2nd Assignment by Howard
October 2nd, 2009 at 19:18I have recently been thinking about similarities between measurements and practices, that is, how our practices can be thought of in measurement terms. This weeks reading reminds me of the terms bias and test bias. The basic idea is that is the structure of practice is not neutral; it biases people toward certain outcomes. People often think of bias as synonymous with the term fairness in regards to the effect it has on different groups, and bias certainly includes this aspect as well. But, a more technical definition might be that practices and processes have proclivities that influence the direction of outcomes. Just as the investigation of test bias is an important research topic, so too should bias as it is found in processes and practices. I think this is just what Thaler and Ariely are doing in their investigations and examples, pointing out how the structure of practices and processes are not neutral, but have profound influence over outcomes; that is, they include bias.
I find the idea of frames interesting and relates to ideas I have been thinking about in other contexts. I often speak in terms of of frameworks, by which I mean the idea of a cognitive architecture to give structure to, or maybe to scaffold complex ideas. This is the source of the idea of an educational scaffold that acts as a superstructure and cognitive support. Frameworks are similar in some ways to paradigms, except that frames are like paradigms of everyday thinking processes.
The mind is limited by how many things can be considered and dealt with at any given time and much of what we have discussed so far is relevant to the idea that the mind is limited. Think of your senses. You have so many sensory inputs that your conscious can not process all of it. Similarly there are so many possible perspectives that you could take when interpreting what’s going on around you. Frames sort of pre-selects perspective saving the mind for other tasks (like survival; not being eaten is potentially important in an evolutionary context). Goffman’s usage of frame analysis is similar and I think is closer to philosophies like Wittgenstein’s, who said that a words meaning is found in it’s use. People gather schemata or frames from the contexts of a lived life and then use those frames to reflect back on events in order to label and interpret them.
I think that Kahneman’s ideas fits in with the above in this way. Frames are everywhere, and they’re significant in that they substantially effect how we think and act. We should be aware of them and on the lookout for their effects. In example, consider Goffman’s other work Stigma. In this work Goffman demonstrated how people who seemed different came to be labeled as deviant. Through much work and effort from the disability rights community , people with disabilities are now recognized as different, but not deviance. We are all different, just in different ways. This change was not completed easily, but with much effort. Similarly, I think that becoming aware of how our practices and schemata and opening up to changes in frames is not an easy task, or something that can change without deliberation and effort.
October 4th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
I see where you are going with the bias thing, and clearly they are doing what you say in terms of pointing out that the most innocent looking paper form at the DMV can be anything but neutral, but I think you are too kind. I don’t think that trying to point out that outcomes can be engineered is their end game so much as they are trying to figure out exactly “how” to do so. Even with “good” intentions, the point is that they are economists. They want to model what decisions will be made under which circumstances, compare different scenarios, and make policy recommendations to maximize whatever they think are the desirable maximized situations for society. Not to mention they’ll do some consulting with government–for a fee–and probably with other governments and some NGOs, and probably with corporations, sell some books, grab some speaker’s fees, etc. Don’t get me wrong; it sounds like I am saying it is a bad thing but I don’t think it is. It is important stuff and it is also okay to make money from it when you have something worth saying or sharing.
Apart from that, I think bias is quite a bit different. Bias is bias because different groups of people are affected differently by some characteristic of the test. Especially in tests, it is unintentional and undesirable; developers closely monitor for it and work very hard to eliminate it–and not just out of the good of their hearts–it goes to the very purpose of testing and the test is useless if it is biased. This thing they are advocating is to engineer choice. They are saying that since everyone will make their decision the same way, everyone can be controlled the same way. That is basically the absence of bias. Further, because they know how to control the outcome of the decision, it apparently makes it okay to do so. That sounds a little scary to me!
I had been thinking about scaffolding of learning at a couple of points, too.
And paradigms came up in my mind, too, along with lens, perspective and worldview. It seems to be a recurring concept but the terminology is different in different disciplines. I know in my education program they were always pushing us to identify, make explicit, and critically examine our hegemonic assumptions (which are things we believe because we’ve been brainwashed by the prevailing power structures and ruling institutions of our society).
I got a kick out of your response. I, too, thought about the evolutionary benefits and the survival thing at a couple of points this week.