{"id":36899,"date":"2017-01-13T03:00:48","date_gmt":"2017-01-13T08:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=36899"},"modified":"2017-01-12T10:33:31","modified_gmt":"2017-01-12T15:33:31","slug":"jonathan-haidt-on-the-rise-of-the-microaggression-concept","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/01\/13\/jonathan-haidt-on-the-rise-of-the-microaggression-concept\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonathan Haidt on the rise of the “microaggression” concept"},"content":{"rendered":"

He is commenting on an article in Perspectives on Psychological Science<\/em><\/a> (PDF):<\/p>\n

The microaggression program teaches students the exact opposite of ancient wisdom. Microaggression training is \u2014 by definition \u2014 instruction in how to detect ever-smaller specks in your neighbor\u2019s eye. Microaggression training tells students that \u201clife itself is exactly what you think it is \u2014 you have a direct pipeline to reality, and the person who offended you does not, so go with your feelings.\u201d Of course, the ancients could be wrong on these points, but the empirical evidence for the importance of appraisal and the ubiquity of bias and hypocrisy is overwhelming (I review it in chapters 2 and 4 of The Happiness Hypothesis<\/em>). As Lilienfeld shows, the empirical evidence supporting the utility and validity of the microaggression concept is minimal at best.<\/p>\n

I think the section of Lilienfeld\u2019s article that should most make us recoil from the microaggression program is the section on personality traits, particularly negative emotionality and the tendency to perceive oneself as a victim. These are traits \u2014 correlated with depression and anxiety disorders \u2014 that some students bring with them from high school to college. Students who score high on these traits perceive more microaggressions in ambiguous circumstances. These traits therefore bring misery and anger to the students themselves, and these negative emotions and the conflicts they engender are likely to radiate outward through the students\u2019 social networks (Christakis & Fowler, 2009). How should colleges (and other institutions) respond to the presence of high scorers in their midst? Should they offer them cognitive behavioral therapy or moral validation? Should they hand them a copy of The Dhammapada<\/em> or a microaggression training manual?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s bad enough to make the most fragile and anxious students quicker to take offense and more self-certain and self-righteous. But what would happen if you took a whole campus of diverse students, who arrive from all over the world with very different values and habits, and you train all of them to react with pain and anger to ever-smaller specks that they learn to see in each other\u2019s eyes?<\/p>\n

And what would happen if the rise of the microaggression concept coincided with the rise of social media, so that students can file charges against each other \u2014 and against their professors \u2014 within minutes of any perceived offense? The predictable result of welcoming the microaggression program to campus is turmoil, distrust, and anger. It is the end of the open environment we prize in the academy, where students feel free to speak up and challenge each other, their professors, and orthodox ideas. On a campus that polices microaggressions, everyone walks on eggshells.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

H\/T to David Thompson<\/a> for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He is commenting on an article in Perspectives on Psychological Science (PDF): The microaggression program teaches students the exact opposite of ancient wisdom. Microaggression training is \u2014 by definition \u2014 instruction in how to detect ever-smaller specks in your neighbor\u2019s eye. Microaggression training tells students that \u201clife itself is exactly what you think it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,53,13],"tags":[906,238,139,764],"class_list":["post-36899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-science","category-politics","category-usa","tag-mentalhealth","tag-offensensitivity","tag-psychology","tag-university"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-9B9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36900,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36899\/revisions\/36900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}