11.3 Reducing Discrimination
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Learning Objectives
Review the causes of discrimination and the ways that we can reduce it.
Summarize the conditions under which intergroup contact does or does not reduce prejudice and discrimination.
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In this section, we will be discussing practical strategies to reduce discrimination. Before we begin, let’s take a moment to consider a classic example of an anti-racism intervention in the following learning activity.
Activity 9: Blue Eyes vs. Brown Eyes
*This section of the open course textbook is designed to support PSYC 3271, and the activity numbering corresponds to Unit 3.
Introduction
In this activity, you will be taking a critical look at a highly publicised and popular anti-racism intervention. This intervention demonstrates in a shocking way just how quickly stereotypes and prejudice can develop and lead to discrimination towards outgroups.
Instructions
Part 1 – video:
Follow the link to watch a video demonstrating a psychological intervention to reduce racism. After watching the video, respond to the reflection questions in your course notes. Keep in mind that the intervention was first performed focusing on blue-eyed students as being superior, then the dynamic was reversed and brown-eyed students were superior on the subsequent day so that students would experience both situations.
*Warning*
This video is from the 1960s, a much less inclusive time, and it covers very difficult, controversial topics. Some of the language used in this video is extremely inappropriate and offensive. I recommend watching from the start to 1:06, then skipping ahead and watching from 3:41 to 6:00.
(The full video is provided, but you can watch as much or as little as you feel you need to before answering the questions.)
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/class-divided/
A Class Divided (full documentary) [duration 53:05]
(Peters, 1985)
Reflection Questions
Do you think this was an effective way to teach about racism?
How do you think this intervention will change the way the children see racism in the future?
Can you think of any problems with this procedure?
Do you think there might be negative side-effects of this experiment?
Do you have any ideas to improve this procedure?
Part 2 – article:
Now let’s take another critical look at this Blue Eyes vs. Brown Eyes intervention. Follow the link below to an article by Stephen G. Bloom explaining many of the problematic aspects of this intervention.
A Second Look at the Blue-Eyes, Brown-Eyes Experiment That Taught Third-Graders About Racism (Bloom, 2022)
Review your answers to the five questions you responded to after viewing the A Class Divided video. Did you identify some of the same issues that Bloom wrote about in his critique of Elliott’s experiment?
Designing a psychological intervention is a very complicated task. Oftentimes we might proceed with the best of intentions and truly believe that what we are doing is helpful, only to find that our intervention is actually backfiring and doing more harm than good. This is why it is so important to be critical of our own assumptions and to base our interventions on solid psychological theories so that we can be confident that our intervention will do what we intend it to do.
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We have seen that social categorization is a basic part of human nature and one that helps us to simplify our social worlds, to draw quick (if potentially inaccurate) conclusions about others, and to feel good about ourselves. In many cases, our preferences for ingroups may be relatively harmless—we may prefer to socialize with people who share our race or ethnicity for instance, but without particularly disliking the others. But categorizing others may also lead to prejudice and discrimination, and it may even do so without our awareness. Because prejudice and discrimination are so harmful to so many people, we must all work to get beyond them.
Discrimination influences the daily life of its victims in areas such as employment, income, financial opportunities, housing and educational opportunities, and medical care. Even with the same level of education and years of experience, ethnic minorities in Canada are 40% less likely to receive callbacks for an interview following a job application (Oreopolous, 2011). Blacks have higher mortality rates than Whites for eight of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States (Williams, 1999) and have less access to and receive poorer-quality health care, even controlling for other variables such as level of health insurance. Suicide rates among lesbians and gays are substantially higher than rates for the general population, and it has been argued that this in part due to the negative outcomes of prejudice, including negative attitudes and resulting social isolation (Halpert, 2002). And in some rare cases, discrimination even takes the form of hate crimes such as gay bashing.
More commonly, members of minority groups also face a variety of small hassles, such as bad service in restaurants, being stared at, and being the target of jokes (Swim, Hyers, Cohen, Fitzgerald, & Bylsma, 2003). But even these everyday “minor” forms of discrimination can be problematic because they may produce anger and anxiety among stigmatized group members and may lead to stress and other psychological problems (Klonoff, Landrine, & Campbell, 2000; Klonoff, Landrine, & Ullman, 1999). Stigmatized individuals who report experiencing more exposure to discrimination or other forms of unfair treatment also report more depression, anger, and anxiety and lower levels of life satisfaction and happiness (Swim, Hyers, Cohen, & Ferguson, 2001).
Of course, most of us do try to keep our stereotypes and our prejudices out of mind, and we work hard to avoid discriminating (Richeson & Shelton, 2007). But even when we work to keep our negative beliefs under control, this does not mean that they easily disappear. Neil Macrae and his colleagues (Macrae, Bodenhausen, Milne, & Jetten, 1994) asked British college students to write a paragraph describing a skinhead (a member of a group that is negatively stereotyped in England). One half of the participants were asked to be sure to not use their stereotypes when they were judging him, whereas the other half simply wrote whatever came to mind. Although the participants who were asked to suppress their thoughts were able to do it, this suppression didn’t last very long. After they had suppressed their stereotypes, these beliefs quickly popped back into mind, making it even more likely that they would be used immediately later.
But stereotypes are not always and inevitably activated when we encounter people from other groups. We can and we do get past them, although doing so may take some effort on our part (Blair, 2002). There are a number of techniques that we can use to try to improve our attitudes toward outgroups, and at least some of them have been found to be effective. Kawakami, Dovidio, Moll, Hermsen, and Russin (2000) found that students who practiced responding in nonstereotypical ways to members of other groups became better able to avoid activating their negative stereotypes on future occasions. And a number of studies have found that we become less prejudiced when we are exposed to and think about group members who have particularly positive or nonstereotypical characteristics. For instance, Blair, Ma, and Lenton (2001) asked their participants to imagine a woman who was “strong” and found that doing so decreased stereotyping of women. Similarly, Bodenhausen, Schwarz, Bless, and Wanke (1995) found that when White American students thought about positive Black role models—such as Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan—they became less prejudiced toward Blacks.
