Original Post
Dear whiny babies
Two articles I want to present to you today. I'll quote the abstracts and link the full texts.
First article, by Nick Haslam (full text can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/publica..._and_Pathology) is about the idea of 'concept creep'.
Here's the abstract;
In essence, concepts are continually being redefined all the time. This particular research focuses on concepts relating to harm, like bullying and prejudice. These definitions are being made broader, to include things that weren't previously weren't included. Haslam identifies two ways that concepts become broader, vertical and horizontal expansion. Vertical expansion has to do with the 'threshold' of identification of the concept being lowered or through 'relaxation' of the defining criteria. Horizontal expansion has to do with the concept taking on entirely new meanings or applications.
For example;
The concept of bullying originally had 3 core traits - The behaviour was a) intentional, b) repetitive and c) carried out in the context of power imbalance. Haslam argues bullying has (mainly) horizontally expanded. Cyber-bullying, while closely resembling 'traditional bullying' is a new application of the concept and has its own intricacies. Another way bullying has been expanded is that it was formerly associated with verbal and physical acts, but now acts of 'manipulation' are included (e.g. ignoring or excluding others (ingroup/outgrouping).
You can read the article yourself, but I'll summarise it a little bit more. The concept of trauma has been vertically expanded (used to be a 'traumatic' event would be considered traumatic if 'almost everyone' considered it to be traumatic - This 'almost everyone' check is no longer applied). Prejudice used to refer to direct and expressed hostile intergroup antipathy - This has now expanded to 'inferred' antipathy and is no longer exclusively hostile ('aversive' prejudice is based on fear/unease/discomfort). The creation of the concept of microaggression further broadens the concept of prejudice. I'll quote Haslam directly here;
With that in mind, let's move on to the second article - "Prevalence-induced concept change in human judgment". Full text can be found here (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6396/1465), it's a lot shorter than the other article.
The abstract;
When we look for things, we tend to find it, even when it's not there.
These researchers showed a bunch of people a series of dots and asked them to press a button when they identified a blue dot. Everything goes fine, people identify blue dots as blue. Then they make blue dots more scarce. What happens? People start identifying purple dots as blue. They repeated this experiment with faces, asking participants to press a button when they saw a threatening face. As the threatening faces become scarce, people identified neutral faces as threatening.
Which leads me to my point. Despite all the progress we've made as a society (truly harmful things becoming scarcer), people are looking for ways to point out how bad it is. Because they're searching for ways to be upset and offended, they'll expand their definitions of concepts (concept creep) until they can feel satisfactorily victimized. As Haslam included in his abstract, 'concept creep runs the risk of pathologizing everyday experience and encouraging a sense of virtuous but impotent victimhood.' Does that ring any bells?
Personal theory of mine, but this has all happened because of the pussification of society (if you're offended by that term, you're the problem). Historians noted it with the Romans (and pretty much any hedgemonic powers that became complacent, soft and 'decadent'). People are soft cus their society, free from existential harm, has made them so. What do you think WW1 survivors would make of microaggressions, having just come from seeing their next-door-neighbour get machinegunned to mincemeat in the trenches, while standing next to them? People who've been hardened by modern wars often also have the same disregard for this soft, hyperliberal concept creep bullshit.
Harden the fuck up. Stop crying. Go to war/Go do some combat sport and get punched in the face.
I am not a transphobe for not wanting to fuck a transexual. I am not a bigot for not wanting to fuck anyone I decide not to fuck, while we're at it. Fuck off.
First article, by Nick Haslam (full text can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/publica..._and_Pathology) is about the idea of 'concept creep'.
Here's the abstract;
Originally Posted by Nick Haslam
Many of psychology’s concepts have undergone semantic shifts in recent years. These conceptual changes follow a consistent trend. Concepts that refer to the negative aspects of human experience and behavior have expanded their meanings so that they now encompass a much broader range of phenomena than before. This expansion takes ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ forms: concepts extend outward to capture qualitatively new phenomena and downward to capture quantitatively less extreme phenomena. The concepts of abuse, bullying, trauma, mental disorder, addiction, and prejudice are examined to illustrate these historical changes. In each case, the concept’s boundary has stretched and its meaning has dilated. A variety of explanations for this pattern of ‘concept creep’ are considered and its implications are explored. I contend that the expansion primarily reflects an ever-increasing sensitivity to harm, reflecting a liberal moral agenda. Its implications are ambivalent, however. Although conceptual change is inevitable and often well motivated, concept creep runs the risk of pathologizing everyday experience and encouraging a sense of virtuous but impotent victimhood.
In essence, concepts are continually being redefined all the time. This particular research focuses on concepts relating to harm, like bullying and prejudice. These definitions are being made broader, to include things that weren't previously weren't included. Haslam identifies two ways that concepts become broader, vertical and horizontal expansion. Vertical expansion has to do with the 'threshold' of identification of the concept being lowered or through 'relaxation' of the defining criteria. Horizontal expansion has to do with the concept taking on entirely new meanings or applications.
