Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Cottrell, Catherine

Area of Concentration

Psychology

Abstract

Previous literature has proposed that physicians may have greater confidence in their own objectivity because of the emphasis on empiricism during their training in the natural sciences, and that this sense of personal objectivity promotes biased thought, thereby contributing to health disparities between advantaged and disadvantaged groups. Psychologists know little about the construct of perceived objectivity, however. The current project addresses this gap in research by investigating the relationships between education in the natural sciences, perception of personal objectivity, and racial bias. Additionally, it examines a definition of objectivity as cognitive rigidity. College students recruited using Amazon’s mTurk (n = 128) and snowball sampling (n = 14; pooled N = 142) provided data about their perceived objectivity, openness to new experiences and information, personal need for structure, racial bias, educational background. They also evaluated a hypothetical patient’s compliance after random assignment in a 2 (objectivity: prime vs control) x 2 (patient race: White vs Black) between-subjects factorial design. Perceived objectivity was positively related to both personal need for structure and openness. There were no effects of the objectivity prime or patient race on evaluations of patient compliance. The results suggest that perceived objectivity may not be related to education in the natural sciences or racial bias, in conflict with the proposed theory.

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