when you encounter someone living on the streets?
I was shocked to learn this but it helpful to understand how ingrained our prejudices are when it comes to sizing up other people. A neurological study conducted at Princeton last year and published in Psychological Science demonstrated that when the test subjects were presented with images of homeless people or drug addicts their brain reacted with the same activity that it did when shown images "designed to provoke disgust like an overflowing toilet."
A co-author of the study had this to say of the findings:
"It's shocking," she said. "The disgust reaction and the lowered medial pre-frontal cortex reaction is really getting close to saying, 'This isn't a person whose mental state we have to think about. This is barely even a person.'"
Some of us overcompensate for these sublimated reactions with extra compassion and concern. But what about others? Might they tend to react in a hostile manner towards someone they have stereotyped as being "sub-human"?
You can find a brief article on the study at Seed Magazine here:
http://seedmagazine.com/news/2006/07/what_you_think_but_dont_say.php
e martë, 10 korrik 2007
What does your mind "see"...
Abonohu te:
Posto komente (Atom)
1 koment:
Fascinating post. I think the study you referenced points out a significant, but sometimes forgotten aspect of fighting the causes of homelessness. In no way should we minimize the importance of what I'll call for lack of a better phrase, the politics of homelessness, by which I mean the legislative, economic battles to ensure that people without homes have access to adequate healthcare, living wage jobs, and affordable housing. However, we must also keep focus on the cultural side of the fight against the causes of homelessness. We need to constantly remind mainstream society that homelessness has a human face. I think this is exactly what the Speaker's Bureau at the Coalition does so well, and what I hope Voices of Hope can also help achieve.
Posto një koment