Concept Expansion as a Source of Empowerment

Cikara, Mina

doi:10.1080/1047840x.2016.1111830

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Definitions of trauma have been a contentious point in psychiatric classification and in the broader sociopolitical landscape. Trauma and related concepts (bullying, abuse) have expanded over time, altering how we deal with certain types of negative events (Haslam, 2016;Cikara, 2016). This manuscript provides one of the first data-driven attempts to understand how individuals make decisions about whether or not specific events qualify as 'trauma.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What's in a trauma? Using machine learning to unpack what makes an event traumatic

Jones

2021

Journal of Affective Disorders

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What differentiates a trauma from an event that is merely upsetting? Wildly different definitions of trauma have been used across various settings. Yet there is a dearth of empirical work examining the features of events that individuals use to define an event as a 'trauma'. First, a group of qualitative coders classified features (e.g., actual physical injury, loss of possessions) of 600 event descriptions (e.g., "was verbally harassed by a boss", "watched a video of an adult being shot and killed"). Next, across two studies, machine learning was used to predict whether individuals rated event descriptions as 'trauma' or 'traumatic' in over 100,000 judgment tasks. In Study 1, examining continuous ratings, a cross-validated LASSO regression with interaction terms provided the best out-of-sample predictions (r 2 = 0.76), outperforming ridge regression, support vector regression, and linear regression. In Study 2, using binary judgments, a random forest model accurately predicted out-of-sample individual responses (AUC = 0.96), outperforming a neural network and an AdaBoost ensemble classifier. The most important event features across the two studies were actual death, threat of death, and the presence of a human perpetrator. The most important human features in predicting judgments were political orientation and gender.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The horizontal emergence of trauma as a psychological concept has surely enriched the science and treatment of psychopathology. Vertically expanding concepts of harm may reflect greater sensitivity, reducing uncertainty about the unacceptability of certain actions and empowering victims to take action (Cikara, 2016).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

What's in a trauma? Using machine learning to unpack what makes an event traumatic

Jones

2021

Journal of Affective Disorders

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“…In addition to psychologically robbing people of agency, it leads down the path, according to Haslam, of encouraging people to consider themselves victims (see also Haidt, 2017;Lilienfeld, 2017a;Lukianoff & Haidt, 2018). These points may have merit, but one might also wonder whether minimizing the traumas and aggressions allegedly suffered by a disadvantaged and subordinated group as mere concept creep risks robbing people (and groups) of agency (for related but distinct points, see also Cikara, 2016).…”

Section: Microaggressionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pushing Back Against the Microaggression Pushback in Academic Psychology: Reflections on a Concept-Creep Paradox

Hodson

2021

Perspect Psychol Sci

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Echoing the 1960s, the 2020s opened with racial tensions boiling. The Black Lives Matter movement is energized, issuing pleas to listen to Black voices regarding day-to-day discrimination and expressing frustrations over the slow progress of social justice. However, psychological scientists have published only several opinion pieces on racial microaggressions, primarily objections, and strikingly little empirical data. Here I document three trends in psychology that coincide with the academic pushback against microaggressions: concept-creep concerns, especially those regarding expanded notions of harm; the expansion of right-leaning values in moral judgments (moral foundations theory); and an emphasis on prejudice symmetry, with the political left deemed equivalently biased against right-leaning targets (e.g., the rich, police) as the right is against left-leaning targets (e.g., Black people, women, LGBT+ people). Psychological scientists have ignored power dynamics and have strayed from their mission to understand and combat prejudice against disadvantaged populations, rendering researchers distracted and ill-equipped to tackle the microaggression concept. An apparent creep paradox, with calls to both reduce (e.g., harm) and expand (e.g., liberal prejudices, conservative moral foundations) concepts, poses a serious challenge to research on prejudice. I discuss the need for psychology to better capture Black experiences and to “tell it like it is” or risk becoming an irrelevant discipline of study.

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“…While Haslam (2016) states that he is essentially ambivalent in relation to the potential positive or negative implications of concept creep, he does this alongside the claim that "concept creep runs the risk of pathologizing everyday experience and encouraging a sense of virtuous but impotent victimhood" (p. 1), potentially overlooking some of the practical and academic benefits of concept creep (Cascardi & Brown, 2016;Cikara, 2016). The sociologist Frank Furedi (2016) is more sympathetic to Haslam's (2016) concerns, suggesting that concept creep gives a perception of legitimacy to a cultural trend towards the encouragement and sacralization of vulnerability and victimhood (see also Campbell & Manning, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Opposing this view, Niemi and Young (2016) argue that the expansion of concepts allow disadvantaged groups to express how cultural pressures lead to their overt and covert victimization. This subsequently opens the possibility of third parties being able to act on the behalf of disadvantaged groups in order to prevent harm (Cikara, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Concepts Creep to the Left and the Right? Evidence for Ideologically-Salient Concept Breadth Judgments Across the Political Spectrum

Ca¹,

Purser²,

Baguley³

2021

Preprint

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In a target article in 2017, social psychologist Nick Haslam proposed that concept creep explains how established social concepts expand to incorporate new phenomena, with such expansions fundamentally changing conceptual definitions and contributing to a loss of a shared social understanding. However, Haslam’s piece (along with several commentaries) focused on concept creep in relation to a small number of categories (e.g., prejudice, bullying, trauma) that are typically more salient for those on the political left. In this work, we examined whether concept creep is a uniquely leftist phenomenon, or whether we can observe the same conceptual expansion for categories typically salient for conservatives. We found evidence for such symmetry when considering categories such as sexual deviance, terrorism, and personal responsibility – with some nuanced exceptions. We discuss our findings in relation to growing political polarization, intergroup relations, and the study of partisan differences using a variety of politically salient stimuli.

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Concept Expansion as a Source of Empowerment

Cited by 14 publications

References 44 publications

What's in a trauma? Using machine learning to unpack what makes an event traumatic

What's in a trauma? Using machine learning to unpack what makes an event traumatic

Pushing Back Against the Microaggression Pushback in Academic Psychology: Reflections on a Concept-Creep Paradox

Do Concepts Creep to the Left and the Right? Evidence for Ideologically-Salient Concept Breadth Judgments Across the Political Spectrum

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