What if the question were phrased “I’m doing some market research. What thoughts come to mind when you hear the word ‘rationality’?”. Honest and to the point. To me the phrase “I’m just curious” leads immediately to suspicion (i.e. You’re not ‘just curious’, you have a reason for asking. What is that reason? … (drifting thoughts of your reasons for asking)). “If someone were to describe themselves as a Rationalist...”, my first thought, “You mean yourself, don’t you?”. “what stereotypes would come to your mind about that person?” immediately puts me in a negative mindset since I already associate the word ‘stereotype’ with negative characteristics of a certain group. I know ‘stereotype’ doesn’t always mean ‘negative stereotype’ but, to me, it signals an inaccurate map warning, and I think most people first associate that word with something like “Asians can’t drive” instead of “Asians are really good at math”.
What if the question were phrased “I’m doing some market research. What thoughts come to mind when you hear the word ‘rationality’?”. Honest and to the point. To me the phrase “I’m just curious” leads immediately to suspicion (i.e. You’re not ‘just curious’, you have a reason for asking. What is that reason? … (drifting thoughts of your reasons for asking)). “If someone were to describe themselves as a Rationalist...”, my first thought, “You mean yourself, don’t you?”. “what stereotypes would come to your mind about that person?” immediately puts me in a negative mindset since I already associate the word ‘stereotype’ with negative characteristics of a certain group. I know ‘stereotype’ doesn’t always mean ‘negative stereotype’ but, to me, it signals an inaccurate map warning, and I think most people first associate that word with something like “Asians can’t drive” instead of “Asians are really good at math”.