Describe Other Measurements Sociologists Use To Calculate Prejudice?

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lesley louis Profile
lesley louis answered
Prejudice is an adverse judgment without knowing the relevant facts or formation of an opinion beforehand without good justification.

Sociologists do have tools to facilitate them in measuring prejudice. The common form is conducting surveys with open-ended questions, like that in Likert Scale surveys. The Bogardus Scale, although an old measurement tool, is still used for prejudice measurement against a certain group of people.

Another, tool is the Harvard’s Implicit Association Test (IAT). Some contemporary measurement tools are also used in addition to the writing instruments, these days.

The tools like MRIs; brain scans and other bio-diagonstic tools are considered accurate as compared to written tools, where a person might refrain from sharing the right information or maybe is indulgent in self-deception.

Likert is a psychometric scale, commonly used in questionnaires, that has different level of agreements, against each question, for those who are filling in the questionnaire. This is a widely used scale in survey research.

The Bogardus Social Distance Scale empirically measures people’s willingness to participate in social contacts of varying degrees of closeness with the members of diverse social groups. These groups can be other races, ethnic groups, homosexuals etc.

The Implicit Association Test is however an experimental measure within social psychology. It is designed to detect the strength of a person’s automatic association between representations of concepts in his memory. The test requires rapid categorization of the target concepts with an attribute. The pairing are later studied and interpreted. The faster pairings are stronger, whereas, the slower pairing are weaker concepts. These results measure an individual’s implicit attitudes, many times even without his awareness.
Anonymous Profile
Anonymous answered
Bogardus scale, created by Emory Bogardus, is widely used to calculate prejudice.
I also took the IAT test and I felt rushed through the test, yet I do feel that my result was accurate.
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Anonymous answered
I must agree with the test are not a hundred percent. First of all the way the test is, it looks like all the bad things are associated with one type of race. This is an untrue thought as well as distribution. You can not determine how prejudice one person is because they may not express it or they may tell you what you want to hear. How can you truly know!
Aisha Profile
Aisha answered
Prejudice refers to prejudgement or making a decision without knowing the relevant facts. Sociologists have termed prejudice as an adaptive behaviour. It can occur because of the following reasons:
- Biased views might be needed for survival.
-not having enough time to form a legitimate view about a potential foe before adopting a defensive stance.
You can not specifically measure prejudice. .

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Anonymous
Anonymous commented
I respectfully disagree, Aicha. Sociologists do have tools to help them measure prejudice. A lot of times Sociologists with conduct surveys with controlled questions or scenarios to help them in their quest for answers. If you don't believe me, go to this website: http://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/index.jsp, At the IAT Home page, click on the Go to the Demonstration Tests link, At the Measure Your Attitudes page, find and click on the I wish to proceed link. You will then be prompted to select a test.

Good luck to you, Titi12. I hope this answers your questions.

Keyana
Anonymous
Anonymous commented
Msanayek..I disagree with you about sociologists being able to measure prejudice. I have gone to that website, because my teacher had us do it as an homework assignment. However, it is not 100% proof positive.
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Anonymous answered
I don't think anyone was contesting whether or not the information or results were accurate. Cause I too, took the IAT test, and I don't feel it was accurate. But I think what the others were attempting to say was that those are in fact different ways that SOCIOLOGIST measure prejudice. Food for thought.
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Anonymous answered
Misnjak,
I would have to disagree with you on sociologist being able to measure prejudice. I had to go to that website for school just like Lisa08 and I took the test and my results could not of been more wrong. So it shows the test is not accurate.
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Anonymous
Anonymous commented
Or it means that the results you got are the way you really feel. It is not always that the results or tests must be wrong. Sometimes we need to look at ourselves a little longer when we are faced with the results. Was there any truth to your results at all that you just may not want to admit to yourself and the world. Something to think about. I took a test on that website as well and it was right on. I agree with you Keyana.
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Anonymous answered
I took the test as well and it was accurate for me however I can see how it might not be in all cases
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Anonymous answered
Everyone, I took the test 3 times, and got a different answer each time. It just depends on the order in which the "training" session begins. Each time I took the test, it began "training" me starting with a different pattern. Don't be fooled.
Anonymous Profile
Anonymous answered
I took the test as well, it was completely accurate. The results revealed things I knew were true.
Anonymous Profile
Anonymous answered
I also took the IAT test and it was totally wrong.  I am not prejudice by no means for my husband is Puerto Rican.  This is not an accurate test at all.
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Anonymous answered
I had to take this test as well for an assignment...this test was completely useless and a waste of time.  I took the skin-test...it spent 5 minutes judging how fast my eyes could determine the difference of skin color, and associate it with either the e or the I button, then how fast I could actually push the correct button.  This is a hand-eye coordination test, and has absolutely nothing to do with the unconscious or conscious prejudice of an individual.  The few questions asked at the end were the exact same question, asked over and over; now granted I have been trained by the military to a fairly great extent...but anyone can just select what they want, and boom, they aren't prejudice?  Not an accurate tool at all.
...and Dejean...the only think a lie detector test can tell you is if you are sweating a lot, and if you can or can't control your heart rate.
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Anonymous
Anonymous commented
I completely agree with you on this. I took the test for a cultural diversity class, and I have to say, it was a waste of my time, as well. It basically tested if I could tell the difference between European Americans, Asian Americans, American landmarks, and Foreign (non-American) landmarks. How hard is that? The results said I made no association between any of the different images. Why? Because I know the difference! This test has no measure on prejudice whatsoever.
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Anonymous answered
I was looking for more information in reference to measurements sociologists use to calculate prejudice but this is interesting. I, too, took the IAT test and found that it was more of a hand-eye coordination test and it, in my opinion, is not accurate. If you put the wrong person or word in the wrong category it shows you a "big red X" so you can change your answer. I am doing this for my Cultural Diversity class as well.  I felt that it gave us no options in the long run. You were going to get the grade it wanted no matter what you did or chose.
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