IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/somere/v51y2022i4p1484-1539.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Machine Learning as a Model for Cultural Learning: Teaching an Algorithm What it Means to be Fat

Author

Listed:
  • Alina Arseniev-Koehler
  • Jacob G. Foster

Abstract

Public culture is a powerful source of cognitive socialization; for example, media language is full of meanings about body weight. Yet it remains unclear how individuals process meanings in public culture. We suggest that schema learning is a core mechanism by which public culture becomes personal culture. We propose that a burgeoning approach in computational text analysis – neural word embeddings – can be interpreted as a formal model for cultural learning. Embeddings allow us to empirically model schema learning and activation from natural language data. We illustrate our approach by extracting four lower-order schemas from news articles: the gender, moral, health, and class meanings of body weight. Using these lower-order schemas we quantify how words about body weight “fill in the blanks†about gender, morality, health, and class. Our findings reinforce ongoing concerns that machine-learning models (e.g., of natural language) can encode and reproduce harmful human biases.

Suggested Citation

  • Alina Arseniev-Koehler & Jacob G. Foster, 2022. "Machine Learning as a Model for Cultural Learning: Teaching an Algorithm What it Means to be Fat," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 51(4), pages 1484-1539, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:51:y:2022:i:4:p:1484-1539
    DOI: 10.1177/00491241221122603
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00491241221122603
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00491241221122603?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Saguy, Abigail C. & Frederick, David & Gruys, Kjerstin, 2014. "Reporting risk, producing prejudice: How news reporting on obesity shapes attitudes about health risk, policy, and prejudice," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 125-133.
    2. Puhl, R.M. & Heuer, C.A., 2010. "Obesity stigma: Important considerations for public health," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 100(6), pages 1019-1028.
    3. Molly Lewis & Gary Lupyan, 2020. "Gender stereotypes are reflected in the distributional structure of 25 languages," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(10), pages 1021-1028, October.
    4. Gabriel Grand & Idan Asher Blank & Francisco Pereira & Evelina Fedorenko, 2022. "Semantic projection recovers rich human knowledge of multiple object features from word embeddings," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(7), pages 975-987, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Taylor, Marshall A. & Stoltz, Dustin S., 2024. "A Workflow for Analyzing Cultural Schemas in Texts," SocArXiv zvwn2, Center for Open Science.
    2. Pop, Ioana Andreea & Gielens, Erwin & Kottmann, Hannah & Achterberg, Peter, 2024. "Exploring the discourses around microdosing psychedelics within the r/microdosing online community," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 347(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frederick, David A. & Saguy, Abigail C. & Gruys, Kjerstin, 2016. "Culture, health, and bigotry: How exposure to cultural accounts of fatness shape attitudes about health risk, health policies, and weight-based prejudice," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 271-279.
    2. Peggy J. Liu & Kelly L. Haws & Karen Scherr & Joseph P. Redden & James R. Bettman & Gavan J. Fitzsimons, 2019. "The Primacy of “What” over “How Much”: How Type and Quantity Shape Healthiness Perceptions of Food Portions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(7), pages 3353-3381, July.
    3. Roose, Gudrun & Van Kerckhove, Anneleen & Huyghe, Elke, 2017. "Honey they shrank the food! An integrative study of the impact of food granularity and its operationalization mode on consumption," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 210-220.
    4. Kee, Jennifer Y. & Segovia, Michelle S. & Palma, Marco A., 2023. "Slim or Plus-Size Burrito? A natural experiment of consumers’ restaurant choice," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    5. Lad, Saloni U. & Sinopoli, Jacob & Khong, Brian & Conroy, Britt & Perzynski, Adam T. & del Rincon, Juan P., 2024. "Clinical and sociodemographic characteristics as predictors for quality of life in transmasculine and transfeminine individuals receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 346(C).
