Amazon won a Golden Globe this year for its original series Transparent. (credit: Amazon)
In 2015, a study was published that claimed that reducing prejudice against homosexual people was relatively easy. All it took was a brief conversation with a stranger who was going door to door talking about prejudice against homosexuals. Supposedly, participants’ attitudes remained changed up to three months after said conversation.
The study received widespread media coverage and was considered groundbreaking because we knew so little about how to reduce prejudice. Unfortunately, it turned out to be built largely on fraudulent data, and the study was retracted.
Ironically, the researcher who uncovered the fraudulent data in this first canvassing study, David Broockman, has now published his own study on the same issue. It demonstrates that canvassing actually does change participants’ attitudes toward transgender individuals and that this change in attitudes persists for at least three months.
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