La influencia de las creencias en la actuación formal en tareas con contenido étnico-racial

Resumen

Hemos pasado tres tareas de razonamiento lógico-formal a adultos de niveles socioculturales alto y bajo. Queríamos ver cómo influye el contenido de la tarea (racial, neutral o abstracto) en la actuación de los participantes. Todas las tareas “raciales” se diseñaron de modo que tuvieran una posible conclusión racista. Los resultados sugieren que los procesos de razonamiento se ven influidos por el contenido de la tarea. Sin embargo, tal influencia no es simple. En las tareas de tipo proporcional y probabilístico, donde hay un aspecto eminentemente aritmético, un significativo porcentaje de los participantes tienden a evitar una conclusión (aunque sea lógicamente correcta) si ésta puede interpretarse como una discriminación contra una determinada comunidad étnico-racial. Esta tendencia no se observa cuando la conclusión podría perjudicar a una comunidad no sometida a un prejuicio racial. Habría una activación, en el primer caso, de un cierto contrasesgo en contra del prejuicio dominante. En las tareas de carácter deductivo, donde no hay ningún componente numérico, este efecto no es tan appreciable.

Abstract

Three tasks about proportional, probabilistic and deductive reasoning were presented to different groups of young and mature adults of low and high educational levels. The aim was to investigate the influence of age, educational level, and both task structure and content (racial, neutral, and abstract materials) on subjects' performance. All “racial” tasks were designed with one possible racist conclusion (logically or not logically derived from the premises).

Our results suggest that subjects' reasoning processes are influenced by the meaning of the problem and the structure of the task. However, such influence is neither uniform nor constant, and it may have an expression different from that expected from previous findings. In proportional and deductive reasoning tasks, subjects performed better when the content was racial than when it was abstract (or neutral). What seems most compelling from the results is that the racist elements improved the attention paid to the structure of the problem and, as a consequence, the logical performance, no matter the meaning of the conclusion (racist or anti-racist). However, in the probabilistic racial task (Bayes' Theorem), most subjects showed low levels of reasoning, and their responses were scarcely related with the content. They mostly focused on the structure of the problem (trying hard to solve it) instead of focusing on its racist meaning. A significant effect of educational level was found.

Findings are discussed comparing the different models of human reasoning (the objective-rational thinking and other forms of thought considered less rational).

Palabras clave:

• Razonamiento formal
• creencias
• sesgos
• prejuicio racial

Keywords:

• Formal thinking
• beliefs
• bias
• racial prejudice