We’ve been wrong all these years |

This is going to be a bit depressing. We always thought we could teach people all sorts of things. But, four academics (3 from Princeton, 1 from Columbia, but one of the Princeton profs is also at the Hebrew University) just burst that bubble.

And, that’s despite what Jared Cohen was doing at Google (Ideas). Jared, one of the more creatives, had worked for both Condy Rice and Hillary Clinton at the State Department, left to try and control the terror card. This work started with the Summit Against Violent Extremism [SAVE] (held in Dublin). Working with former gang leaders and terrorists, he was trying to determine if technology could be employed to deradicalize these folks. Jared’s premise is that extremism is not relegated to certain groups, but is a universal issue that lacks religious, geographical, cultural, or ideological barriers. He had reached a fair amount of success. Which may mean that these extremists thoughts are not racist-based.

Dr. Roni Parat (Hebrew U and Princeton), Dr. Betsy Paluck (Princeton), Chelsey Clark (Princeton grad student), and Dr. Donald Green (Columbia) analyzed (narrative review and meta-analysis) some 418 (they claim that’s all of them) experiments aimed at reducing prejudice conducted around the world in the past dozen years. The article, Prejudice Reduction: Progress and Challenges, was published this year in the Annual Review of Psychology. The number of experiments grew from 5 in 2007 to more than 50 in 2019.

Sure, some of the findings reported that a Jew with resentment or dislike of Arabs could be “moved” from 40 to 48 (0 is very negative, 50 is neutral, 100 is positive and warm), almost neutral on the scale. But, it turns out that end result was a 44, not a 48, as one examined the findings more closely.

When one looks at the training Fortune 500 firms provide their staff on diversity, one may see a small change for the better in attitude- but virtually no change at all in their actual behavior. (Actually, white males were unchanged; women and minorities manifested small improvements.) Another study, by Salma Mousa (Stanford), examined mixed soccer teams. (The research examined Christian Iraqi refugees [from ISIS] who remained in Iraq and played on either all Christian Teams or mixed Christian-Muslim teams. The attitudes towards Muslims did not change (although they would play soccer with the others- they wouldn’t eat in a restaurant in the Muslim sectors or participate in a social event where Muslims were present.)

To be honest (and this is a complaint I have as well), the researchers were appalled that these vast programs (often effected at great cost) are rarely tested experimentally. (They only found SIX studies in the past decade that truly examined the impact of diversity training programs.) Moreover, research tended to focus on self-reported attitudes and emotions- and not actual behavioral phenomena. This is especially important as we recognize that attitude changes rarely correlate with behavioral changes.

The concept that prejudice is psychological which means we can be taught to control and regulate that emotion. No… we can’t train prejudice away (at least as shown by these 418 experiments). Instead, the study suggests a bolder approach- go for the decision makers and key individuals in large public organizations, the media, and the private sector. By changing the system (since social behavior is mediated by one’s environment), by changing the environment we may not change folks’ attitudes, but we will change their behaviors.

I really can’t stress how important this could be if we started with our police departments or leaders in both Israel and Palestine.