Would you treat someone differently based on ethnicity?

[Al B. Sure!]

A white guy asks you for the time. It is daylight on a public street. You have no reason to suspect that this is a trick or he's going to annoy you for money or try to sell you something. He's in a business suit and seems hurried and asks you simply for the time.

Whether you give him the time or not isn't important. My question is, does your decision change if he's Asian? Black?

Any other scenario... assuming all else is equal, would someone being of a different ethnicity than you change your decision to help them or not, no matter if they're just asking for the time, asking you to watch their dog, begging for money, or whatever else.

Does ethnicity enter your thought process and affect your decision?

[Dauphin]

Clothing, mannerisms, use of language, attitude, body language etc do.

[Al B. Sure!]

Heraclitus, you can't answer No! You implicitly admitted it in the other thread whether or not you want to admit it explicitly!

[Heraclitus]

A white guy asks you for the time. It is daylight on a public street. You have no reason to suspect that this is a trick or he's going to annoy you for money or try to sell you something. He's in a business suit and seems hurried and asks you simply for the time.

Whether you give him the time or not isn't important. My question is, does your decision change if he's Asian? Black?

Any other scenario... assuming all else is equal, would someone being of a different ethnicity than you change your decision to help them or not, no matter if they're just asking for the time, asking you to watch their dog, begging for money, or whatever else.

Does ethnicity enter your thought process and affect your decision?

The help in this case is so ridiculously low cost that one would need massive negative signals to avoid helping them.

[Al B. Sure!]

I also said:

no matter if they're just asking for the time, asking you to watch their dog, begging for money, or whatever else.

The question is if ethnicity plays ANY part in your decision making process, no matter what is being asked of you

[Heraclitus]

If we where out of sight of other people (a empty street) and the clothing would be lower middle class or poor, I would tell the time to a White, Asian or Arab but not a Black, Albanian or Gypsie guy.

If he was female I would just decline giving the time if she was Gypsie and check for my wallet.

I base this decision on protecting myself by declining to participate in the interview stage as well as crime statistics and the group differences based on sex, race and class.

[Al B. Sure!]

If we where out of sight of other people (a empty street) and the clothing would be lower middle class or poor, I would tell the time to a White, Asian or Arab but not a Black, Albanian or Gypsie guy.

If he was female I would just decline giving the time if she was Gypsie and check for my wallet.

I base this decision on protecting myself by declining to participate in the interview stage as well as crime statistics and the group differences based on sex, race and class.

Yup. Racist.


Oh and Gypsie Okay, Borat.

[Heraclitus]

I would decline watching their dog regardless of ethnicity unless they where a friend. I wouldn't give money to a wealthy guy, ect.

To make it clear when the task costs me little and I can be assured of others intervening on my behalf ethnicity doesn't play a role in decision making.

It does clearly sometimes play a role.

[Heraclitus]

Yup. Racist.

Classist and sexist too.

[Al B. Sure!]

Let's see how much of an island you are on on this one, Hera.

[Heraclitus]

Let's see how much of an island you are on on this one, Hera.

All you are doing is testing signaling.

Make the poll anon my friend and you will see I am less an island than you think.

Observe how people behave and suddenly the island even isn't that small. Remember the videos of social experiments of how people didn't intervene in violence depending on sex, race and class?



I prefer my actions matching my words and even I wouldn't put this on my resume.

[Heraclitus]

I do apologize for not reading the entire OP though. However thinking about your question without concretely limiting the circumstances and under prefect honesty most people would answer yes.

At least I assume people who decide who deserves affirmative action base their decision on ethnicity. Also if I encounter someone of a different ethnicity I am less likley to be offended if they just stare at me stupidly, I can safely assume they aren't responding or are talking gibberish because they don't speak my language.

[Proteus_MST]

Clothing, mannerisms, use of language, attitude, body language etc do.

Same for me,
I would also rather decide according to these characteristics, than according to ethnicity.

[Elok]

While I treat people differently based on ethnicity, the differences in treatment are superficial, and I like to think I treat everyone equally and fairly. For example, when I first meet black people I ask them if they were weaned on watermelon as an "icebreaker," while Asians get accused of going pee-pee in my Coke.

[KrazyHorse]

Not unless he was Hungarian.