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Aversive racism is a term use by Gaertner and Dovido to describe white Americans who have been socialized by the racial history of American culture, along with the cognitive tendency to categorize information which results in subtle, yet commonplace racial beliefs and feelings, while keeping strong egalitarian values. This keeps the aversive racist stuck between their learned negative view of other races and their egalitarian values and beliefs. The sources of the negativity that underlies the aversive racists racial attitudes and provide the motivation to be prejudice are either internal or external according to Devine. Ones own internalized (self-prescribed) standards or guides for regulating behavior is considered to be the internalized source of racism, while the socially prescribed standards or guides for regulatory behavior is the external source of racism. Devine thoroughly researched the conflicts between the two.
By looking at the sources we can understand how motivation enforces the responses and how the norms have an impact on the responses. External sources are overemphasized in racism. The conditions under which aversive racism is likely to exist seem to situations where it is unclear whether there are social prohibitions against expressions of negative racial beliefs, but when the situation clearly shows anti-prejudice views the aversive racist may not show any racist response, but they may seem very egalitarian. The racism is usually expressed as in-group favoritism, rather than out-group derogation.
Comparisons between hiring of racial groups versus whites in 1988 to 1989 and 1998 to 1999 showed black applicants that had a clearly better application were hired over whites are results that agree with the aversive racist theory, reduction of racism over time, but the study also showed when the black applicant and the white had similar qualifications, the participants preferred to hire the whites. Which shows that there is an underlying hostility toward blacks that is dormant in environments that do not allow for it, but when it is unclear, aversive racial attitudes surface. Aversive racism seems to be self-perpetuating through the lack of awareness that the racist tends to have over his / her own aversive racist actions. Dovido argues the aversive racism suggests that because whites negative affect toward blacks manifests itself subtly in terms of opposition to social programs and voting behavior that are aimed at bring more blacks into society, which Dovido believes shows the lack of awareness of the negative racial attitudes toward blacks. Another way to look at the self-perpetuation of racism is through the lack of acknowledgement on the part of the person who is being discriminated against. Just as the aversive racists are not aware of the racism that they have developed, the people who are discriminated against are in denial, which prevents them from change.
These people try to keep up their own self-esteem by denying the acts against them. This could in turn prevent people from trying to change the way they are treated, prolonging the cyclical nature of aversive racism. Also, the contemporary cognitive approach explains that prejudice creates a negative perception, which will in turn justify the prejudice. This shows the cyclical nature of racism.
Improvement or challenge- Our country has been committed to positive change in the field of racism, but aversive racism is something that is not easily distinguished by the current trends of identifying racism. This change has made racism harder to detect because it is invisible to the system that was set up to destroy it. While aversive racism is harder to detect, it is still an improvement from the out-group derogation that is easily identifiable. The traditional theories discussed in class seem to be better suited for explaining the development of cultural racism, but at the same time the individual has to be involved with the institutions which control the culture the individual belongs to. The theories of realistic group conflict and socialization show how the individual is controlled by cultural factors, which in turn show the development of cultural racism. The realistic group conflict theory is just as valid today with contemporary racism as it is with old-fashioned racism.
The direct competition between groups over scarce resources, which leads to prejudice, was apparent in the Houland and Sears study. The competition over cotton was supposed to create a strong correlation with a higher rate of lynching (hate crimes). As the value of cotton went down the rate of lynching went up, although Green found the relation is not as strong. The conflict over scarce resources still exists today, in housing, jobs, school, etc. This creates prejudice between groups, but the groups are not necessarily racially divided, as with the Houland and Sears study. The old-fashioned form of racism is easier to detect, because of its out-group derogation that is easily identifiable.
The Socialization theory could address both old and contemporary forms of racism. Its fundamental proposition is that prejudice is socially transmitted through socializing agents (parents, friends, etc. ) in society; we then internalize the prejudice and conform to the societal norm. Banduras social learning theory shows that children, through reinforcement and modeling learn appropriate behaviors. By observing, internalizing, and imitation the children become racist.
They learn the expectations, goals, interests, abilities, and other aspects associated with their own race and others. Through observation one conforms to the expectations, even when theyre capable of more, but they never come to realize it because they were socialized to believe their capabilities are far less then possible. This has occurred in old-fashioned racism as well as contemporary racism. In Goodmans linguistic tags research the word nigger was shown to have a negative attitude associated with it.
The tag was given to blacks, which created a negative attitude associated with nigger, with blacks. The racial norms are communicated, in direct and indirect ways, through the parents interaction with the child. A childs conceptualization of race is shaped by their environment, but more directly by their parents, by the age of five. According to Allport, some parents directly teach their children directly about their racial attitudes, while other children obtain their views of racism by observation. Conformity is a process by which prejudice could be displayed. When the atmosphere indicates less resistance to prejudice, and prejudice increases, so does conformity to prejudice.
According to Pettigren, prejudice is related to ones general tendency to conform. The theory that seems to account for the prevalence of gang warfare in inner cities would be the realistic group conflict theory. This theory states that we appear to develop feelings of hostility and prejudice toward another group, only if we believe that our in-group as a whole is at a disadvantage, relative to an out-group, with regard to an important goal. The sense of powerlessness that the in-group feels may be a reason for the aggression toward another group over drugs, money, territory, etc.
The theory states that if we cannot change the disadvantaged status of our group relative to an out-group, one way we can vent this frustration and also try to equalize the situation is by bringing down the other group by direct feelings of prejudice toward the out-group. The gangs seem to not realize that through fostering prejudice toward an out-group would not really better ones situation. In gang warfare they seem to be competing to be number one in the inner city, this makes the top spot a scarce resource and only one group could hold the position. This creates the pressure and the prejudice. This is like the Sheriff study with the boys at Robbers Cave.
Two groups competing over the number one spot, only one can have it, a separation between the groups starts to form, with prejudice feelings created by the competition. Sherif and his colleagues conducted an experiment. Sherif helped to run a summer camp at Robber's Cave Park, Oklahoma. The boys were chosen to be 'normal', healthy, well-adjusted individuals. None of them knew one another.
They were divided at random into two separate housing units: 'The Eagles' and 'The Rattlers'. At first group cohesion was low, as they didn't know one another. Sherif gave each group a set of problems to solve, which required that the boys in each group must co-operate (separately from the other group). Group cohesion grew rapidly.
Sherif then introduced contests between the two groups. Either group could win a prize only at the expense of the other group. Very rapidly, the groups began calling one another names, fights broke out regularly and there were raids on one another's camps. Having set the two groups against each other, Sherif attempted to bring them back together. The first method he tried was to unite them by giving them a common enemy...
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Research essay sample on Social Psychology And Theories On Racism
