Power and the Evolution of Inequity

2019 ◽  
pp. 105-132
Author(s):  
Cailin O'Connor
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Bargaining Game ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Expected Outcome ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Resource Division ◽  
Relevant Factors

The chapter starts with an introduction of the primary paradigm used in this half of the book—the bargaining game. It uses this model to show why in groups with social categories fairness in bargaining is not the expected outcome of cultural evolution. Instead, social categories act as a symmetry breaker that stabilizes inequitable bargaining conventions. The chapter then turns to the role power plays in the evolution of bargaining. Powerful groups often gain an advantage with respect to the emergence of conventions of resource division. This can lead to compounding processes that profoundly disadvantage some social groups. These models make especially clear how irrelevant markers like race and gender can come to be more important in determining resource division than relevant factors, such as individual status.

How race and gender shape the development of social prototypes in the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Lei ◽  
Rachel Leshin ◽  
Kelsey Moty ◽  
Emily Foster-Hanson ◽  
Marjorie Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Female Gender ◽  
The United States ◽  
Asian Woman ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Cultural Ideologies ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender Categories

The present studies examined how gender and race information shape children’s prototypes of various social categories. Children (N=543; Mage=5.81, range=2.75 - 10.62; 281 girls, 262 boys; 193 White, 114 Asian, 71 Black, 50 Hispanic, 39 Multiracial, 7 Middle-Eastern, 69 race unreported) most often chose White people as prototypical of boys and men—a pattern that increased with age. For female gender categories, children most often selected a White girl as prototypical of girls, but an Asian woman as prototypical of women. For superordinate social categories (person and kid), children tended to choose members of their own gender as most representative. Overall, the findings reveal how cultural ideologies and identity-based processes interact to shape the development of social prototypes across childhood.

scholarly journals Beyond Symptoms: Race and Gender Predict Anxiety Disorder Diagnosis

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Vanderminden ◽  
Jennifer J. Esala
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Anxiety Symptoms ◽  
Adult Health ◽  
Unequal Distribution ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Sociology Of Diagnosis ◽  
And Gender ◽  
To Receive

Research shows an unequal distribution of anxiety disorder symptoms and diagnoses across social groups. Bridging stress process theory and the sociology of diagnosis and drawing on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we examine inequity in the prevalence of anxiety symptoms versus diagnosis across social groups (the “symptom-to-diagnoses gap”). Bivariate findings suggest that while several disadvantaged groups are more likely to experience symptoms of anxiety, they are not more likely to receive a diagnosis. Multivariate results indicate that after controlling for anxiety symptoms: (1) Being female still predicts an anxiety disorder diagnosis, and (2) Native American, white, and Hispanic/Latino respondents are more likely than black respondents to receive an anxiety disorder diagnosis. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of race and gender bias in diagnosis and the health trajectories for persons with undiagnosed anxiety disorders.

The Origins of Unfairness

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cailin O'Connor
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Evolutionary Game Theory ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Game ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Racial Categories ◽  
Dynamic Forces ◽  
Resource Division ◽  
Race And Religion

The central aim of this book is to explore the ways in which social categories—especially gender, but also categories like race and religion—interact with and contribute to social solutions to problems of coordination and resource division. In particular, this book uses formal frameworks—game theory and evolutionary game theory—to explore the cultural evolution of conventions that piggyback on seemingly irrelevant factors like gender and race. As I argue, these frameworks elucidate a variety of topics. In particular, these frameworks help show how inequity can emerge from simple processes of cultural change. In groups with gender and racial categories, the process of learning conventions of coordination and resource division is such that under a wide array of situations some groups will tend to get more and others less. One theme that runs throughout the book is that surprisingly minimal conditions are needed to robustly produce phenomena related to inequity that we usually think of as psychologically complex. It takes very little to generate a situation in which social categories (like gender) are almost guaranteed to emerge. The preconditions under which models move toward outcomes that look like discrimination are, again, very minimal. Once inequity emerges in these models, it takes very little for it to persist indefinitely. Thus, we need to think of inequity as part of an ever-evolving process. It is not something we can expect to fix and be done with. Along these lines, the picture I present is ultimately one where those concerned with social justice must remain vigilant against the dynamic forces that push toward inequity.

scholarly journals Face Processing in Infancy and Beyond: The Case of Social Categories

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul C. Quinn ◽  
Kang Lee ◽  
Olivier Pascalis
Keyword(s):  
Face Processing ◽  
Social And Emotional Development ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Perceptual Development ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Social And Emotional ◽  
Category Formation ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Differential Experience ◽  
Social Biases

Prior reviews of infant face processing have emphasized how infants respond to faces in general. This review highlights how infants come to respond differentially to social categories of faces based on differential experience, with a focus on race and gender. We examine six different behaviors: preference, recognition, scanning, category formation, association with emotion, and selective learning. Although some aspects of infant responding to face race and gender may be accounted for by traditional models of perceptual development, other aspects suggest the need for a broader model that links perceptual development with social and emotional development. We also consider how responding to face race and gender in infancy may presage responding to these categories beyond infancy and discuss how social biases favoring own-race and female faces are formed.

