It can be tricky to conduct research that could be weaponized against a group. And I do think that researchers have a responsibility to do everything they can to make it clear, multiple times, what their study doesn’t support.
There are similar problems with research investigating , as an example, crime of black men in the U.S.
Such a group is already stereotyped as having high criminal activity.
If you want to do a study on black men to determine common criminal traits, you have to be very sensitive about how that data could be used. Most of this type of research is conducted by other black people, in part because of that. And secondly, because their motives are in understanding the mechanism of why certain traits are higher or lower in black Americans. And never to further stigmatize.
Because we know that environment has a huge impact on personality and behavior. This is a given understanding.
But an outsider may see the research as supporting that blank men have more aggressive tendencies just because they score a little lower than average on agreeableness or something (this is a made up example and I have no idea of such a study or finding exist).
Whereas the intention of the research is to help determine which young black men are more likely to get caught up in criminal activity , not purely for this trait but the mechanisms from the environment that promote the trait also likely promote criminal behaviors.
Or maybe it’s to uncover which combination of environment factors increase the risk.
It’s trying to understand mechanisms. Not blame black men. Or say they have an innate higher tendency to be criminals.
Social research is confusing to people who don’t do it. And there is a communication barrier between scientist and lay people that I think ultimately needs to be addressed by the scientist and researchers.
But I also understand why so many get frustrated with the outrage culture online.
They try to explain. People misinterpreted their work and accuse them of things they aren’t doing. Things they never claimed. And use (to a scientist) weak arguments about how their data didn’t include 5000 participants from various backgrounds so that means it’s not valid.
It’s basically impossible to collect that kind of level of data for most research.
The methodology of any study is always clearly listed in a paper a long with the limitations of those methods.
Also, it’s more informative to collect it in multiple ways. Then you can compare those to each other.
It can be tricky to conduct research that could be weaponized against a group. And I do think that researchers have a responsibility to do everything they can to make it clear, multiple times, what their study doesn’t support.
There are similar problems with research investigating , as an example, crime of black men in the U.S. Such a group is already stereotyped as having high criminal activity. If you want to do a study on black men to determine common criminal traits, you have to be very sensitive about how that data could be used. Most of this type of research is conducted by other black people, in part because of that. And secondly, because their motives are in understanding the mechanism of why certain traits are higher or lower in black Americans. And never to further stigmatize.
Because we know that environment has a huge impact on personality and behavior. This is a given understanding.
But an outsider may see the research as supporting that blank men have more aggressive tendencies just because they score a little lower than average on agreeableness or something (this is a made up example and I have no idea of such a study or finding exist).
Whereas the intention of the research is to help determine which young black men are more likely to get caught up in criminal activity , not purely for this trait but the mechanisms from the environment that promote the trait also likely promote criminal behaviors.
Or maybe it’s to uncover which combination of environment factors increase the risk.
It’s trying to understand mechanisms. Not blame black men. Or say they have an innate higher tendency to be criminals.
Social research is confusing to people who don’t do it. And there is a communication barrier between scientist and lay people that I think ultimately needs to be addressed by the scientist and researchers.
But I also understand why so many get frustrated with the outrage culture online.
They try to explain. People misinterpreted their work and accuse them of things they aren’t doing. Things they never claimed. And use (to a scientist) weak arguments about how their data didn’t include 5000 participants from various backgrounds so that means it’s not valid.
It’s basically impossible to collect that kind of level of data for most research.
The methodology of any study is always clearly listed in a paper a long with the limitations of those methods.
Also, it’s more informative to collect it in multiple ways. Then you can compare those to each other.