Flanigan’s article made me consider the entire prescription drug system in an entire way! I was raised in a culture that doesn’t encourage taking prescribed medicines and relying on natural remedies, so I didn’t have much background information or preconceived feelings in favor or against the topic when reading it. I loved that the structure of the article made her thought process easier to follow and gave me an understanding of DIC while still using scenarios to give further context. The statement that stood out to me the most was, “Like other basic rights, self-regarding decisions about our own bodies warrant particularly strong protections from state interference” because it broke down the argument to a simple, clean form (view equation below) that, as Flanigan mentioned, can be applied in so many areas beyond self-medication.

Patient autonomy = basic right = morally valuable

I had read Hidalgo’s article in a previous leadership class and even attended his lecture on this topic last semester. It can be difficult to put this argument into action, and I appreciate that Hidalgo acknowledge’s this fact in the risk objection section stating, “Morality can be demanding”.  I am an American citizen but grew up in the Mexican culture. Living two hours away from the border, I was taught to always carry my i.d., not speak Spanish in front of authority, and never, NEVER, give people a reason to question my citizenship. This fear that is so deeply woven into my identity made me both hesitant, yet intrigued by Hidalgo’s argument the first time I read it. Although I didn’t agree with most immigration laws beforehand, I had never considered that it is my responsibility as a human to oppose them. The distinction between doing and allowing challenged my instinctive “stay quiet” attitude towards immigration.

I have taken the IAT in previous leadership courses, and for this course I decided to try a new one and take association of Male and Females in Liberal Arts and Sciences. Before I tell you what my result was, I want to explain why I took the test.

I was expecting to have no preference or at least a slight preference for males in liberal arts (which is what society dictates). I went to a STEM Early College high school and earned my Associate’s degree in Engineering. Throughout my time in the engineering, advanced science. and advanced math classes I was the ONLY GIRL in the class about 90% of the time. I had grown used to studying a “male-dominated” field but also hoped I would have developed a stronger mindset by the end of that experience. I had accomplished the same degree as my male counterparts, in addition to leading their robotics team.

My IAT suggested I have a moderate automatic association for Male with Liberal Arts and Female with Science. 🙂 I have spent about 6 years associating females in male-dominated career fields, because I am aware that females do, in fact, have the same skill sets and ability to be successful in these fields as males.

Implicit bias and stereotype is one of my favorite topics I have studied since joining Jepson, so I really enjoyed these readings. I had never read about the distinction between knowing and endorsing, but it made it easier to understand the concept of implicit bias (I wish I had learned it last semester). One thing I was unaware I agreed with was on page 107 when the authors stated, “First, it is well known that people recognize faces from their own racial/ethnic group more easily than other faces.” I never realized that! I began to think and found it applied to all intial group interactions I’ve had. It was easier for me to recognize people of Latinx background when I ran into them again versus non-Latinx. Also, for those intrigued by the pitbull section, watch the show Pitbulls & Parolees on Animal Planet. They do amazing work to rescue this wonderful breed and also work to remove the biases and stereotypes society has of them.

One thing this Blind reading and Hoyt’s reading make me think of was how stereotype threat can be applied to any population in any context. I am currently working with a professor on developing an experiment that will test stereotype threat within heritage speakers of Spanish. Heritage speakers who are 2nd and 3rd generation tend to have higher insecurity of their Spanish compared to those who grew up with it as a first language and are extremely comfortable. We would be interested in studying how this negatively self-stereotyped group is affected by stereotype threat in multiple aspects of their life, especially because “experiencing threats to one’s identity can have wide-ranging and meaningful effects beyond the most studied outcome of academic underperformance” (Hoyt & Murphy 2015)

I had never thought about how everything can be turned into a moral argument (I, obviously, am not a noncognitivist), BUT I do think that is something we- as humans- should strive to work towards. I appreciate how their focus is not on trying to be right right, but trying to share opinions and emotions. Imagine what political debates would be like if they put all of their effort into making their point, instead of dividing time between that and targeting their opponent. This view could make voting decisions clearer,  because there would be a more transparent understanding of what politicians platforms stand for. I still think analysis of policies are important, but my point is the politicians themselves wouldn’t waste energy on attacking opponent’s policies.

Also, in regards to moral arguments, since critical thinking skills are useful “to get beyond emotional reactions in evaluating arguments”, does this mean categorical logic is more important in these argument types? And how does this relate to agreeing/disagreeing with implied premises? The last comment I have about this first reading has to do with universalism. I understand the emphasis on equality, but I don’t understand the lack of acknowledgment of equity. In order to honor the equal importance consideration of others, it is implied that people understand this may be enacted differently. For example, if everyone should have a standard amount of food for the month. The government would be giving more food to families in the lower economic class compared to the families in the middle class. How does this work if someone who believes in universalism, but not equity?

For the second reading, I had studied “mindbugs” in my LDST 102 course so there wasn’t any content that “blew my mind”, but it was refreshing to read about the complexity of the human brain. I did fall victim to the quiz at the beginning of the Availability and Achoring section; my answers were (b), (a) and (a), as predicted. This example of availability heuristic made me think of how I know several people who are scared of sharks when they go to the beach, despite the probability of being attacked by one is very slim. I understand why there is this fear though, because of the amount of news stories and movies that portray these incidents.