One of the issues here is that Google autocomplete is geared to the search history that exists for the computer on which the search is run. So when I enter the word "proper" then the autocomplete for me is to a restaurant in Boone, NC.
(The restaurant serves local, Southern-history food to constitute a proper meal. If you think collard greens are a good side dish, and I agree, then this is your place.)
It would seem that the results obtained from such a search using Google autocomplete is an insight into the search history of the person who uses that computer.
Ken -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. steel...@appstate.edu Professor Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA --------------------------------------------------------------- On 11/4/2013 5:51 PM, rfro...@jbu.edu wrote:
I think Google autocomplete is fairly unreplicable in many cases. I don't doubt that putting "women should" into a Google search in Dubai might turn up those suggestions (the UN ad agency was in Dubai), but I wasn't able to replicate it here. I don't begrudge someone advertising for a good cause to use a current trend like Google autocomplete to make a dramatic ad that makes a good point but I don't think it is a sociological IAT (or even a Rorschach). When I put in "women", mine says: women seeking men women of faith women living well women of the bible When you put in "women should", it starts to go negative. And what would you expect? What sentence that starts out saying that a whole class of humanity "should" or "shouldn't" do anything is going to end well? There was an interesting non-disclaimer disclaimer in the Guardian article: "The world as seen through the lens of autocomplete is a weird and not always wonderful place. It's a place where David Cameron "is a lizard", Obama is "a Muslim", Putin is a "badass" and Miley Cyrus, predictably, is "still twerking". But despite the suggestions that have been skewed by a popular blogpost or meme and are clearly bonkers, there is still much to be gleaned from them about our deep-seated discriminations." Really? Much to be gleaned? I doubt it. For "psychology is", I got psychology is psychology is defined as psychology is the study of psychology is best defined as psychology is not a science Certainly there are some people who don't believe it is a science but I don't think 1/4 autocomplete recommendations is very disheartening. I would think someone was tampering with it if there was nothing negative at all. Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences Professor of Psychology Box 3519 John Brown University 2000 W. University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 rfro...@jbu.edu (479) 524-7295 http://bit.ly/DrFroman "The LORD detests both Type I and Type II errors." Proverbs 17:15 -----Original Message----- From: Christopher Green [mailto:chri...@yorku.ca] Sent: Monday, November 04, 2013 4:05 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Ian Davidson Subject: [tips] Google autocomplete & psychology You may have seen, recently, that it has become a kind of informal method for discovering popular social trends to enter the beginning of a sentence into a Google search box and see how the engine completes the expression. The idea is that Google will come up with the most likely completions based on its "knowledge" of what people generally intend when they start a search expression. This method was used very effectively in an ad campaign by UN Women a few weeks ago when they entered phrases like "women should" and "women need to" and got horrible completions like "stay at home," "be slaves," and "be in the kitchen." Here's a Guardian article about that experiment. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/22/google-autocomplete-un-women-ad-discrimination-algorithms So, I decided to try the same thing with "psychology is". You should give it whirl. I don't think you'll find the results to be all that surprising, but they are a bit disheartening nevertheless. Regards, Chris ....... Christopher D Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M6C 1G4 chri...@yorku.ca <mailto:chri...@yorku.ca> http://www.yorku.ca/christo --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: rfro...@jbu.edu <mailto:rfro...@jbu.edu>. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13039.37a56d458b5e856d05bcfb3322db5f8a&n=T&l=tips&o=29768 or send a blank email to leave-29768-13039.37a56d458b5e856d05bcfb3322db5...@fsulist.frostburg.edu <mailto:leave-29768-13039.37a56d458b5e856d05bcfb3322db5...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: steel...@appstate.edu <mailto:steel...@appstate.edu>. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13524.94845a3ed9806f1cef14973830dd8c39&n=T&l=tips&o=29772 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-29772-13524.94845a3ed9806f1cef14973830dd8...@fsulist.frostburg.edu <mailto:leave-29772-13524.94845a3ed9806f1cef14973830dd8...@fsulist.frostburg.edu>
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