Facebook Ad

Recognizing Default Responses

For my automatic attitudinal response, I want to own up to a predisposition that I've had for the majority of my life. My mom's side of the family is all LDS, so naturally they're very conservative and identify as Republicans. My dad's side of the family is also very conservative, and most of them live in Texas, a traditionally red state. Additionally, I was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, and when I graduated high school I came to St. George for school. Alaska and Utah are two deep red, or Republican, states. Do you see a pattern emerging? My entire life I've been exposed to conservative views and conservative values. Many of these conservative views stemmed into primary certitudes. Some people reading this may have an automatic attitudinal response of their own that causes them to think of bigotry because I said conservative, but I don't think that's the case. My family members are not hateful or bigoted people. While they are definitely fiscally conservative, and most of them identify as strong Republicans, none of them pushed their views about social issues on me. To be honest, I don't even know how many of my family members feel about some major social issues. For this reason, I didn't develop as many primary certitudes pertaining to issues like abortion or gay rights. Had my parents been vocally opposed to gay marriage, I still don't think it would've created a primary certitude. I have had gay friends growing up, and this exposure led me to believe in equal rights for everyone.

The reason I chose this automatic attitudinal response for my post is because it is relevant right now. Having grown up in a sea of red, I have very seldom heard anything good about Hillary Clinton. This created a predisposition in my head that causes me to scoff or roll my eyes at the very mention of Clinton. My blind, inherent hatred of Hillary Clinton is a hidden presumption that stems from my primary certitudes. As a result, a few of my posts were critical of Clinton. While I tried my best to base my posts only on factual statements, the fact that I chose to write about Clinton more than once is problematic. Thinking back, I jumped at the chance to write a blog post about why people don't trust Hillary Clinton. Even though it's a fair topic for discussion with plenty of research to cite as evidence, choosing to write about it is a bias in it's own right.

This election, I decided to be more open minded and try to form my own opinions. This is a very difficult task. A Gallup poll found that 71% of teens age 13-17 say their political views are almost the same as their parents'. This is a startlingly high statistic that lends itself to my argument. While I recognize that I have an automatic response when it comes to Clinton, I don't take full responsibility for the manifestation of that response. If I wasn't actively trying to ignore that response and educate myself from an objective vantage point, then I would be much more culpable in this situation. However, I have researched Clinton extensively throughout this election, and I have formed my own opinions. The effort I've put into research and higher levels of thinking is an attempt to combat my own ethnocentrism. I don't want to be the type of person that looks down on someone just because they support Hillary Clinton, or just because they are a Democrat, or just because they are fiscally liberal. I want to educate myself to the best of my ability so that my own preconceived notions of what's "right" don't cloud my ability to make rational judgments about other people.

I found, through reflection, that I dislike her because I think she is dishonest and I can't vote for someone that I can't trust, because even if I agree with her policies, there's no way of knowing if she even believes or supports the things she's saying. It is important to note, however, that even though I am much more educated than I used to be, any research I did is also biased. It is impossible to be completely objective. The phrasing of my Google searches, the sites I chose to visit, and the information I chose to acknowledge or ignore all contribute to an insurmountable automatic attitudinal response that I have been subjected to for as long as I can remember.

I don't blame anyone in particular for influencing me one way or another. I think that we are all subjected to certain political views depending on not only our family and social groups, but also our personal experiences and our cultural backgrounds. These two concepts combined to leave me with a disdain for a politician I knew nothing about. In all honesty, I disliked Hillary Clinton before I could possibly understand the issues at hand. My distaste began at a young age and continued into young adulthood. I've worked hard to try to curb my automatic response and think critically about each individual situation, but that automatic bias is never going to go away. I don't think I'll ever be able to fully rid myself of it. Once you've been conditioned to think a certain way, it's extremely difficult to completely reverse that conditioning. Moving forward, it will be important for me to recognize these automatic responses as they occur. That way, I can take a step back, think critically about the situation, and come to a more logical and well thought out conclusion.