Racial Prejudice, Research Paper Example

Can racial prejudice be the result of classical conditioning that is expressed through conditioned emotional responses?

Discriminate behavior may be attributed to conditioned responses. These conditioned responses are further propelled by neutral stimuli established through classical conditioning by aversion. These stimuli are established through various types of modes such as observational or verbal (Anthony, Dygdon, &Rollock, 2012, p. 298). Once these stimuli are established (aversion) then what is most likely to transpire is direct and frequent avoidance. This avoidance is further propagated by the trifecta of fear, anxiety and often times also of anger (Anthony, Dygdon, &Rollock, 2012, p. 298). This “modern two-factor theory” (Anthony, Dygdon, &Rollock, 2012, p. 298) establishes the theory that racial prejudices are the result of classical conditioning and it’s expressed through emotional responses (e.g. fear, anxiety, and anger) as this paper will seek to prove.

Olson & Fazio (2002) state that attitudinal conditioning is ubiquitous in the real-world and as such, the idea that classical conditioning is prevalent throughout society is not a rarity. In America, a society with “egalitarian values” is still ripe with fear conditioning based on racial prejudice and is, as the authors state, ubiquitous. Scientists have sought empirical evidence to support this theory, and indeed have had minor success with it in regards to institutions, but have come across extreme difficulties in finding it on a social scale (Olson & Fazio, 2002, p.90). Staats&Staats ushered in social theories regarding conditioned responses in the late 1950’s (Olson & Fazio, 2002, p. 90) and later on Levey & Martin did the same for the 1970’s and “Both paradigms made use of repeated pairings of attitude objects with positively or negatively evaluated word (Staats&Staats) or image CSs and USs (Levey & Martin) (Olson & Fazio, 2002, p.90). Olson & Fazio (2002) state these author’s separate findings:

Staats and Staats presented national names (e.g., “Swedish”) on a screen while reading aloud words, and found that the national name paired with positive words was subsequently evaluated more positively than the national name paired with negative terms. Levey and Martin presented participants with pairs of paintings, some of which partici- pants had previously evaluated neutrally (which served as CSs), and some of which had been evaluated positively or negatively (which served as USs), and found further evidence for conditioning in the eval- uations that participants provided, after the conditioning procedure, of the originally neutral paintings (Olson & Fazio, 2002, p.90).

As Conger, Dygdon, &Rollock, (2012) state that progress has been made in society to reduce this prejudice (Conger, Dygdon, &Rollock, 2012, p. 298), yet racial groups remain victims of hate crimes (e.g. racial profiling). Classical conditioning becomes paramount in studying racism. Classical conditioning depends on learned behaviors that can be categorized as emitted or elicited. (Conger, Dygdon, &Rollock, 2012, p. 299). Whereas emitted behaviors are oriented through goals and further maintained through the subject’s consequences (Conger, Dygdon, &Rollock, 2012, p. 299), elicited behaviors are rather more emotional and/or judgmental reactions to contingent realities such as people, environment or events in a person’s life (Conger, Dygdon, &Rollock, 2012, p. 299). Classical conditioning assesses how these reactions are established and how they progress.

Olsen & Fazio (2002) established through their research that conditioned attitudes can definitely be acquired through implicit learning mechanisms (Olson & Fazio, 2002, p. 91). Participants in this empirical study revealed prejudice attitudes can also be measured implicitly (as stated above). In follow-up experiments, the researchers studied implicit attitudes through use of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) (Olsen & Fazio, 2002, p. 91). The IAT in turn measures for connections between four different categories through the use of two response keys (Olson & Fazio, 2002, p. 91). The researchers proved that classical conditioning through responses/exposure, can form implicit attitudes. These implicit attitudes can predict behaviors of bias in a person, group or society by reinforcing these attitudes through speech patterns, mores, and nonverbal cues (Amodio& Mendoza, n.d., p. 4).

