In this week’s module we discussed stereotyping, discrimination, and prejudice, as well as their impacts. We observed Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment and saw how observational learning can influence behavior, and in Jane Elliott’s Blue-eyes/Brown-eyes experiment from A Class Divided, we saw the impacts that discrimination can have.
In the Bobo doll experiment, we saw adults present children with a Bobo doll, which is an inflatable clown doll that will rebalance itself upright when struck, and then displaying aggressive behavior towards the doll in front of the children. When the children were left to play with doll, it was observed that they then mimicked that violent behavior on the doll, carrying out those same aggressive behaviors, and in some cases even taking it further, with some kids going as far as holding the doll down and striking it with an object. This experiment showed us the effects that observational learning and modeling can have, especially on kids (1).
In her experiment, we saw how quickly the children turned on each other when told that one group was better than the other, with children turning on friends without much trouble at all. Even more than that, we saw how it can impact both sides, with the blue-eyed children who were told they were better than brown-eyed children receiving better grades than expected, and brown-eyed children who were told they were inferior to blue-eyed children doing receiving worse grades than expected. Both of these observations held true even when the children were told on a different day that the opposite was true, with the brown-eyed children being told they were superior to blue-eyed children, and displaying the same behavior as the blue-eyed children did previously (2).
In one article I found, researcher discussed the meeting of these two concepts, in what psychologists call, implicit bias. Something being explicit would mean that position of the individual has been expressed outwardly with the knowledge of the individual, for example, an example of an explicit attitude would be saying “I’m voting for Kamala, I hate Trump and what he stands for”, as in that case, an individual clearly expressed their opinion towards a topic. Something being implicit means that an individual’s actions are expressing their support or disdain towards something without the individual knowing they are doing so, for example, an individual rates candidates with traditionally male names higher than traditionally female names, despite the fact the individual supports women’s rights and are outspoken about discriminatory trends such as gender-based wage gaps. As stated in the article, Implicit Bias: Scientific Foundations, authored by Greenwald and Krieger and published in 2006, Implicit biases are “discriminatory biases based on implicit attitudes or implicit stereotypes” (3). Implicit biases are both interesting and troubling, because the behavior that stems from them is different than the expressed beliefs and feelings of the individual. For example, Black Americans’ implicit attitude test scores showed that they had almost complete racial neutrality, which differed from the in-group favoritism seen in the expressed beliefs. This was hypothesized to be due to the pervasiveness of pro-European-American attitudes in American culture. In one study, white interviewers interviewed white applicants and Black applicants, and it was found that white interviewers smiled and spoke to white interviewees more than black interviewees. As for altering these implicit biases, research showed that making personal connections with members of the outgroup can improve implicit attitudes (3). In short, our culture and our media influence us in unconscious ways, creating implicit biases that can actually harm groups of people, without the express knowledge of the individual.
Works Cited:
- Bandura, A. (1965). Influence of models” reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of imitative responses. Journal of personality and social psychology, 1(6), 589.
- produced and directed by William Peters ; correspondent, Charlie Cobb ; written by William Peters, Charlie Cobb ; a production of Yale University Films for Frontline ; produced for the Documentary Consortium by WGBH Boston. (1986). A class divided. Washington, DC :PBS Video [distributor]
- Greenwald, A. G., & Krieger, L. H. (2006). Implicit Bias: Scientific Foundations. California Law Review, 94(4), 945–967. https://doi.org/10.2307/20439056