Running head: INFERENCE ESSAY 1

Inference Essay

Instructor: Carla Weaver

City University of Seattle

INFERENCE ESSAY 2

INFERENCE ESSAY

Inferences related to behavior in society such as religion, race, color or status in society.

These factors and inferences can bring about positive or negative implications for wrong

stereotypes (Molden, Plaks & Dweck, 2006). These inferences are often formed by the outside

environment in which we live and are influenced by the outside world such as our parents or

friends. To minimize the wrong inferences, open discussion as well as updates of knowledge are

necessary to avoid the formation of inappropriate or erroneous inferences. Our essay will address

how skin color and ethnicity affect us, how different skin colors bring about the shades and the

perceptions.

My team focuses on the two primary colors that we think are often incorrectly referred to

as black and yellow skin colors. We’ve focused on two skin colors one originating in Africa and

the other Asian. Two continents that people already know but many have not visited. Brandon

has experiences with inferences of friends which come Africa, or have dark skin. While Tuan is

drawing on experiences as an Asian traveler to countries in Europe where white people are

major.

By concluding the information from the perspective of our team’s personal experiences we

can make a conclusion about color skin people that they are often seen as underdeveloped as well

as exploited by oppressors throughout the ages. This is also a well-known problem in many

countries, in other words this is racism. We live in a civilized world, but in many places, race and

color discrimination is still a problem and it takes a lot more effort to eradicate these and to

eliminate the inferences exactly.

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While working in southern Africa, Brandon was confronted with privilege that white

people hold internationally. Having grown up in rural America, he had very little self-awareness

about privilege or how identity shapes the way we move through society. It was always a distant

thing you hear about on television, or read about. While working in southern Africa there were

multiple instances that someone would approach his work group and direct their inquiry to him

alone. The underlying assumption that a white person was “in charge” was so off putting in the

moment, but so common culturally that his colleagues told me it would generally play to their

benefit if he played the role when that happened. It felt disingenuous at the time, but the longer

Brandon spent outside his own culture the more often he this familiar bend toward his privilege

while working with other types of people.

Now working closely with local government Brandon is involved in implicit bias trainings

for security and law enforcement. As a member of a predominantly white industry his new

colleagues enter situations with the same type of privilege, it’s more subtle now but familiar.

Next, Tuan will tell us about the misconceptions about Asians as he travels overseas and

meets with friends from all over the world. Tuan has mentioned that in the world people always

have “different prejudices about what they do not understand or lack knowledge about it”. Being

a person who has traveled to many countries, working and cooperating with many people has

made Tuan realize many things.

At first, people often evaluate and have prejudices in the first encounter. To prove that, he

shared to us a story about the time when I travel abroad. As you know, Asia is one of the great

continents which concludes many large countries such as China, India or Japan and smaller

countries such as Vietnam, Brunei and so on. However, Easterners have always assumed that

people with yellow skin, black eyes and black hair would be Chinese or Japanese (Michel,
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Rossion, Han, Chung & Caldara, 2006). Tuan said that he likes their friendliness when they greet

him with the kindness. However, they used Chinese or Japanese to greet him because they all

think he would come from China or Japan. These are big and famous countries so they know

more people from China than from a person from Vietnam. I would like to assert that there are

many countries from Asia, with the inclusion of a person from a smaller country and another

country inaccurate. Not to mention, with many years of war, Vietnam has been invaded by so

many countries so the desire to assert territorial sovereignty and freedom as well as recognition

is huge (Werner & Huynh, 2015). Therefore, with the mistake of coming from a country is a

negative experience for Tuan

In addition, his Western friends are also very misconceived about the ability of Asians.

Tuan has studied in the major of economics so he claimed that he is good at calculus and

numbers because he was trained but not because he comes from Asia. Moreover, he is lack of

knowledge in many areas such as information technology or academic research. But some of his

friends always believe that Asians are very good at technology and let him deal with technology

problems. Even though his group has an IT friend from England, Tuan is still chosen to deal with

the IT issues by his friends. These statements come from the fact that you know that Indians are

very good at IT so they come to the conclusion that "Asians are good at IT". It is not accurate to

refer to a continent because of a characteristic of a country in it. Moreover, even in India there

are people with good IT skill and people know nothing about IT. With the wrong judgement, we

will assign work to the wrong person and cause low efficiency in work. For example of Tuan, he

is very good at numbers but poor in IT, so when working against his strength he will be

significantly reduced. The lesson is that we should not make decisions from the wrong

interferences.
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The above is what Tuan wants to share about the people he knows. We hope that everyone

realizes that each person has a unique character and no one coincides with anyone. For us, each

one is unique like their fingerprints. There are seven billion people in the world but no one will

be a replica of anyone.

Making interference which are based on the appearance is not suitable in any time. 

During out stories, we suggest that people should understand about a person before making

interferences. Making questions, taking to them and open discussion.  As we develop these

critical intuitions, we increasingly notice their inferences and those of others.  We increasingly

notice what they and others are taking for granted.  We increasingly notice how their point of

view shapes their experiences.

Owning our identity and committing to self-reflection is uncomfortable, but necessary for

those that hold privilege. For those that are not afforded the same opportunities or have to work

against common stereotypes, sharing your life experience with others is the best way to change

perceptions.
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Reference

Molden, D. C., Plaks, J. E., & Dweck, C. S. (2006). “Meaningful” social inferences: Effects of

implicit theories on inferential processes. Journal of Experimental Social

Psychology, 42(6), 738-752.

Mayfield, M. (2014). Thinking for yourself. United States of America: Lyn Uhl.

Michel, C., Rossion, B., Han, J., Chung, C. S., & Caldara, R. (2006). Holistic processing is finely

tuned for faces of one's own race. Psychological Science, 17(7), 608-615.

Werner, J., & Huynh, L. D. (2015). The Vietnam War: Vietnamese and American Perspectives:

Vietnamese and American Perspectives. Routledge.

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BC301 – Critical Thinking

Homework 1 – Peer Evaluation Form

Assignment: Inference Essay

Your Name: Duong Anh Tuan

Team Name: Team X

1. How well did your team work together on this assignment?

I would say that this is really good. At first because we are from different time zone so we can
reply as soon as we want but we fixed that problems and we are doing well.
It was challenging trying to coordinate via email being in different places, but were able to come
together to complete the assignment.

2. What could you have done better to be more effective as a team?

I think we should talk to Brandon sooner. Because we are formed from other groups so I have to
did the essay 2 times. It costs me a lot of time and energy

Working to maintain a consistent schedule so that we’re not hard pressed for time would be
critical in the future.

3. What did you learn about teamwork from working on this assignment?
It is harder than working alone. When I do the asm alone, I can finish it in 1 day but when I work
with Brandon, I need to wait for his reply and then we can start the assignment later. It costs me
more time to finish and I cannot help my teammates to fix the issues after giving constructive
comments
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Team Member Name Rating (1-10) Comments

10

Nguyen Khanh Linh