The doll study
I was excited and exhilarated to see this article.
Educators and policy makers, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, have said in recent days that they hope President Obama’s example as a model student could inspire millions of American students, especially blacks, to higher academic performance. Now researchers have documented what they call an Obama effect, showing that a performance gap between African-Americans and whites on a 20-question test administered before Mr. Obama’s nomination all but disappeared when the exam was administered after his acceptance speech and again after the presidential election.
Yeah…
I started thinking about things like that some time last spring, when I finally accepted that Obama wasn’t just a charismatic but basically random candidate. I started thinking about them even more once his nomination seemed more secure, and then during and after the convention, and then during the rest of the campaign. But I avoided thinking about them too much, because they prompted too much longing, and I was too afraid of disappointment in the end.
I was thinking about millions of children all over the country, in East St Louis and Detroit and Fresno and Philadelphia, Mississippi, and what it could mean for them to see Barack Obama in the White House. I was thinking about a potential Obama effect. I was thinking about Thurgood Marshall and the ‘colored doll’ –
In the “doll test,” psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark used four plastic, diaper-clad dolls, identical except for color. They showed the dolls to black children between the ages of three and seven and asked them questions to determine racial perception and preference. Almost all of the children readily identified the race of the dolls. However, when asked which they preferred, the majority selected the white doll and attributed positive characteristics to it. The Clarks also gave the children outline drawings of a boy and girl and asked them to color the figures the same color as themselves. Many of the children with dark complexions colored the figures with a white or yellow crayon. The Clarks concluded that “prejudice, discrimination, and segregation” caused black children to develop a sense of inferiority and self-hatred.
That haunting, painful study played a role in Brown v Topeka Board of Education and thus in the end of ‘separate but equal’ as a legal fiction and segregated schools in the US…So it seems pretty obvious that a hyper-intelligent, eloquent, impressive black person in the White House would enable children to select the black doll and attribute positive characteristics to it. This study seems to bear that out.
Not that we didn’t already know that (but it’s nice to have the data). We knew it up one side and down the other. We knew it all over the place for the past week – and a beautiful thing it is. I still have Wednesday’s New York Times hanging around, because I like looking at it – it has the Obamas taking up nearly all of the front page, walking down Pennsylvania Avenue with enormous smiles on their faces. They look…extraordinary. Any doll would give its left arm to look that good.
Bill Moyers talked to Patricia Williams and Melissa Harris-Lacewell on Friday. He reminded Harris-Lacewell that when he talked to her last spring she said Obama couldn’t win. I remembered that, once he mentioned it, and I remember the despairing pang it gave me. Harris-Lacewell beamed acknowledgement, and then talked about the intense sense of connection to this country that she felt for the first time in her life. Same here. Same here, same here, same here. One feels as if old wounds and old divisions really do have a good chance of being healed. (I know that sounds soppy – but it’s not sheer airy-fairy fantasy – see the doll experiment!) Furthermore…for the first time in my life I know what it’s like to feel ‘patriotic’ – the idea is suddenly no longer alien. I sang along with Aretha on Tuesday (and I wanted to wear her hat). I suddenly realized today that I don’t even mind American flag pins any more – I don’t have to any more – because they don’t stand for things I hate any more. Now they stand for closing Guantanamo and banning torture and respecting the rule of law.
On a more prosaic but still not altogether trivial level, I also no longer have to cut the sound whenever the BBC or NPR cuts to the president talking; on the contrary, I get to listen with actual pleasure.
Say Amen, Somebody! The possibilities that Obama offers as a cool smart guy in the White House, a guy who did his homework and still turned out cool. . . they are immense. He is going to have an impact on generations of African heritage kids in the US. This was the one motivation I had for deciding last spring that Obama was getting my support.
If the achievement gap starts to break apart in the next few years, the only possible account of its staying power over the last three decades will be racism at the level of society and its institutions, including schools. I cannot wait to see the test scores start to move.
I still jump when I hear “President Obama!” It’s not going to stop being exciting for a long time! I’m not wearing a flag pin, but I did make a few pairs of Obama earrings!
This smells like magical thinking to me. I am with the expert in the article who advises waiting for the results to be replicated.
