Why Is It Important To Be Neutral?

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In essence, every question should be neutral, otherwise it's a mere confirmation of a judgement or predicament affected by confirmation bias or a hidden agenda. Neutrality lies in-between closed and open questions. Most leading questions regardless of the interrogators' intent, always restrict the freedom of the individuals' response , while a neutral question allows for freedom of expression without premeditated suggestions on a specific topic. Being neutral, impartial and unbiased as often defined , is almost impossible for humans, as we inadvertently trademark acquired knowledge and ideas through personal reasoning and perception. In no matter what area of knowledge, it's the combination of the inquirer's premeditated question formulation …show more content…

Involvement of personal independent variables, is especially evident in human sciences, where both the questioner and respondent are implicated in the determination of the outcome to the stated question. As neutrality lies in the boundaries of intent and understanding of both parties, the issue revolves around determining how does personal knowledge of the questioner and respondent influence the neutrality of the question and the knowledge gathered from it. It is crucial to understand the factors of influence on the type and validity of the questions. A prime example would be the Loftus and Palmer study of 1974, showcasing just how the language and reasoning of the researchers and participants affected the answers to the structured questions. Seven films of traffic accidents were presented in a random order to groups of participants, whom were instructed to answer modified versions of the question: "About how fast were the cars going when they (either smashed/ collided/ bumped/ hit or contacted) each other? The findings concluded that the speed estimation was dependent on the verb variants used . The results showed that the verbs with a stronger emotional or explicit connotation, suggested to the respondents a higher gravity of the accident and therefore larger speed estimation overall . In this case study, researchers intentionally created a leading …show more content…

We must first ask ourselves, what is the purpose of the questions of the questioner. In scientific research, natural or social human sciences, the hypothesis is never really neutral, as it follows the train of thought of the researcher, predisposed to enquire and confirm a belief or claim. Natural sciences often fall under the influence of confirmation bias. Unfortunately, I often find myself under such a spell, during laboratory work. When collected data does not follow my hypothesis, which I deem to be correct based on my previous knowledge, I continue to experiment until the results correlate with my initial expectations. A similar case is the theory of global warming, where debates often arise on the correlation of CO2 and temperature in atmospheric changes, where both parties tend to operate with manipulated data to support their own hypothesis . Both in my and the scientist's case, a detour has been taken from the original question, towards a personally altered one. If the scope of questions is the pursuit of justified answers to one's predisposed conclusion bias, the knowledge that can be gathered is highly limited and could be misleading due to preferential omission of data. The questioner has to remain distant from an emotionally biased involvement, if neutrality is to be

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