Attitude formation as a subgenre of classical conditioning suggests that societal conditions enforced through individual attitudes create bias. Olson & Fazio (2012) found that individuals have attitudes then consolidate them when they “perceive some functional value to having available a summary evaluation of the object” (Olson & Fazio, 2002, p. 94). After passing through adolescence individuals acquire attitudes that are in response to societal cues from deviant groups (or groups harboring racist attitudes). Subjects in Olson & Fazio’s experiments create attitudes with novel objects that when the subjects participated in “a speeded evaluative judgment task, individuals who had received either of these cues were just as fast at indicating their attitudes as individuals who had been earlier forced to consolidate their thoughts and feelings about the object by the need to a complete an evaluative questionnaire about the object” (Olson & Fazio, 2002, p. 95). Furthermore, the individuals who felt they would be asked about their opinion/attitude about the object did so more quickly more participants “with no consolidation condition in which neither a cue nor a questionnaire had been presented” (Olson & Fazio, 2002, p. 95). This means that contextual cues are important to classical conditioning for, without a cue (the cornerstone to forming evaluations upon the novel object), then the summary evaluation may not come to fruition despite the presence of evaluation-relevant diatribes in the memory upon the object (Olson & Fazio, 2012, p. 95). This information becomes even more important when applying the IAT for empirical data in which context is tantamount to hypothesis. The IAT will in turn prompt participants to immediately place objects into categories such as “pleasant” and “unpleasant”. Assigning these terms reinforces prejudice and establishes and proves that classical conditioning determines racial prejudices.

Behavior depends on response in order to be defined as a behavior. Behavioral response has to deal with controlled processes and can best be defined as explicit instead of implicit. This elicits the idea that “the influence of an underlying association on behavior that may be implicit, and this influence is the critical inference made from such task responses”(Amodio& Mendoza, n.d., p. 8). Implicit behavior however, suggests that White and Black Americans have similar biases, at least, actions propagated by these biases: this is shown when armed Blacks are shot more than armed Whites, and unarmed Blacks are more likely to get shot than unarmed Whites (Amodio& Mendoza, n.d., p. 8). The idea of conscious considerations then becomes prevalent in determining whether or not people are aware of classical conditioning especially as highlighted in the above example.

Conger, et al, (2012) suggest that two-factor theory outlines a scenario in which emotion drives impetus for racism. This is done as adverse stimuli establish “an operant process [that] is naturally engage[d]” (Conger, et al, 2012, p. 300). This is true inasmuch as biologically speaking, individuals will more than likely try to evade situations of anxiety/fear instead of confront those situation, as well as to vanquish people or situations that oppose another’s peace or predisposed view of their superiority or ideas/ideals about their surrounding society. These avoidances are held in stasis through the very negative reinforcement that they instigate (Conger et al., 2012, p. 300). Conger et al., suggests that learning theory denotes classical conditioning depends on behavior and conditions, and therefore, “while prejudice will lead to discrimination, discriminatory practices, because they necessarily pair racially different others with aversive events, should also contribute to prejudicial emotion” (Conger et al., 2012, p. 300). Thus, the best way to explore the thesis of this paper is through a learning theory analysis.

Adverse, race-elicited responses to societal stimuli can be studied in the scope of learning theory. Classical conditioning is needed a type of backdrop in better understanding the motivations of people, and the impetus behind racial slurs, discrimination and prejudices. Through the Implicit Attitude Test classically conditioned responses may be better examined and empirical research submitted and studied through the IAT may provide information pertaining to “emotional reactions to racially relevant stimuli as classically conditioned responses learned through the pairing of originally neutral racial stimuli with other already aversive stimuli” (Conger et al., 2012, p. 300). The classical conditioning process supports racially instigated stimuli through learned patterns of behavior on both an explicit and implicit level. Thus, it’s important to study the network of actions and reactions on a neurological level, not just a biological level, when studying this subject. This paper, however, has sought to (and achieved) proving that racial prejudice depends greatly on innate reactions to race as learned patterns of behavior.

References

Amodio, D.M., & Mendoza, S.A. (n.d.). Implicit intergroup bias: cognitive, affective, and motivational underpinnings. New York State University. Retrieved from http://www.psych.nyu.edu/amodiolab/Publications_files/Amodio_Mendoza_Implicit_Intergroup_Bias.pdf

Conger, A., Dygdon, J.A. &Rollock, D. (2012). Conditioned emotional responses in racial prejudice. Ethnic Racial Studies35(2). 298-319.

Olsen, M.A., & Fazio, R.H. (2006). Reducing automatically activated racial prejudice through implicit evaluative conditioning. PSPB32(4). 421-433.

Olsen, M.A., & Fazio, R.H. (2002). Implicit acquisition and manifestation of classically conditioned attitudes. Social Cognition 20(2). 89-103.