Has ‘super-intelligent’ (except to his tutors who ranked him a B student) Obama cured cancer yet? Why is he hanging around?
Oh for christ’s sake…what ‘magical thinking’? What ‘smells like’ – is that intuition talking? Gee, how magical.
Notice I said ‘what it could mean for them to see Barack Obama in the White House’ – not would for sure, not would, but could. I should later have said ‘some data’ rather than ‘the data’ because of course I’m not drawing huge conclusions from one small study – but I don’t think that ‘the’ is enough to conclude ‘magical thinking.’
Trying to claim that Obama is not super-intelligent is just fatuous.
Besides, the word was hyper-intelligent, not super-intelligent. Accuracy in sneering is a must.
I’m not wearing a flag pin either…but I realized with a little jolt of surprise that it sends a different message now.
Sing it! This is exciting and exhilarating indeed. I hadn’t heard of that dramatic change in the performance gap, thanks a lot for linking to it! An image is worth a thousand words, and now we have the image of a black man in the most powerful office in the land.
The super-intelligent Einstein didn’t cure cancer either, btw.
In the context of the past week’s emotions, Ed Brayton (at Dispatches from the Culture Wars) recently pointed to this very insightful Peter Beinart essay in Time magazine about the very different conceptions of patriotism held by conservatives and liberals (broadly construed). While I can’t say I agree with Beinart’s every word, I think his analysis is very broadly correct.
I have always been a patriot in the sense of admiring and defending quintessentially American ideals such as governance by the will and consent of the governed, the five freedoms of the First Amendment, and so on. But I’m with you, OB – I have rarely actually felt patriotic. This unexpected but longed-for reaction in me has to do with my dawning hope that America might now start actually fulfilling those American ideals, rather than sliding further away from them. Obama’s first actions in office – moving to close town Gitmo and restore the rule of law, increasing government openness, etc. – have certainly encouraged that hope.
And now he’s done been and gone and said his administration isn’t going to deny facts, it’s going to be guided by them. What a concept!
Well, not a bad week, all in all.
O.B the continent I live on owes its freedom in large part to the U.S there is plenty to be proud of pre Obama?
Richard, thinking that we can and must do *better* – especially that we can and must do better than we have done for the last 8 years – is NOT the same as thinking we have never done any good at all. Go read that Time article I linked to above: It will educate you in a way you sorely need education.
“I’m not wearing a flag pin either…but I realized with a little jolt of surprise that it sends a different message now.”
Not on this side of the pond, it doesn’t.
And it wasn’t me who denied that Obama was ‘hyper-intelligent’ but his tutors who rated him a B student. He is intelligent, of course, but if he were hyper intelligent is it likely he would be a politician?
“The super-intelligent Einstein didn’t cure cancer either, btw.”
It’s true. He edidn’t dedicate his life to party politics, either, though.
The grades meted out by the liberal conspiracy of academia do not trump other evidence of intelligence for an honest debater.
Obama won’t cure cancer but he may take fewer lives than Bush junior and improve a whole lot more. I base this on the evidence of his actions since taking office, not the starry-eyed strong man worship you are so desperate to see on the faces of those around you.
Come on everybody! There’s no I in Team America!
“Not on this side of the pond, it doesn’t.”
Yeah right – nobody on that side of the pond sees Obama as an improvement. You bet.
John: I don’t know whether Obama is intelligent or hyper-intelligent nor am I a 100% Obama fan, but as a ex-journalist, I interviewed many people involved in politics, and I never got the impression that they were less intelligent than any other profession. Since they talk to a mass audience, they tend to talk in simple terms, but that hardly indicates anything about their IQ. Off the record, politicians speak very differently than they do in front of the microphones and some of them possess brillant analytical minds.
“Yeah right – nobody on that side of the pond sees Obama as an improvement. You bet.”
I think many or most do. But they see wearing the little flag badge as being the same thing whether Bush or Obama does it (I reckon), just one of those daft bits of over-excited nationalism that US politics requires of its leaders. Like dropping tons of balloons at conventions.
“John: I don’t know whether Obama is intelligent or hyper-intelligent nor am I a 100% Obama fan, but as a ex-journalist, I interviewed many people involved in politics, and I never got the impression that they were less intelligent than any other profession.”
