Does "the biases of laypersons" mean "the laypersons's biases"?

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Context:

Psychiatrists and mental health workers often perpetuate the biases of laypersons.

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Type: Question • Score: 4 • Views: 888 • Replies: 9

[+3] - MontereyJack - 12/13/2012yes (except it's "laypersons' ", no second s) (no "the" either in your rephrasing)
[+3] - MontereyJack - 12/13/2012more on the order of "reinforce and strengthen".

View best answer, chosen by oristarA

yes (except it's "laypersons' ", no second s) (no "the" either in your rephrasing)

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@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

yes (except it's "laypersons' ", no second s) (no "the" either in your rephrasing)

Thank you.
Does "perpetuate" there mean "keep permanently in mind"?

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more on the order of "reinforce and strengthen".

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@oristarA,

I agree with Monterey Jack: "perpetuate" does not describe the ongoing state of mind of these professionals; I believe the meaning is that these professionals act in such a manner as to re-enforce these biases in their patients (possibly as well as in themselves). However, I suggest that the sentence, taken in isolation, is a little ambiguous in respect to what "perpetuate" means.

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@Andrew H,

When we have to try to analyse from a text the meaning of a word, we're in deep doo-doo.

"Perpetuate" means what a good dictionary says it means.

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@McTag,

You are making what seems to me to be a dubious claim. If I understood you correctly, and perhaps I do not, you appear to be denying that overall context sometimes resolves the ambiguity that is inherent in many terms. It would be nice if the english language possessed this "atomic" character - that the meaning of a word "stands alone", but I very much doubt this is true in the general case.

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@Andrew H,

We're not considering poetry here, nor writing with any suggested nuances of ambiguity.

Quote:

Psychiatrists and mental health workers often perpetuate the biases of laypersons.

That's a bald, flat statement, albeit not a very well-constructed one, and the dictionary meaning of "perpetuate" works fine for me here.

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@McTag,

McTag wrote:

We're not considering poetry here, nor writing with any suggested nuances of ambiguity.

Quote:
Psychiatrists and mental health workers often perpetuate the biases of laypersons.

That's a bald, flat statement, albeit not a very well-constructed one, and the dictionary meaning of "perpetuate" works fine for me here.

Full context is here:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=zh-CN&lr=&id=gmCxeAw7-Z4C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=stigmatization+of+mental+illness&ots=3kFPCFed7e&sig=Y0s0NRzJGS5AD6uwXy6XdlR8jEw#v=onepage&q&f=false

The definition given by my dictionary:
perpetuate /pə'petʃueit, -tju-/
v.
cause to continue or prevail

All right here?

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@oristarA,

oristarA wrote:

the biases of laypersons.

Or the biases of laypeople.

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Does "the biases of laypersons" mean "the laypersons's biases"?

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