You Also Have an Ideology

There is no question that we have a problem with ideology in psychology—in all of science, actually. Our work is infused with it. Although it has been a longstanding problem that people have highlighted repeatedly, awareness of the problem has certainly increased in the last couple of years.

The “problem” I refer to here is not the recently accelerated anti-racism movement. The problem is also not that our science is intertwined with ideology—as I explain later, there is really no other way. Rather, the longstanding problem is that we have treated the predominant ideology as invisible and have actively asserted it to be non-existent. I am, of course, here talking of colorblind ideology, or more generally a hyper-dispositional ideology that minimizes—and often even denies—structural forces. Indeed, colorblind ideology is not only about minimizing the nature and significance of race as an organizing system of society, but is also about amplifying individual-level accounts of human behavior and mental processes.

In a previous paper (paywall |open access), my colleagues and I described how racial colorblindness and dispositionalism serve as an ideological setting in which much of psychological research can be understood. It is this ideological setting that has led the field to develop and promote individual-focused interventions such as growth mindset, grit, power-posing, and the whole nudge industrial complex. It is this ideological setting that made implicit bias a household name, and it is because of this ideological setting that implicit bias trainings are rampant across colleges and industry, whereas structural bias trainings are few and far between.

It is this ideological setting that has led the field to believe that it is free from ideology. The very invisible nature of the ideology is a manifestation of the ideology. In an ideological vacuum, we can toss around weighty terms such as objectivity and truth, and contrast them negatively with subjectivity and activism. We can claim to be objective all the while doing essentially nothing to actually promote objectivity other than our vigorous assertions. Truth and objectivity do not come for free. They do not just fall from the sky and embed themselves into our theories, methods, and interpretations. If you are ontologically committed to making truth claims, and value objectivity, that is totally fine. But you have to actually do the work, you can’t just assert that you are establishing truths via objective inquiry if you are doing nothing to ensure it is so.

In a paper I published last year (paywall|open access), I tried to highlight how these lurking worldviews are filled with assumptions that impact the debate on the nature and implications of racial microaggressions. In that paper I differentiated between the interpersonal racism framework, which is associated with colorblind ideology, and the systemic racism framework, which is associated with what one might call an anti-racist ideology¹.

The major distinction between these two frameworks is where they locate the source of racism. The systemic racism framework views society as racist, and therefore any behavior flows from the broader racist societal norms and values. In this context, individuals have three forms of action: embrace the racist society and be actively racist; reject the racist society and be actively anti-racist; or do nothing and go about your life, which results in passive racism. That is, if we live in a racist society, we will engage in racist behavior whether we intend to or not. It is in the air, it is all around us, we can’t avoid it completely. This is the basic idea behind microaggressions and certainly the most controversial proposition of contemporary discussions on racism. Importantly, the focus in this framework is on the systems, and not the individual actors.

An illustration of the systemic racism framework, reproduced from https://psyarxiv.com/4ka37/

The interpersonal framework, in contrast, does not have the starting assumption of a racist society. The starting assumption is of a neutral colorblind society in which each behavioral act should be taken and evaluated on its own. In this framework, all behavior is a product of individual dispositions, and so there are two options: you are either a racist person or not a racist person. There is no need to distinguish between active and passive racism, because those distinctions only make sense in the context of a racist society. Because racism is a quality of people, anti-racism is viewed as a personal attack against individuals and not a movement to change a broken system. The focus in this framework is on individual actors, not on the systems.

An illustration of the interpersonal racism framework, reproduced from https://psyarxiv.com/4ka37/

Both of these frameworks are based on assumptions and ideologies, which guide interpretations of evidence. They cannot be thought of as scientific theories that can be subject to test and falsified in the Popperian sense. Nearly any evidence can be interpreted within either framework. For example, a frequent counterexample of White supremacy in the U.S. is the relative educational and economic success of (some) Asian Americans (this example was used in Jussim, in press, but it is so common there is nothing remarkable about that). If Asian Americans are doing better than Whites, how can we live in a racist society that advantages Whites? This argument makes perfect sense from the interpersonal framework, as the evidence is taken on its own. From the systemic framework, one would put that observation in context and highlight how it was racist U.S. immigration policies that led to selective immigration from some Asian countries that held preference for those with high education, high potential, and sufficient resources to ensure success. It is very difficult to have productive conversations about anything related to race and racism without recognizing that people hold these different ideological positions².