Amos, I am not saying that Obama is unintelligent, I am just a bit surprised by the slightly sophomoric levels of enthusiasm that leads to describing him as ‘hyper-intelligent’ and such. I know this is a temporary aberration and normal, sceptical service will be resumed shortly, but it is funny while it lasts. We had quite a bit of this sort of thing with Blair for a while. Now, not so much.
Oh; well yes, the flag pin is that. I’m not about to start wearing one myself; I haven’t gone that mad!
Actually normal sceptical service hasn’t been abandoned. It is running alongside the childish levels of enthusiasm. It simply is possible to be normally sceptical and to think that Obama is indeed hyper-intelligent. There are reasons for thinking so – and you seem to be very confident that there are reasons for not thinking so, but you don’t mention them. (I don’t know what all this talk of ‘tutors’ is about, Obama didn’t go to Oxbridge, he didn’t have ‘tutors.’)
“Obama won’t cure cancer but he may take fewer lives than Bush junior and improve a whole lot more. “
I am sure he will be an improvment, but let’s not completely lose our grip, Bush didn’t actually kill anyone.
On a slightly different note, how many were killed in the air strikes in Pakistan ordered by Obama, by the way? 22 wasn’t it? How many of those were children? Probably a lot less than half, but I can’t find the exact figures.
So all this attention-seeking is about is saying it’s amusing (in a supercilious way) to see someone who values skepticism being enthusiastic? But I pointed out the joke myself, from the outset – so it’s just redundant for you to point out the same thing. We already know that I’m being uncharacteristically enthusiastic, because I said that – so extra sneering isn’t really needed.
“There are reasons for thinking so – and you seem to be very confident that there are reasons for not thinking so, but you don’t mention them. (I don’t know what all this talk of ‘tutors’ is about, Obama didn’t go to Oxbridge, he didn’t have ‘tutors.’)”
I just don’t see the reasons for thinking so. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think he is bright, jusat not necessarily brilliant. One reason for not thinking he is especially clever is that the teaching staff at his university (do you really not use ‘tutor’ outside Oxford? It is a fairly generic term, isn’t it, for a person who teaches?) considered him only a ‘B’ student even though there is every sign that he tried hard. Of course that isn’t the final word, but going into politics is another clue that he isn’t top-flight intellectually (although, again, not absolutely reliable).
But what are the reasons for thinking him hyper-intelligent? His books show a good turn of phrase but are noticeably short on analysis or theory or any real intellectual or aesthetic penetration at all. They are also quite dull after the first 100 pages or sso. In policy he avoids offering any substance, when he can. When forced to have a firm policy, such as on health, it is nonsense. His stimulus package just looks random to me, but he might be right. If he is, he has the brilliance of his economic team to thank for it, I think. It is a relief that he gets it about Guantanamo and torture, but that isn’t the sign of any brilliance, I don’t think.
Anyway, we will see. It would be intersting oif he did turn out to be brilliant, but what would that look like, I wonder?
“So all this attention-seeking is about is saying it’s amusing (in a supercilious way) to see someone who values skepticism being enthusiastic? But I pointed out the joke myself, from the outset”
OB, don’t take it all so personally, most of what I have been on about hasn’t been about you at all but about a trend in the discourse of the left which I still think is interesting. And what is all this stuff about ‘attention seeking’? If it is attention seeking to contribute to a discussion board, we are all guilty of it. But it might be that people contribute for other reasons too. I am willing to assume the best of you, that you don’t just run this board out of some sad need for attention, I don’t see why you can’t extend the same courtesy to your guests.
You just don’t see the reasons – well that’s not really much of a basis for quite such an aggressive response.
No, going into politics is not ‘another’ clue, that’s just idiotic.
The reasons for thinking him hyper-intelligent are partly what people who know him and people who have merely talked to him say; presidency of the Law Review is another; performance in the debates is another; the fact that the University of Chicago wanted him is another. (No, ‘tutor’ here would mean a privately hired coach, not a university teacher.)
Come on, JM, your tone was pretty personal on the other thread. It was far from obvious that you were talking about ‘a trend in the discourse of the left’ and your manner was not…collegial. If you don’t want me to take it personally, don’t come on like Limbaugh on a bad day.
