Blink one

1. Describe how Warren Harding rose through the Republican Party to become President in 1920.
Warren Harding rose through the Republican Party to become president by other people’s encouragement and not through his own passion. People felt that he looked like a president, and when the Republican Party came to a dead lock in deciding who the candidate should be they picked Harding. Harding was picked because he looked like a president, he wasn’t picked because of his ideals or what he wanted to do for the country, but because he seemed to radiate common sense and dignity. “By early middle age, Harding’s biographer Francis Russell writes, his ‘lusty black eyebrows contrasted with his steel-gray hair to give the effect of force, his massive shoulders and bronzed complexion gave the effect of health’” The appearance of him made people assume that he would be a powerful man who could be a great president.
2. Why does the author believe that people were in error in promoting Harding to higher office?
The author believes that people were wrong in promoting Harding to higher office because it was done only on the fact that he looked like a president. They used ‘Thin-slicing’ and only looked at the fact that he possessed such an aura of power that they became to caught up in the fact that because he looks like this he must be a powerful. Because of prior knowledge of how successful presidents looked they became prejudice towards the way he looked, and automatically assumed that he would do a good job because presidents from the past who had power in the way they looked had done a good job. However, since people did not bother to see if he was actually fit for the job, he ended up becoming one of the worst presidents ever.

3. What was the point of the “Implicit Association Test (IAT)?”
The point of the IAT test is to show how observations from the world around us (including media) create connections of things that we pair together. The IAT test tries to show these connections. For example: if you took of list of names, family stuff, and career things and to separate them into two categories “male or career” or “female or family” according to the belief of the IAT test it would be quite simple. But however if you were to take the same list and separate them into the categories “male and family” and “female and career” it would take you longer or be a little harder, according to the belief of the IAT test. Gladwell states that this is because we are used to having family stuff connected with women and career stuff with men in our lives, so when it comes to putting the words in categories you would want to put the family words in the same category as the female name category. Making it a little bit harder.
4. What are the advantages to completing the IAT on computer? Why does Gladwell believe the IAT has become “so popular in recent years?”
The advantages of completing the IAT test on computer is that the words can be flashed in front of you, making it so you have to chose your first reaction, and not have time to analyze your answer. By doing this it makes it so you are able to get a score based off of the connections in your brain, not off of your morals. It has become very popular in recent years because the results are not subtle or vague, it comes as a shock to some people that they have these connections drilled into their head.

5. Why, according to Gladwell, did he become mortified upon completion of the first part of the IAT test on race? What occurred on the second part of the IAT test?
Gladwell became mortifies upon the completion of the first part of the test because he found it hard to put bad things in the category ‘European American or Bad’ rather than ‘African American or Good’. The second part of the test switched the categories, making them ‘European American and Good’ and ‘African American and Bad’. He then found this column a lot easier to complete.

6. Did it make any difference how many times Gladwell took the test? What does the author believe is the reason for our answers on the IAT (i.e. what does the IAT measure)?
It didn’t matter how many times Gladwell took the test, after four times he found he still had the same answer. According to the test he had a ‘moderate automatic preference for whites’, which was quite odd considering that he himself is half black. Gladwell believes that the test does not necessarily measure our hatred of a certain race, but more of the connections that are instilled into our brains by the society around us. Living in North America, which is dominantly, white prejudices are installed in our brains that are pro-white.

7. If Gladwell is correct, that your unconscious acts as a computer that “crunches all the data” from our lives and “it forms an opinion”; would you consider this to your true self? Please explain your answer.
I would defiantly agree with this statement. We can act a certain way just because that’s how we believe that is what is right. However in our subconscious if we have a certain belief engraved in there no matter how much we fight it, or may not eve recognize it, we may act differently because of the prejudice. For example, a person can say that they are not a racist. But because of where they live it is a mostly white population, maybe their grandparents grew up during a time when African Americans were fighting for equal rights and they were racists. The prejudices that are installed in this person may lead this person to act differently around an African American than around a white person without even realizing it.

8. Does Gladwell feel that it matters if one has a “strongly pro-white pattern of associations?”
Gladwell does feel that it matters if one has a ‘strongly pro-white pattern of associations”. He feels as if this person will act significantly different than someone who does not around a African American. They might laugh a bit more at their jokes, stand a bit farther away from him or her, smile a lot, stumble over words, and other things like that.

9. How does the Warren Harding error impact the business world?
The Warren Harding error impacts the business world because people are more likely to employ people who seem to give off an aura of power. For example there is a larger amount of taller people employed in higher positions in the business world then there is short people. This is because tall people tend do give off a more powerful stance, (since they have more mass to control) people tend to make the same prejudices that were made to Harding, judging off of the look of power from their outside rather than the power actually in them

10. How does Bob Golomb’s strategy defeat the Warren Harding error?
Bob Golomb is a car salesman who tries to not judge people at all. He listens to the customer and always thinks that this person is going to buy a car, and doesn’t blow them off because of the way they are dressed or their race, height or age. He also keeps in contact with each of his customers, making sure that each one is happy, ensuring that he is not biased to one race or gender.
11. What were the results of the Ayres study? What does Gladwell believe to be the explanation for these results?
The results of the Ayres study was that black men and black women received higher prices than that of white men and women. Gladwell believes that in their subconscious they have the prejudice from the world around them that women and African Americans are inferior which lead them to thinking that they could make more money off of them by selling the car for the ticket price.

12. How does Gladwell believe you can change your score on the race IAT? How, according to Gladwell, can we apply this rule to our everyday lives? Do you agree?Gladwell believes that you can change your score by looking at good things that were done by African Americans and bad things done by European Americans before taking the test. He also believes that if you expose yourself to minorities in your daily life it will help to raise your score. For the most part I agree with this, but only if it is done for a while. I don’t believe you can spend a few hours with an minority then drastically change your score. I feel that if over time you expose yourself to minorities and good influential African Americans your score will be raised.