    6. Amin, Vikesh & Flores, Carlos A. & Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso, 2020. "The impact of BMI on mental health: Further evidence from genetic markers," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    7. Boyoung Park & Ha Na Cho & Eunji Choi & Da Hea Seo & Sue Kim & Yeong-Ran Park & Kui Son Choi & Yumie Rhee, 2019. "Self-perceptions of body weight status according to age-groups among Korean women: A nationwide population-based survey," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, January.
    8. Gerend, Mary A. & Stewart, Cylena & Wetzel, Karen, 2022. "Vulnerability and resilience to the harmful health consequences of weight discrimination in Black, Latina, and sexual minority women," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 315(C).
    9. Katherine Sang & Jen Remnant & Thomas Calvard & Katriona Myhill, 2021. "Blood Work: Managing Menstruation, Menopause and Gynaecological Health Conditions in the Workplace," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-16, February.
    10. Li, Shaobo (Kevin) & Kokkoris, Michail D. & Savani, Krishna, 2020. "Does everyone have the potential to achieve their ideal body weight? Lay theories about body weight and support for price discrimination policies," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 129-142.
    11. Zoë C. Meleo-Erwin, 2020. "Bariatric Biosociality: Pushed Together, Pulled Apart," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(1), pages 21582440198, January.
    12. Clotilde Napp, 2023. "Gender stereotypes embedded in natural language are stronger in more economically developed and individualistic countries," Post-Print hal-04316389, HAL.
    13. Adrián Mateo-Orcajada & Lucía Abenza-Cano & Raquel Vaquero-Cristóbal & Sonia M. Martínez-Castro & Alejandro Leiva-Arcas & Ana María Gallardo-Guerrero & Antonio Sánchez-Pato, 2021. "Gender Stereotypes among Teachers and Trainers Working with Adolescents," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(24), pages 1-10, December.
    14. Bei Yan & Feng Mai & Chaojiang Wu & Rui Chen & Xiaolin Li, 2024. "A Computational Framework for Understanding Firm Communication During Disasters," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 35(2), pages 590-608, June.
    15. Yeeli Mui & Bruce Y. Lee & Atif Adam & Anna Y. Kharmats & Nadine Budd & Claudia Nau & Joel Gittelsohn, 2015. "Healthy versus Unhealthy Suppliers in Food Desert Neighborhoods: A Network Analysis of Corner Stores’ Food Supplier Networks," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-17, November.
    16. Sarah Louise Killeen & David F. Byrne & Aisling A. Geraghty & Cara A. Yelverton & Douwe van Sinderen & Paul D. Cotter & Eileen F. Murphy & Sharleen L. O’Reilly & Fionnuala M. McAuliffe, 2022. "Recruiting and Engaging Women of Reproductive Age with Obesity: Insights from A Mixed-Methods Study within A Trial," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-15, October.
    17. David Berrigan & Ailing Liu & Britni R. Belcher & Ann Chao & Liwen Fang & Charles E. Matthews & Baohua Wang & Linhong Wang & Ning Wang & Yu Wang & Lichen Yang & Martha S. Linet & Nancy Potischman, 2020. "Physical Activity, Step Counts, and Grip Strength in the Chinese Children and Families Cohort Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-18, August.
    18. Mooney, Stephen J. & El-Sayed, Abdulrahman M., 2016. "Stigma and the etiology of depression among the obese: An agent-based exploration," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 1-7.
    19. Briony Hill & Alexandra Azzari Wynn-Jones & Kimberley J. Botting & Emma H. Cassinelli & Michael P. Daly & Caitlin Victoria Gardiner & Stephanie J. Hanley & Nicola Heslehurst & Regine Steegers-Theuniss, 2023. "The Challenge of Weight Stigma for Women in the Preconception Period: Workshop Recommendations for Action from the 5th European Conference on Preconception Health and Care," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(22), pages 1-12, November.
    20. Sikorski, Claudia & Luppa, Melanie & Angermeyer, Matthias C. & Schomerus, Georg & Link, Bruce & Riedel-Heller, Steffi G., 2015. "The association of BMI and social distance towards obese individuals is mediated by sympathy and understanding," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 25-30.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:51:y:2022:i:4:p:1484-1539. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.