Hmmm. Actually, I take that back. I looked at it again, and you didn’t come on like Limbaugh at the beginning. Now that you’ve said so, I can see that it was meant as a general observation. I misread it at the time – I think partly because the Bush stuff is so wrong, I thought it must be provocative.
Er – sorry!
Maybe I am not so in command of my tone as I thought, but really I can’t see how anything I said could be interpreted as aggressive (except when posters like ‘G’ start to call names) and I was pretty clear that I was talking about trends in certain parts of the left, in fact I spelled it out several times. Anyway, please take my word for it that it isn’t personal.
“No, going into politics is not ‘another’ clue, that’s just idiotic. “
Then a quick review of the history of politics in the US and UK should throw up some other ‘hyper-intelligent’ men and women, shouldn’t it? I suppose there will be one or two, but can you think of any? In science, easy. In literature? Of course. In film and finance? Yes. But politics? Who?
And he didn’t even win in every debate against John McCain, probably the worst political debater I have ever seen. I guess we will see how intelligent he is when he talks about more than just ‘hope we can believe in’ (a candidate for the most vacuous political slogan in history, by the way).
Ophelia – *Furthermore…for the first time in my life I know what it’s like to feel ‘patriotic’*
I know that feeling, 14 years ago in 1994. It is quite amazing.
Early days, but the speed with which he is doing things, most of which I agree with, is astonishing. I just hope and trust that your voters don’t make the same mistake – as we did in my country – as to who his replacement will be after his term. Congratulations never the less
JM writes:
“I am sure he will be an improvment, but let’s not completely lose our grip, Bush didn’t actually kill anyone.”
Wait. Stop. Did you just say that? Really? Really? You just claimed that Bush didn’t kill anyone (I can’t even think how to respond to this; it’s insance), and then you cite the airstrikes in Pakistan to imply Obama is a murderer?
Yeah – as you see, I got there myself!
No I don’t think that follows about the history (and there certainly have been hyper-intelligent people in politics in the past – Jefferson, Madison, the Adamses, Lincoln). It does mystify me that politics doesn’t attract more intelligent people, but the fact that in general it doesn’t of course doesn’t mean that it never can or will.
“Er – sorry!”
No need:
“It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them. “
P G Wodehouse
Ricus – yes. Odd, now you mention it, that there hasn’t been more talk of Mandela here. Our incorrigible parochialism, I guess. (But then that is one reason I like Obama, that he does have cosmopolitan roots.)
“Wait. Stop. Did you just say that? Really? Really? You just claimed that Bush didn’t kill anyone (I can’t even think how to respond to this; it’s insance), and then you cite the airstrikes in Pakistan to imply Obama is a murderer?2
No, what I was driving at was that if we are to call Bush a murderer or killer because his policy decisions resulted in deaths, we must, already, apply the same standard to Obama who looks very hawkish indeed from wher I am standing.
“there certainly have been hyper-intelligent people in politics in the past – Jefferson, Madison, the Adamses, Lincoln”
The same goes for the UK, FRance and Germany. It looks like a pattern. The very intelligent were attracted into politics when is undemocratic or in the early stages of democratic formation. But it looks obvious that there is something about the political way of life that makes it unattrcative for most really gifted people. I think it probably has something to do with the huge rewards available elsewhere and the sheer anount of lying, greasing and pandering that polticians have to do. That and the old saw aboutn all political lives ending in failure.
“It does mystify me that politics doesn’t attract more intelligent people, but the fact that in general it doesn’t of course doesn’t mean that it never can or will.”
No, I agree, it may be that there is still room for a very brilliant man or woman, and I do think it more likely that he or she will be black, because there is a world-historic aspect to the job if you are black that is absent now for whites.
No, John, that’s not good enough. You said – and these are your words – “Bush didn’t kill anyone.” Please justify that incredible statement.
john Meredith,
Call me superficial, but quoting Wodehouse is generally the sign of a good egg and you have made some very valuable points. But I think you are mistaking an entirely justified expression of relief and optimism as an abdication of critical faculties.
