Kulturkampf

[Potato]

I will say if the study happened as presented, it kind of sounds flawed, like yes obviously if you give someone leading literature they're going to have it rolling around in their head for at least as long as they're a captive audience

maybe that's the point, it just feels weird

if you force someone to read a paper that presents a strong argument that people named Sam have a tendency to be evil and sadistic, and then have them read a story about two anonymous people and ask which of them is more likely to be named Sam, obviously they're going to take what they just read into account

I think that sort of supports the point?

Imagine you work at a place that has occasional HR reminders about Evil Sam, along with quarterly required trainings that go more in depth Evil Sam. The general staff is going to analyze basically every interaction via the Evil Sam mental model.

"Wait...did she say her name was SAMantha?"

I think what's got me is the immediacy of it

"for the purposes of this study, 2 plus 2 equals 6. now tell me, what does 2 plus 2 equal?"

I don't know that this says anything about the actual long term effects of DEI training

oh it also doesn't attempt to measure potential positive outcomes like presenting various scenarios where legitimately someone was detrimentally affected and how you would handle the situation differently based on what you just read

that would be the tack that proponents would take, "ok so you might make an occasional bad assumption, that doesn't undo all the long term good"

It does have more than the sight whiff of culture wars to it