For example;
The concept of bullying originally had 3 core traits - The behaviour was a) intentional, b) repetitive and c) carried out in the context of power imbalance. Haslam argues bullying has (mainly) horizontally expanded. Cyber-bullying, while closely resembling 'traditional bullying' is a new application of the concept and has its own intricacies. Another way bullying has been expanded is that it was formerly associated with verbal and physical acts, but now acts of 'manipulation' are included (e.g. ignoring or excluding others (ingroup/outgrouping).
You can read the article yourself, but I'll summarise it a little bit more. The concept of trauma has been vertically expanded (used to be a 'traumatic' event would be considered traumatic if 'almost everyone' considered it to be traumatic - This 'almost everyone' check is no longer applied). Prejudice used to refer to direct and expressed hostile intergroup antipathy - This has now expanded to 'inferred' antipathy and is no longer exclusively hostile ('aversive' prejudice is based on fear/unease/discomfort). The creation of the concept of microaggression further broadens the concept of prejudice. I'll quote Haslam directly here;
Originally Posted by Nick Haslam
All of the forms of prejudice just reviewed are usually understood from the standpoint of the perpetrator of prejudice. Particular social actors are prejudiced and their attitudes are objective elements of their psychology. However, some research implies that prejudice exists at least in part in the eyes of the target. Research on microaggressions (Sue et al., 2007), for example, takes the target’s perceptions of prejudiceas clear evidence of its existence: If a target perceives a slight as evidence of prejudice, then it is taken as such, even if the slight is ambiguous and its author denies it. Of course, many prejudiced acts are unambiguous, target perceptions may tend to be accurate,and denials of prejudice are frequently not credible. Nevertheless, to count perceived discrimination and ambiguous microaggressions as unqualified instances of prejudice is to subjectivize the concept.
With that in mind, let's move on to the second article - "Prevalence-induced concept change in human judgment". Full text can be found here (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6396/1465), it's a lot shorter than the other article.
The abstract;
Originally Posted by Levari et al.
Why do some social problems seem so intractable? In a series of experiments, we show that people often respond to decreases in the prevalence of a stimulus by expanding their concept of it. When blue dots became rare, participants began to see purple dots as blue; when threatening faces became rare, participants began to see neutral faces as threatening; and when unethical requests became rare, participants began to see innocuous requests as unethical. This “prevalence-induced concept change” occurred even when participants were forewarned about it and even when they were instructed and paid to resist it. Social problems may seem intractable in part because reductions in their prevalence lead people to see more of them.
When we look for things, we tend to find it, even when it's not there.
These researchers showed a bunch of people a series of dots and asked them to press a button when they identified a blue dot. Everything goes fine, people identify blue dots as blue. Then they make blue dots more scarce. What happens? People start identifying purple dots as blue. They repeated this experiment with faces, asking participants to press a button when they saw a threatening face. As the threatening faces become scarce, people identified neutral faces as threatening.
Which leads me to my point. Despite all the progress we've made as a society (truly harmful things becoming scarcer), people are looking for ways to point out how bad it is. Because they're searching for ways to be upset and offended, they'll expand their definitions of concepts (concept creep) until they can feel satisfactorily victimized. As Haslam included in his abstract, 'concept creep runs the risk of pathologizing everyday experience and encouraging a sense of virtuous but impotent victimhood.' Does that ring any bells?
Personal theory of mine, but this has all happened because of the pussification of society (if you're offended by that term, you're the problem). Historians noted it with the Romans (and pretty much any hedgemonic powers that became complacent, soft and 'decadent'). People are soft cus their society, free from existential harm, has made them so. What do you think WW1 survivors would make of microaggressions, having just come from seeing their next-door-neighbour get machinegunned to mincemeat in the trenches, while standing next to them? People who've been hardened by modern wars often also have the same disregard for this soft, hyperliberal concept creep bullshit.
Harden the fuck up. Stop crying. Go to war/Go do some combat sport and get punched in the face.
I am not a transphobe for not wanting to fuck a transexual. I am not a bigot for not wanting to fuck anyone I decide not to fuck, while we're at it. Fuck off.
Last edited by Ele; Feb 9, 2020 at 07:30 PM.
This post comes off awfully defensive and self justifying for someone that insists they've said / done nothing wrong and are not the problem.
Addicted-re 07-16
24/07/2019. I'll find you again my friend.
I mean Ele has a point lmfao. I used to get beat with a belt or tanned with a spoon if I acted up. Nowadays that's "child abuse" to those who must've had senseless parents and god forbid those people ever have children. A perfect reason for how to ensure discipline in kids. Corporal Punishment is the term.
| Dargon Moderated Message: |
| Infracted for having the best goddamn replays in Toribash history. |
Originally Posted by Icky
This post comes off awfully defensive and self justifying for someone that insists they've said / done nothing wrong and are not the problem.
I'm sure it does come off like that to you. You're kinda apart of the target audience.
Want to actually engage with the research or the points I made, or nah?
Last edited by Ele; Feb 9, 2020 at 07:45 PM.
Lol not even slightly, I'll bail on that harder than you did on our meet with solax + sparky.
Addicted-re 07-16
24/07/2019. I'll find you again my friend.
