimenter checked to see if his class points were recorded. • Unbiased: The experimenter checked to see if class points were recorded. • Replace the pronoun with nouns • (e.g., person, individual, researcher, participant, etc.) • Biased: We wanted to determine if his or her prior experiences influenced current attitudes. • Unbiased: We wanted to determine if the participant’s prior experiences influenced current attitudes. • Simplify the sentence • Biased: Anyone wanting to sign up for the experiment needs to use his/her student identification number. • Unbiased: Student identification numbers are necessary for signing up for the experiment.

  11. Questions?

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