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Double Standards: What They Are and How to Respond to Them
The double standard
The double standard is a principle or policy that is applied in a different way to similar things, with no legitimate explanation. Thus, a double standard happens when two or more individuals or groups, are handled differently, when they should be handled the same way.
We can encounter double standards in many ares of our lives: in the actions of individuals and groups that apply different forms of favoritism and discrimination, such as sexism or racism.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
The Sagan Standard
The Sagan standard is related to astronomer Carl Sagan, who stated that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (a dictum abbreviated as ECREE).
This means t...
Ordinary And Extraordinary Claims
Based on the Sagan standard, if someone claims that they came across a unicorn during they commute, they would be expected to brig stronger evidence in order to verify that claim than if they claimed that they came across a horse.
This happens because there is significant evidence for the existence of horses, but no relevant evidence to support the existence of unicorns, which makes the latter claim extraordinary.
The Concept Of Extraordinary Claims
- Instead of viewing claims as either ordinary or extraordinary, it’s better to view them as ranging between these two ends of the spectrum, based on how likely they are given everything that is known on the subject.
- It can be difficult to define the exact threshold on the ordinary-extraordinary spectrum that a certain claim needs to cross before it’s considered extraordinary, it’s generally preferable to focus on how extraordinary a claim is instead, and to expect a stand of proof that matches that degree of extraordinariness.
- A claim should generally not be viewed as extraordinary simply because it’s novel, but rather because it contradicts existing evidence.
The empathy gap
The empathy gap is a cognitive bias that causes people to struggle to understand mental states that are different from their own.
When someone is happy or angry, they ...
Examples of empathy gaps
The empathy gap causes us to misjudge our own emotions and behaviors. Examples include overestimating our ability to stay composed in a stressful event, overestimating the likelihood that we can control our desire for an addictive substance, such as coffee, or underestimating how much our feelings for someone affected our judgment in the past.
The empathy gap can cause people to be unprepared for situations and act differently to what they would ideally prefer.
Types of empathy gaps
- Cold-to-hot empathy gaps. When someone is in a cold (emotionally neutral) state, they have trouble understanding someone in a hot (emotional state). A calm person might be unable to predict how they will act when they're upset.
- Hot-to-cold empathy gaps. Someone in this state might be passionate about a topic but fail to understand how other people feel that are not passionate about it.
- Intrapersonal bias. An interpersonal empathy gap occurs when someone struggles to consider their own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
- Interpersonal bias. An interpersonal empathy gap occurs when people battle to consider someone else's thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
- Retrospective bias. A retrospective empathy gap occurs when people fail to understand why they acted emotionally in the past.
- A prospective bias. A prospective empathy gap occurs when people fail to predict the future behavior of someone who doesn't care about the same thing as much.
- The outgroup empathy gap. This is a cognitive bias that causes people to be more empathic towards members of their ingroup than toward people in their outgroup.
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Key Ideas
Vitamins and free radicals
In the 90s, vitamins were touted as treatments for cardiovascular diseases, cataracts, and even cancer. Sales in multivitamins and other dietary supplements boomed.
But over...
Added antioxidants
In the 1970s and into the 80s, research was done where mice were given a variety of supplementary antioxidants in their diet or via an injection straight into the bloodstream.
The result showed that an excess of antioxidants didn't stop the onset of disease or extended lifespan.
Antioxidant supplementation
- In 1994, one trial followed the lives of 29,133 Finish people in their 50s who all smoked. Some were given beta-carotene supplements. The group that supplemented with Beta-carotene had a 16% increase in lung cancer.
- Another study shows a breast cancer increase of 20% for postmenopausal women who supplemented with folic acid.
- One study with 100 heavy smokers had a 28% increase in lung cancer after just four years of beta-carotene and vitamin A supplementation.