AVOIDING BIASED LANGUAGE PSY 311

Are people who use biased language evil? “When we are not careful, we take mental shortcuts that allow us to describe a group of individuals quickly, but that description could be far from accurate.” “When we are not careful, we take mental shortcuts that allow us to describe a group of individuals quickly, but that description could be far from accurate.” Problem: How do we describe participants?

SOLUTION In psychological research:

EXAMPLE Schizophrenics Those individuals with paranoid schizophrenic symptoms

“view people as individuals first”

PEOPLE ARE MORE THAN LABELS  LABELS:  Sexual orientation  Racial & ethnic identity  Disabilities  Occupations  Gender

EXAMPLE Diabetics People with diabetes Diabetics People with diabetes High self-esteem students Students who report high self-esteem

 LABELS:  LABELS:  Sexual orientation  Sexual orientation vs. sexual behavior  Lesbian, gay man, bisexual man, bisexual woman (APA, 2010)  Racial & ethnic identity  Race vs. ethnicity  Ethnicity: self-identify (e.g., American Indians, African Americans, Latinos, Chinese, etc.)  Race: ?  Disabilities  Individuals with disabilities vs. disabled people  Avoid emotionally charged words (e.g., crippled, handicapped, retarded, physically challenged, stroke victim, etc.)  Occupations   Titles often contain gender bias  e.g., fireman, chairman, policeman/policewoman, male nurse, woman doctor, etc.  Gender

GENDER AVOID he or she whenever possible

SOLUTIONS: Drop the pronounDrop the pronoun Biased: The experimenter checked to see if his class points were recorded. Unbiased: The experimenter checked to see if class points were recorded. Replace the pronoun with nounsReplace the pronoun with nouns (e.g., person, individual, researcher, participant, etc.) Biased: We wanted to determine if his or her prior experiences influenced current attitudes. Unbiased: We wanted to determine if the participant’s prior experiences influenced current attitudes. Simplify the sentenceSimplify the sentence Biased: Anyone wanting to sign up for the experiment needs to use his/her student identification number. Unbiased: Student identification numbers are necessary for signing up for the experiment.

Questions?