A few recent events in psychology have highlighted the presumed absence of the dominant ideology and how poorly we actively identify our assumptions. Back in September, Jonathan Haidt announced his plans to not renew his membership to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology because they added a required question to conference submissions for authors to indicate:

…whether and how this submission advances the equity, inclusion, and anti-racism goals of SPSP. This may include, but is not limited to: The research participants in the sample; the methods used in the research; the members of the research team(s) involved in the work (e.g., background, diversity, career stage, affiliation type); the content of the presentation (e.g., critical theories, prejudice, equity, cross-cultural research). spsp.org

Haidt contrasted this emphasis on diversity, and anti-racism specifically, with what he referred to as an emphasis on truth, and in doing so characterized the latter as a matter of moral standing (“fiduciary duties”).

Although there were strong reactions to Haidt’s announcement, both in support and against, the whole thing proved rather milquetoast in light of the events that surfaced last week concerning Perspectives on Psychological Science, a leading journal in the field. Steven Roberts distributed a preprint that contained a forthcoming commentary and a description of the editorial process at Perspectives, including email correspondence with the Editor, Klaus Fiedler. The situation has many details, and I really cannot properly summarize it quickly, so I urge you to read the full Roberts preprint to understand the situation. The bottom line is that the whole thing was a clear case of editorial misconduct, and more importantly for my current point, an illustration of the dominant ideological setting of colorblindness.

It is the dominant ideological setting of colorblindness that led Klaus Fiedler to have three senior White men (Stanovich, Stroebe, Jussim) review a critique from another White man (Hommel) focused on a paper about race led by a Multiracial man (Roberts). Actually, that is not quite right because those reviews did not seem to be about Hommel’s critique, per se, but rather were further critiques of the original Roberts et al (2020) paper. These reviews were then elevated to the status of published commentaries. Importantly, of the four (author + three commentaries), only one (Jussim) does work that is even remotely related to race. It is the dominant ideology that makes this a reasonable course of action.

It is this dominant ideology that led Hommel (in press) to criticize Roberts et al. (2020) for their emphasis on race rather than attending to the hundreds of other dimensions of human variation. This is a rather familiar argument, shifting attention away from race and arguing that we should take a broader view of diversity. This argument contributes to the ongoing lack of attention to race, and is thus a clear manifestation of colorblind ideology. The argument is indistinguishable from the “all lives matter” retort to the clear and necessary “Black lives matter” assertion. It sets race on the same level as any other dimension of variation (e.g., handedness, in Hommel, in press), rather than recognizing the profound way that race has shaped, and continues to shape, society (in the U.S., in Europe, in the world).

It is this ideological setting that led Jussim (in press) to paraphrase Martin Luther King’s “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”. This, too, is a very familiar move. It is no accident that this is the quote trotted out again and again. It is the key phrase from King that supports a colorblind ideology. Never mind that its meaning is understood differently in the context of the rest of the speech, or that King elaborated extensively elsewhere about the importance of attending to structural racism. This quote, taken from one of the most revered figures in U.S. history, is repeatedly weaponized in service of the ideology.

To prevent any misunderstandings---which is futile because I’m sure they will happen anyway—my intent is not to judge this dominant ideology, per se. I certainly disagree with it, it is not the ideology that I hold, but that is beside the point. I am also not trying to “cancel” or “mob” anyone; in fact I vehemently support my colleagues’ right to express their opinions and make their arguments. What I am judging here is the denial that this ideology exists and influences how we go about our science. What I am judging is the prevalent tendency to label an alternative worldview as an “ideology” while making claims to conducting objective, neutral, pure-truth research.

What we are witnessing in psychology, and indeed in many other disciplines, is a disruption in the normative ideology. Many more folks have shifted their thinking from the interpersonal model to the systemic model, from colorblindness to anti-racism, and are subsequently trying to put this ideology into practice. Plenty of colleagues will take issue with my stance on this, but replacing one dominant ideology with another dominant ideology is not optimal, even when the new one aligns with your own views. As ideological positions take hold, it is less necessary (and more costly) to question assumptions that lie within. And we should always question our assumptions. A more productive path forward would involve being explicit about our ideological assumptions and how they relate to our research, practice, and priorities. This is fairly standard practice in research working from social constructivists or critical paradigms, but quite rare in post-positivistic psychology. In post-positivistic psychology we value objectivity, but again, it does not come for free. In post-positivistic psychology we act as though we do not have an ideology.

I am here to tell you today that you, dear reader, have an ideology.

1. Those who deride this ideology often seem to call it “woke ideology,” although this term is not used in any consistent or coherent way.

2. In holding with the principle that all binaries are false, I do not claim these are “pure type” ideologies or that these are the only ones available. In fact, because we reflect so little on our racial assumptions, and because we can change our ideologies over time, most people show a blend of the two.