Regarding The Warren Harding Error

      1. What stood out to me in this chapter is the fact that a congressman had mistakenly brought someone who would later be known as one of the worst presidents of American history. He just saw this attractive (and charismatic) man on the street and decided to persuade him into becoming a part of politics. It's events like that which make you trust politicians less and less. Of course, Daugherty (the Ohio politician) was going off his unconscious biases about the kind of skills that people like Harding represented (charisma, leadership, wisdom, etc.), which is understandable for any normal person, but this is a politician, a guy who represents the voice of a city. The takeaway message here is that your unconscious biases have the ability to lead you to poor decisions, and that it's better to listen to your higher consciousness, and use reason rather than instinct.

     2. We should take this chapter into consideration for our discussions regarding leadership as they have a certain, crucial correlation about the decision as to who should lead. The way we rely upon our unconscious biases can affect the way we vote for leaders. If we see an attractive, charismatic individual running for a leadership position, regardless of whether or not he's actually a good leader, we'll make the subconscious assumption that he's the better option when compared to an unattractive, non-charismatic individual running for the same position, but is a bit more qualified. We can associate this with LOTF in the sense that, in the beginning of the book, Ralph is noticed more as the quiet type. The boys subconsciously associate him with being the more intelligent, more qualified leader. And to some extent, they were correct, Ralph got the group semi-functioning, he set up a signal fire and got shelters up, but he couldn't demand the obedience of the other children. That was something Jack could do. Jack had the ability to command obedience, but his intentions were a fair bit worse than Ralph's, as Jack wanted to stay on the island and hunt pigs. Getting back to the topic at hand, is there a way to undo these subconscious biases? Yes, but to do so, one would have to spend a fair bit of time around the people that the bias is against. If you have a moderate automatic association of African Americans with bad, then you could spend more time with African Americans, and that bias, in time, would go away.

     3. After taking the IAT, I discovered that I have a moderate automatic association with African Americans and bad. I was not very surprised about this, mainly because I don't spend a whole lot of time with African Americans. I generally (consciously) associate foreign or unknown subjects with bad because I don't know how to feel about them, and therefore consider them a potential threat. However, consciously, I don't think of African Americans as bad, I just don't spend much time with them, therefore I think of them as foreign, and that (subconsciously) is translated into being a potential threat. It could also be because most of the commercials we see on TV feature white people, smiling and happy things, thus swaying my opinion towards white people in their favor.

This man that is staring into your soul is known as 

Warren Harding