Welcome to Need to Know, your Saturday dive into thought-provoking research from think tanks, academics, and leading policy thinkers in Canada and around the world, curated by The Hub. Here’s what’s got us thinking this week.
Is the era of “woke” over? In 2022, economist Tyler Cowen predicted that wokeism—a loose reference to progressive attitudes on social injustices, particularly around race, gender, and systemic inequalities—was peaking.
He may have been right. Corporations are beginning to end their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. In the wake of the U.S. presidential election results, there have been discussions among Democrats of the need for the to ditch its turn towards wokeism. Meanwhile, here in Canada, voters appear to be much more concerned about affordability rather than manning the barricades for progressive social causes. With all this in mind, this week, we take a look at some recent research that assesses the social costs of the turn to woke.
Is the “Great Awokening” over?
In a recent episode of the podcast “Conversations with Tyler,” sociologist Musa al-Gharbi discusses the dynamics of the “Great Awokening,” a term describing the surge in social justice activism among elites today. Al-Gharbi identifies this as the fourth such movement in U.S. history, with previous waves in the 1930s, 1960s, and late 1980s to early 1990s. He says these periods are the consequence of “elite overproduction,” where society generates more educated individuals than there are elite positions available, leading to status anxiety among these groups.
This anxiety prompts elites to adopt social justice causes, not solely out of genuine concern but also as a strategy to secure their status. Al-Gharbi notes that these movements have often coincided with broader societal hardships, creating a fertile ground for activism.
However, he argues that such movements typically wane without achieving substantial real change for marginalized communities. Instead, they often result in cultural conflicts that can inadvertently empower right-wing factions.
Al-Gharbi observes that the latest Great Awokening, peaking around 2021, is now in decline. He suggests that while these cycles of heightened social justice awareness bring certain issues to the forefront, they rarely lead to lasting structural reforms. The focus tends to remain on symbolic gestures rather than addressing systemic inequalities.
Is DEI training increasing social hostility?
A recent study by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and the Rutgers University Social Perception Lab, created quite a stir after it was revealed that the New York Times and Bloomberg buried stories on it. The study critically examined the efficacy of DEI programs, particularly those emphasizing “anti-oppressive” teachings. The research suggests that such approaches may inadvertently foster a “hostile attribution bias” among recipients the tendency to interpret ambiguous or neutral actions of others as intentionally hostile or aggressive. In this context, DEI training led individuals to perceive discrimination even when it wasn’t there.
The study involved controlled experiments across three domains: race, religion, and caste. Participants were exposed to DEI materials from prominent figures like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. Findings indicated that exposure to these materials increased perceptions of bias and discrimination in neutral scenarios. For instance, participants who read anti-racist essays were more likely to interpret a college admissions rejection as racially motivated, despite no evidence supporting this conclusion.
Moreover, the research identified a correlation between exposing someone to anti-oppressive narratives and them developing heightened authoritarian tendencies. Participants exhibited increased support for punitive measures against perceived oppressors and were more inclined to endorse extreme characterizations of certain groups.
The NCRI’s findings raise concerns about the unintended consequences of certain DEI teachings. The study suggests that rather than fostering inclusivity, these programs might exacerbate intergroup tensions and promote division. The authors call for rigorous, data-driven evaluations of DEI interventions to ensure they achieve their intended goals, without causing additional harm.
This research contributes to the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of DEI initiatives, highlighting the need for careful assessment and the potential reevaluation of current practices to genuinely promote diversity and inclusion.
How does political correctness influence public discourse?
In a new study published in the American Economic Review, Luca Braghieri, a professor in decision sciences at Bocconi University in Italy, explores how social pressures influence our public and private expressions of sensitive sociopolitical attitudes. Using experiments conducted at two University of California campuses, his research reveals that concerns about social image drive individuals to report more socially acceptable attitudes publicly compared to their private views. This discrepancy creates a “wedge” that distorts the authenticity of public discourse.
The study’s experiments included “public” and “private” conditions to evaluate how students express their agreement with statements on sensitive topics such as immigration and gender identity. When students anticipated their responses might be publicly identifiable, their answers aligned more closely with perceived campus norms. Conversely, their private responses displayed greater ideological diversity.
Moreover, the research quantifies the information loss caused by these dynamics. Public statements were shown to be 30 to 50 percent less informative about participants’ true attitudes compared to private ones, even for a sophisticated audience aware of the distortions.
The findings highlight the dual challenges of decoding information in politically charged environments. The paper emphasizes the risks to open discourse, as warped public expressions shaped by social desirability biases fail to represent the true underlying diversity of opinion. Take note policymakers, the “consensus” on X is likely not the consensus opinion of the general public.
ChatGPT assisted in the creation of this article.
Taylor is The Hub's Research and Prize Manager. He is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Toronto. He has worked with several think tanks in Canada and the U.S. and previously served as a senior advisor to the Ontario Minister of Finance....