You may be right that Obama’s tutors rated him as a B student. There are different ways to measure intelligence. One might be to become the most intensely scrutinised person on the planet, probably ever. And then to have every word you have ever said examined in minute detail by the smartest people the ruling party can produce, to have to persuade first the Democratic party and then the United States (and all the slick machines and stubborn interests in between) that you are the right choice to be the most powerful person on the planet.
Another way to measure intelligence might be to consider prowess at bridge or chess. Or physics. Obama may not have scored very high on those. I don’t know.
He passed a test rather more exhaustive than any his tutors could have set him, so maybe their assessment was rather too limited?
Maybe someone could specify what we mean by “hyper-intelligent”. For me, hyper-intelligent is just below a genius. If Wittgenstein was a genius, then Karl Popper was hyper-intelligent. My examples of hyper-intelligence: John Rawls, Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Paul Sartre. I’ve never been to the University of Chicago, but I doubt that all faculty members of that university would fit into the category of hyper-intelligence, as I use it.
However, I suppose the word could be used to mean “very intelligent”. Then undoubtedly, most, if not all, members of the faculty of the University of Chicago could be seen as hyper-intelligent, that is, very intelligent.
Who’s we? I have no idea what anyone else means by ‘hyper-intelligent’; I don’t think of it as a familiar phrase for which everyone has a worked-out definition, let alone a list of philosophers who qualify; I just used it by way of variation from saying ‘very intelligent,’ which was all I meant.
The University of Chicago law school is a tad selective about its faculty. (That’s deliberate understatement.)
JM – What is your source for this claim about Obama’s B grades, anyway? I googled and all I could find was an innuendo-laden fact-shy piece of blather on various right-wing sites, but you’ve been stating it as if it were established fact. Same goes for the sweeping claims about Obama’s goddy-talk – all very lacking in references or links. You saw something in Newsweek once – well why should anyone accept that? I think your claims are just Richardesque scourings from various sources that are more liberalphobic than concerned with the truth.
Agreed. Obama is very intelligent. As you can see, I took “hyper-intelligent” to mean very very very intelligent.
Well I may have meant that…I dunno…I meant some kind of non-specific intensifier.
But it’s not that I think he’s the kind of genius that a great scientist is…but he is the kind of intelligent I badly (desperately) want in heads of state, especially heads of this state, and that I’ve been feeling the lack of for so many decades. (Clinton had a lot of it, but he didn’t have enough to act like an adult, which is a considerable deficit.) He’s the kind of intelligent where I get to think not ‘shit, he’s stupider than I am’ but on the contrary, ‘whew, he’s a lot smarter than I am.’ Policy intelligent, law intelligent, detail intelligent, communication intelligent; stuff like that.
I just figure Obama must be pretty smart, after all he is president of the United states.
My guess is that Obama is not a lot smarter than you are, although he’s very intelligent. For example, I’d bet that Jeremy could beat Obama in a debate, not a televised debate where body language is the key, but an online debate. You can draw your own conclusions.
“No, John, that’s not good enough. You said – and these are your words – “Bush didn’t kill anyone.” Please justify that incredible statement. 2
Josh, I don’t think it needs justiying, nobody has any shredd of evidence that Bush killed ayone, have they? If you have, take it to the police. If you just mean that people dies because of military actions ordered by Bush, I think that is shrill ans silly. By the same token Obama has already killed 22 people, some of them children. How many more will he have killed in the next eight (I think we can be fairly condfident) years?
“He passed a test rather more exhaustive than any his tutors could have set him, so maybe their assessment was rather too limited?”
Don, you might be right, it will be interesting waiting to see. I just think it will take a while to know for sure, and I am sceptical, given the levels of intelligence usually displayed by democratic politicians.
“JM – What is your source for this claim about Obama’s B grades, anyway? I googled and all I could find was an innuendo-laden fact-shy piece of blather on various right-wing sites”
OB I mentioned this on the other thread before coming here but I will say it again because this is directly addressed to me. I saw it on an interview with one of Obama’s ex-university teachers broacast on a BBC 4 documentary last week. The doocumentary was verypro-Obama in tone. All his teachers thought he had remarkable qualities but not necessarily a very powerful brain.
