無處不在的微歧視讓人難以察覺(下)
In the early 1970s, a team led by Carl Wordat Princeton University recruited white students for an experiment they weretold was about assessing the quality of job candidates. Unbeknown to them, theexperiment was really about how they treated the supposed job candidates, andwhether this was different based on whether they were white or black.
20世紀70年代初，在美國普林斯頓大學，一支由卡爾·沃德（Carl Word）領導的研究團隊對微歧視進行了研究。首先，研究者招募白人學生，並告訴他們這項實驗旨在評估求職者的品質素養，而不讓他們知道，實驗的真正意圖在於瞭解他們會怎樣對待所謂的求職者，以及他們的待人方式是否會因求職者的種族不同而有差別。
Despite believing their task was to findthe best candidate, the white recruits treated candidates differently based ontheir race – sitting further away from them, and displaying fewer signs ofengagement such as making eye-contact or leaning in during ow-up work more recently has shown that this is still true, and that thesenonverbal signs of friendliness weren't related to their explicit attitudes, sooperate independently from the participants’avowed beliefsabout race and racism.
對於自己的工作是物色最佳人選這一點，新晉的白人面試官們都深信不疑。儘管如此，他們仍根據求職者的種族而給予其差別對待——面試官們會坐得離黑人求職者更遠，也較少傳遞出互動的信號，比如在對話過程中進行眼神交流或傾身向前。最近，該研究的後續工作已經表明，現如今的情況依舊沒有發生變化；此外，這些非言語的友善信號與實驗對象的外顯式態度無關，其運轉不受他們在種族和種族主義方面的公開信仰的影響。
So far the the Princeton experimentprobably doesn't tell anyone who has been treated differently because of theirrace anything they didn't know from painful experience. The black candidates inthis experiment were treated less well than the white candidates, not just inthe nonverbal signals the interviewers gave off, but they were given 25% lesstime during the interviews on average as well. This alone would be aninjustice, but how big a disadvantage is it to be treated like this?
到目前爲止，對於任何一個因爲自身種族而受到區別對待的人而言，普林斯頓大學的這個實驗所吐露的種種實情，恐怕與他們從慘痛經歷中所遭受的那些並無二致。在這個實驗中，黑人求職者的待遇遠比不上白人求職者。這種差別不僅體現在面試官們所釋放的非言語信號上，而且體現在面試時間上——分給黑人求職者的面試時間，平均起來少了25%。單單這個就構成一項不公正行爲，然而，遭受如此的對待，人們會受到多嚴重的傷害呢？
Word's second experiment gives us a handleon this. After collecting these measurements of nonverbal behaviour theresearch team recruited some new volunteers and trained them to react in themanner of the original experimental subjects. That is, they were trained totreat interview candidates as the original participants had treated whitecandidates: making eye contact, smiling, sitting closer, allowing them to speakfor longer. And they were also trained to produce the treatment the blackcandidates received: less eye contact, fewer smiles and so on. All candidateswere to be treated politely and fairly, with only the nonverbal cues varying.
對此，沃德的第二個實驗給我們帶來解決問題的“可乘之機”。研究團隊在收集了這些非言語行爲的測量數據之後又招募了一些新的志願者，並開展訓練，讓他們養成與原先實驗對象一樣的反應方式。也就是說，原先的參與者怎麼對待白人求職者，他們就怎麼對待白人求職者：進行眼神交流、微笑、坐得更近以及給予求職者有更長的說話時間。同時，原先的參與者怎麼對待黑人求職者，他們也就怎麼對待黑人求職者：少進行眼神交流、也少微笑等等。除了僅有的非言語暗示有所不同之外，他們會彬彬有禮、公平正派地對待每一位候選人。
Next, the researchers recruited more whitePrinceton undergraduates to play the role of job candidates, and they wererandomly assigned to be nonverbally treated like the white candidates in thefirst experiment, or like the black candidates.
接下來，研究人員從普林斯頓招募了更多的白人大學生來扮演求職者的角色，並將他們隨機分爲兩組：一組的面試官在非言語方面的反應與第一次實驗中對白人求職者的反應一樣，另一組的面試官則與第一次實驗中對黑人求職者的反應一致。
The results allow us to see theself-fulfilling prophesy of discrimination. The candidates who received the"black" nonverbal signals delivered a worse interview performance, asrated by independent judges. They made far more speech errors, in the form of hesitations,stutters, mistakes and incomplete sentences, and they chose to sit further awayfrom the interviewer following a mid-interview interruption which caused themto retake their chairs.
實驗結果讓我們見證了，關於歧視的預言會自我實現。按照獨立裁判的評判，那些遭受了“黑色”非言語信號的求職者的面試表現較爲糟糕。他們在言談上的失誤遠遠多於其他求職者，包括說話猶猶豫豫、口齒不清、錯漏百出，句子還殘缺不全。此外，在面試中間的一段間歇，他們需要重新搬動座椅，這時他們會選擇坐到離面試官更遠的地方。
It isn't hard to see that in awinner-takes-all situation like a job interview, such differences could beenough to lose you a job opportunity. What's remarkable is that theparticipants’ performance had been harmed by nonverbal differences of the kindthat many of us might produce without intending or realising. Furthermore, theeffect was seen in students from Princeton University, one of the world's eliteuniversities. If even a white, privileged elite suffer under this treatment wemight expect even larger effects for people who don't walk into high-pressuresituations with those advantages.
不難看出，在諸如工作面試這種贏家通吃的情境中，此類差別可能足以令人錯失良機。而值得注意的是，那些中傷實驗參與者表現的非言語差別，也許是我們許多人無意爲之的。再者，普林斯頓大學是世界級的精英大學之一，在其學生中仍然可見這種效應。即便是一名身爲特權階層的白人精英，也會因這種境遇而備受折磨；可想而知，對於普通人而言，他們沒有前者的那些優勢，卻要面對令人極度緊張的情形，這種效應的威力會更大。
Experiments like these don't offer thewhole truth about discrimination. Problems like racism are patterned by so muchmore than individual attitudes, and often supported by explicit prejudice aswell as subtle prejudice. Racism will affect candidates before, during andafter job interviews in many more ways than I’ve described. Whatthis work does show is one way in which, even with good intentions, people'sreactions to minority groups can have powerful effects. Small differences canadd up.
這類實驗並不能揭示有關歧視的所有真相。諸如種族歧視之類的問題是由許多因素造成的，其中遠遠不止個人態度。而且，它們往往同時得到外顯式偏見和內隱式偏見的強化。無論是在求職面試之前，還是面試過程中，抑或面試結束之後，種族主義會對求職者的影響方式還有很多，我所提及的那些不過是冰山一角。這項研究明確地呈現了一種行爲方式，其中，人們對少數羣體的反應即便出於善意，也會造成巨大的影響。微小的差異積少成多，終將帶來質變。