The Development of Intersectional Social Prototypes

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Lei ◽  
Rachel Leshin ◽  
Marjorie Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Asian Women ◽  
Category Representation ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Gender Categorization ◽  
Developmental Shift ◽  
Gender Information ◽  
And Gender

Race and gender information overlap to shape adults’ representations of social categories. This overlap can lead to the “psychological invisibility” of people whose race and gender identities are perceived to have conflicting stereotypes. The present research examines whether and when race begins to bias representations of gender across development. Using a speeded categorization task, Study 1 revealed that children were slower to categorize Black women as women, relative to White and Asian women as women and Black men as men. Children were also more likely to mis-categorize Black women as men and less likely to stereotype Black women as feminine. Study 2 replicated these findings and provided evidence of a developmental shift in categorization speed. An omnibus analysis provided a high-powered test of developmental hypotheses, revealing that target race began biasing children’s gender categorization around age 5. Implications for the development of social category representation are discussed.

scholarly journals RDoC, Psychopathology, and Naturalism: What’s New Is What’s Old?

2018 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-25
Author(s):  
Douglas Porter
Keyword(s):  
User Participation ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Research Domain Criteria ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Research Domain

The Research Domain Criteria project, although innovative, remains thoroughly grounded in a naturalist conception of psychopathology. Exploring the meaning of psychopathology with reference to social categories such as race and gender makes it apparent that, by taking this naturalist approach, Research Domain Criteria runs the risk of treating contingent social norms as immutable facts of nature. The political impact of this approach is inherently conservative as it perpetuates the status quo, even if the status quo entails discrimination. These political effects are not an inevitable outcome of the application of neuroscience to the study of psychopathology. Exploring the implications of neuroplasticity demonstrates that maintaining rigid dichotomies between the biological and the social is untenable. Accordingly, taking a neuroscience approach to psychopathology actually reveals the significance of social science, phenomenological, and narrative-based approaches to research and ultimately points toward the ethical significance of service user participation in the science of nosology.

Why Social Cognitive Development Research Needs Intersectionality

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Lei ◽  
Marjorie Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Middle Childhood ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Development Research ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Multiple Category ◽  
And Gender

Children develop rich concepts of social categories based on gender, race, and other social dimensions throughout early and middle childhood. However, less is known about the development of representations at the intersection of multiple categories. This is a critical issue because overlooking how children integrate information about multiple category identities causes a major gap in our understanding of the development of social cognition. To address this issue, we suggest researchers adopt an intersectional framework. By intersectional framework, we mean consideration of both how power structures contribute to systems of inequality as well as variability in how group-based bias is expressed towards people with one vs. multiple minoritized identities. Using research on children’s use of race and gender, we describe how our current understanding of social categorization is incomplete, and how an intersectional framework can advance both equity and theory.

Intersectionality

2019 ◽  
pp. 40-49
Author(s):  
Hilde Lindemann
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
And Gender

The chapter begins with examples of intersectionality that display how it works. While particular attention is given to the intersections of race and gender, the concept is shown to apply beyond race and gender to cover any social groups against which discrimination is directed. After critiques of intersectionality are addressed, students are introduced to the concept of microaggressions and shown how these too are intersectional.

scholarly journals A Sociological Analysis of Bhojpuri Jhoomar in Mauritius

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 230-239
Author(s):  
Jayganesh Dawosing
Keyword(s):  
21St Century ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Present Generation ◽  
And Gender

To ensure a significant place among both the local and international Bhojpuri singers, the singers keep reproducing the cultural content of this type of Bhojpuri songs, called the ‘Jhoomar’ which literally means dancing in a circular motion. However, in this process of cultural evolution, the fear of either preserving the traditional or digressing from the latter will always be there. This paper deals with the sociological analysis of jhoomar songs of the present generation who create new lyrics in the Mauritian Bhojpuri songs. For entertainment purposes, some singers, at times, interpret the traditional forms in an expression of personal or group identity. The recent albums of certain of the artistes deal with contemporary issues, true to an articulation of social hierarchies, most notably race, gender and class. In correspondence to contemporary issues, a research question arises with the preservation of traditional form, how do the contemporary songs relate to broader social distinctions, especially class, race and gender? Fieldwork with local Bhojpuri singers has helped in understanding the significance of the study. This paper argues from a conceptual analysis of popular cultural significance of the study. The content of these jhoomar songs are relevant in culture and music of the 21st century, entailing fascinating issues of discussion.

scholarly journals Africa em Lisboa - Os Indígenas da Guiné na Grande Exposiçã o Industrial and Guiné Aldeia Indígena em Lisboa - 1932: the portrayal of the female body

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 219-238
Author(s):  
Francesca de Rosa
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Female Body ◽  
Black Female ◽  
Digital Archive ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Theoretical Frame ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Dominant Narratives

In this essay I will discuss the iconographic constructions developed by the Portuguese colonial project, arguing that Estado Novo has used cinema to consolidate social categories defined by the regime propaganda, using a discourse based on reality and authenticity and through the projection of stereotyped structures such as race and gender. Moving in the background of the theoretical frame on the concepts of archive and digital archive, the analysis will focus on a deconstructive re-interpretation of colonial and dominant narratives in two documentaries realized for the Portuguese industrial exposition in 1932, África em Lisboa – Os Indígenas da Guiné na Grande Exposição Industrial ((Africa in Lisbon- The Indigenous People of Guinea in The Great Industrial Exhibition) and Guiné Aldeia Indígena em Lisboa – 1932 (Guinea Indigenous Village in Lisbon- 1932). The discussion will hence be centered on the representation and the construction of relations of dominance and power over the black female body.

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