“Same goes for the sweeping claims about Obama’s goddy-talk – all very lacking in references or links.”
This was another BBC4 show, I am afraid, although the Newsweek interview does seem to back it up. I think Newsweek is fairly reputable and Obama would have complained if they had misquoted him.
As to ‘hyper-intelligent’, I admit that I assumed that this meant, more or less, ‘genius’. I would be surprised though if Obama wer your intellectual match. Can you really call him ‘policy intelligent’. I think his policy pronounceents, where they have any substance, are very weak (especially on health) and his flirting with isolationism is inane (although it seems that it is mainly for public consuption and that his real beiefs are rather different hence the secret mission to Canada by Goolsbee). The recent announcmenmnt about ‘energy independence’ was daft. Why not food independence, or industry indepence, I wonder? It’s just isolationism again, under a different flag and using green-wash as a cover. But then, as I said, I don’t think he means it (I fear he doesn’t even understand it).
For the record, I consider myself very liberal in every sense, and don’t use right wiong websites on purpose. I would certainly place myself politically way to the left of Obama. That’s just in case there is any confusion there.
And just in passing, I see that the Obama administration wants to place ‘more emphasis on waging war than on development’ in Afghanistan. It is interesting to speculate what the reaction would have been if a Bush aide had come out with the same statement.
amos, but how does your bet that Jeremy could beat Obama in debate back up your guess that Obama is not a lot smarter than I am? I’m not Jeremy!
JM, not good enough – just saying you’ve seen things on television isn’t good enough, nor is summarizing what people said – not for documentation of a disputed claim.
Also, if you’re going to be taking up this much space – please type more carefully and check for typos.
(I missed the Wodehouse bit about apology yesterday. Amusing, but – I can’t stand it when people refuse to apologize! I really hate that. I consider it an absolute obligation to admit it when one is wrong and to apologize. I’m a downright deontologist about it.)
Richard…
I wasn’t going to bother, but I find I can’t leave it alone.
“I just figure Obama must be pretty smart, after all he is president of the United states.”
Come on. Even you can’t really think that follows. You can’t really think that intelligence is an absolute criterion for being POTUS; you can’t really think that only intelligent people can get elected as POTUS; you can’t really think that unintelligent people are unable to get elected as POTUS. The US has had lots of dim presidents, though probably none as dim as 43 until 43.
OB: I know that you’re not Jeremy.
Let me spell out my reasoning process.
First of all, you work closely with Jeremy, so you must have a sense of his debating abilities. Second, if Jeremy decides to co-author books with you, he must think that your intellectual abilities are roughly in his league, unless (which I doubt) you just do the typing. Further premise: the ability to debate ideas rapidly and creatively is sign of high intelligence. My observation: Jeremy has that ability. If, as I claim, Jeremy has that ability, which is a sign of high intelligence to a greater degree than Obama does and you are Jeremy’s chosen co-author, you are at least as smart as Obama is. I could have said that in a less roundabout way, to be sure, but indirect compliments have more class, in my opinion.
I see. Jeremy’s intelligent, and Jeremy ‘decides to co-author books with’ me, so it follows that I’m not quite as stupid as one might think.
For the record – I don’t just do the typing.
“amos, but how does your bet that Jeremy could beat Obama in debate back up your guess that Obama is not a lot smarter than I am? I’m not Jeremy!”
I can’t speak for Amos, but I have read your books and Obama’s, and there is much more evidence of a intellectual power in the former.
I am sorry for the typos, I really am, but I have to do this on the fly. Will try harder.
As to the B student business, maybe I can find the ref if I have time, but if not, I guess we will have to wait for him to release his grades and leave it be in the meantime.
It certainly would be the case with Obama O.B I mean he had two strikes against him going in, one he was black and two he was also liberal, he also had a strong oponent so I think it is a reasonable conclusion to draw that he is pretty clever? I am not sure I would aply the same logic to all presidents.
I just heard him castigating bankers taking bonuses after the government has bailed the banks out. You’re right. It was a pleasure.
[…] remember the doll study? Remember Thurgood Marshall and the “colored doll”? I did a post about it shortly after Obama’s inauguration. Researchers had found an Obama effect. You know about […]