Simple and complex judgments or decision-making are often performed in conditions which are not ideally rational, and the cognitive thought-process of the brain in fact follows unstated heuristics besides logic. Current research in cognitive reasoning finds that it takes more energy for the subject to expel prejudicial or biased heuristic thinking, following the original findings of Kahneman and Tversky (1979), and the study will include 60 York University graduate students consisting of a mixed sexual and racial sample pool. They will be issued independent variable (IV) questions associating word recognition with racial stereotypes, followed by sample articles which will oppositely reflect black men in a positive or negative perspective from which a dependent variable (DV) questionnaire will follow asking whether or not they would hire a black male for a prospective job posting. Results will be organized according to the Chi-squared test model. Expectations from the study are to positively analyze the impact of rapid heuristical reasoning, and to comprehend its application to racial prejudice as a potential impediment to multi-ethnic job hiring. Concurrently, Canadians have a popular opinion of the country as a multi-cultural and tolerate multi-ethnic state which does not discriminate amongst its populace. Furthermore, those with higher-education are perceived as more tolerate and progressive than those without. The study seeks to test these hypotheses by counter-acting them against foreign-born participants, and by varying the educational qualifications of the sample population for statistical variance.
[...] Materials A questionnaire containing a list of words [Figure will be provided as the basis for the IV test, and the participants will be asked to divide the signified concept by color. An interviewer will read aloud the list of words, and each participant will be provided with 3 seconds to answer or to each word. Once this has been completed, the interviewer will divide the participants into 2 separate groups and each will be presented with an article as the DV portion of the experiment. [...]
[...] Rather, it is intended to be used as both a “smoke-screen,” by misleading participants as to the appropriate direction of the study. Moreover, the test has a practical applicability in its strength as a detector of signs of depressive episodes which could be consistent with major depressive disorder. As such, the PHQ-9 can certainly not negatively impact the null hypothesis objectives of the study but will provide the interviewer with the potential to contact the individual participant should they receive a score indicative of depression, and will otherwise help to obscure and to confuse the motivations of the questionnaire from the general interviewing population. [...]
[...] While the study does attempt to test the hypothesis of heuristic reasoning by offering a variance between education-levels, and it is therefore expected through the mental faculties of participants in their ability to form logical and critical thought, it nonetheless fails to include adult participants of higher or lower education levels as sample populations in order to provide concluding analysis. As such, the conclusions drawn from the analysis of this study are not expected to be final processes but an initial attempt to comprehend the issue of “quick thinking” or heuristic cognitive process and its direct impact on racial bias and prejudicial activity. As noted above, the PHQ-9 tests will not be used to indicate a correlation between heuristic thinking patterns and psychological moods. [...]
[...] Kahneman, D., Tversky, A. (1972). Subjective probability: A judgment of representativeness, Cognitive Psychology 430-454. Kiss, O. (2006). Heuristic, Methodology or Logic of Discovery? Lakatos on Patterns of Thinking, Perspectives on Science, 302-317. Krynski, T. R., Tenenbaum, J. B. (2007). The role of causality in judgment under uncertainty, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 136(3), 430-450. Sager, H. A., Schofield, J. [...]
[...] L., Tenenbaum, J. B. (2007). Optimal predictions in everyday cognition, Psychological Science, 767-773. Jacobs, J. E., Potenza, M. (1991). The Use of Judgment Heuristics to Make Social and Object Decisions: A Developmental Perspective, Child Development, 166-178. Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., Tversky, A. (1982). Judment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press Kahneman, D., Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decisions under Risk, Econometrica, 47(2). Kahneman, D., Tversky, A. (1973). On the psychology of prediction, Psychological Review 237-251. [...]
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