Racial Prejudice Shown to Be Linked to Cognitive Propensities and Visceral Attitudes

A provocative new study appearing in the September issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that people who display little racial bias may be more resistant to the kinds of real-world situational conditioning that leads to racial bias and prejudice in our society.

The results suggest that "whether someone is prejudiced or not is linked to their cognitive propensity to resist negative affective conditioning," according to authors Robert Livingston of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and Brian Drwecki of the University of Wisconsin who conducted studies that examined white college students who harbored either some or no racial biases.

The authors investigate the answer to the question: Why are some individuals not prejudiced? Linvingston and Drwecki sought to discover how some individuals are able to avoid prejudicial biases despite what they view as the pervasive human tendency to favor one's own group.

The study examining college students employed both what Livingston and Drwecki considered unfamiliar Chinese orthographic characters and pictures that are generally evocative of strong positive or negative emotions. The affect producing pictures included puppies and snakes.

The examination was a study in classical conditioning. Classical conditioning, also known as Pavlovian conditioning, is a form of associated learning in which stimuli are presented as pairs. One half of the pair elicits a neutral response while the other a strong response. The attempt is to transfer the strong response associated with the one to the other in the pair, which is the one associated with the neutral affect, through the conditioning of associated learning.

In this case, Livingston and Drwecki are identifying the Chinese orthographic characters as the elicitors of a neutral response and the assorted pictures as elicitors of strong responses, positive and negative.

The objective was that of seeing whether neutral unfamiliar Chinese characters could eventually evoke strong emotions by simply being repeatedly paired with pictures that originally evoked these strong emotions.

The study results showed that nonbiased individuals were less likely than biased individuals to acquire--through the conditioning of associated learning--negative affect toward unfamiliar Chinese characters that were paired with negative pictures.

The study therefore suggests that reducing prejudice may require more than simply adopting egalitarian values; i.e., ideals of equalit and unity. Instead, societal change away from racial prejudice may require reconditioning of the negative cognitive associations that people hold.

Livingston writes: "Just as it is difficult to change visceral reactions to aversive foods (e.g., lima beans) through sheer force of will, it may also be difficult to change visceral attitudes toward racial groups by acknowledging that prejudice is wrong and wanting to change."

Based on this study, the authors argue that although negative affect cannot be reduced by reason alone, it could be reconditioned through positive interpersonal experiences and by greater and continual exposure to more positive images of racial minorities in the media.

Author Contact:
Robert Livingston
rwlivingston@kellogg.northwestern.edu

Jesse Erwin, "New study discovers why few people are devoid of racial bias," Association for Psychological Science.