The Ability to Reduce Prejudice and Racial Bias in Individuals
Individuals believe that prejudice is a way of thinking which is acquired from birth or learnt at a young age. This statement is wrong, as a variety of studies demonstrate that racial bias and prejudice can be reduced through psychological and mental interventions involving a wide range of cultural participants as well as people of various ages and identities. These studies involve the reduction of prejudice in areas such as race, sexuality, culture and the prejudice surrounding diseases, which are undertaken using a number of different psychological methods and manipulations which allow the participants to have the most reliable and valid outcome from these studies. The variety of journals/studies which are going to be presented will support this claim by adequately conveying that prejudice is not determined by nature and that it is developed and reduced through interventions and experiences encompassing individuals of all ages.
The studies carried out by both Tabitha C. Pack et al, and Lara Maister et al, both explore the reduction of racial bias to do with ethnicity and racial colour through similar psychological methods which both produced positive results due to the simulation of ownership of a dark-skinned body or part of body. The study carried out by Tabitha C. Pack et al, involved the methods of using virtual reality on light-skinned participants to create a sense of ownership of a dark-skinned avatar. These methods produced results that supported the hypothesis which was that the ownership and experience of having a dark-skinned body would reduce the racial bias present in the participants. This was determined by questionnaires which were performed before and after the scenario was conducted as well as the calculation of the participant’s Implicit Racial Bias by the IAT test (Racial Implicit Association Test). The results of the postIAT and preIAT demonstrated that after the exposure to the scenario the IAT results produced a large decrease.(Tabitha C. Peck, 2013) Therefore, these results gave an indicator to whether the hypothesis was correct as well as the evidence of the ability to alter racial bias and prejudice in participants. Lara Maister et al, also carried out a similar study which addressed how existing attitudes towards various races effect our feeling for empathy and ability share other aspects with different races, and how that barrier can be reduced when a bodily illusion is employed to associate them with races of another colour. The methods of this study included the selection of middle-aged individuals that had an implicit racial bias towards other ethnicities, having their hand stimulated by the experimenter whilst hidden as well as a visible rubber hand of different skin colour stimulated at the same time. The results of the IAT’s performed before and after the experiment were reliable in the sense that it demonstrated a difference between higher feelings of ownership correlated with reduced implicit racial bias.(Lara Maister, 2013) Therefore, this resulted in the conclusion that illusionary ownership and bodily overlap produces positive results in the reduction of racial bias and prejudice as seen in the results of the study therefore supporting the argument that racial bias and prejudice can be reduced in people of adult age and that it certainly is not determined by nature at birth or at the age of child development.
Other studies have focused on areas other than racial bias such as sexuality and disease related prejudice, where they have provided evidence to support the argument that prejudice can be reduced during an individual’s life. Audrey K. Miller et al carried out a study which produced supportive evidence for this argument where a number of young adults both male and female used the method of counterfactual thinking as an intervention to reduce prejudice thoughts. This was where they imagined a positive meeting with a gay man and then a negative situation from prejudice which involved the gay man. The counterfactual thinking was used by the participants to think what could have been done to reduce this situation. The results demonstrated, through a questionnaire which was undertaken, show that by the end of the exercise, the participants produced significant reductions in prejudice attitudes compared to the control group,(Audrey K. Miller, 2013) therefore proving that counterfactual thinking can be an intervention to reduce sexuality prejudice in young adults. Similarly prejudice against people with the HIV disease was reduced in a study performed by Li, Li et al where the Popular Opinion Leader model was used to reduce prejudice among service providers in hospitals. The results demonstrated that after 6 – 12 months, the follow up assessments performed produced ratings showing that the POL group had a large reduction in HIV prejudice whilst the non-POL group has little or no significant reduction present.(Li Li, 2013) This longitudinal study therefore supports the argument that prejudice can be reduced through time as seen through to follow-up assessment results. Both these studies concentrating on sexuality and sexual disease related prejudice support the key point that any prejudice can be reduced during a person’s life if an intervention is employed to do so.
Age is also a factor presented in this argument where the belief is that prejudice is obtained in the time of birth to early development and cannot be changed as the individual gets older. This is not the case as seen in these studies where one focuses on children and the other on older adults. The experiment performed by Sofia Stathi et al outlines how children’s prejudice can be changed by the process of imagined contact. This was where the children of white colour imagined interacting with a child of ethnic out-group decent for 3 weeks and the outcomes were compared and assessed with the control group. The results supported the argument showing that imagined contact as an intervention was effective as the children of the experimental group produced ratings of increased similarity to the out-group as will as positive attitudes towards them as well.(Sofia Stathi, 2014) On the other hand, the study carried out by Jose-Luis, Castillo et al focuses on the other side of age where participants of a mean age of 63.2 years were asked to complete questions to do with scenarios involving immigrants through perspective-taking and also asked to complete IAT tests before and after the experiment was performed. The results of the IAT tests conveyed that perspective-taking in older adults can moderately reduce prejudice (Jose-Luis Alvarez Castillo, 2011) therefore confirming that as well as children older aged individuals can be affected to change and reduce their prejudice which provides evidence to support to argument that prejudice can be reduced throughout life.
Intercultural racial bias and prejudice is also a main factor which can be seen as being reduced in studies and can therefore add to the convincing nature of this argument. A longitudinal study carried out by Joseph B. Walther et al addressing the reduction of prejudice among Jews and Arabs in Israel by Computer Mediated Communication which produced positive results in the way in which each culture considered and respected each other. Computer Mediated Communication online between the groups showed an increase in positive attitudes towards one another especially in non-secular Jews over a year.(Joseph B. Walther, 2015) This added to the various support cases that prove prejudice can be reduced adding the aspect of different cultures making it relevant to the majority of individuals. Another study performed by experimenters in Finland, Karmela Liebkind et al, analysed the development in intergroup relations in culturally diverse schools with the employment of an intervention to aim to reduce prejudice. The experiment used participants of Finnish and immigrant origin who were in high school at the time. The method included questionnaires before and after the intervention to acquire and compare the results. The intervention which consisted of behavioural journalism such as narratives undertaken in sessions outlined stories from both Finnish and immigrant origin and how social support influenced them throughout the story. The results demonstrated that there was a trend towards the intervention having effect in the reduction of prejudice between the groups examined as well as increased peer norms.(Karmela Liebkind, 2014) This study as well as the other outlines effectively and provides primary evidence that prejudice can be reduced with the use of interventions as seen in other studies referenced therefore supporting the main argument.
Overall, in the areas of prejudice outlined such as racial bias and prejudice against colour, sexuality and transmitted diseases, prejudice variance in age and also intercultural prejudice, the studies have shown significant evidence such as reduction in IAT tests in numerous studies as well as reduction in attitudes towards prejudice and reduction in implicit prejudice thoughts, to strongly support this argument. The ideal that prejudice and racial bias of any type is derived from nature at birth or early development is wrong, as indicated in the strong chain of evidence provided from a variety of sources as well as countries and cultures making the argument more valid and reliable from an analytical view. This therefore proves and confirms the view that prejudice of any kind can be reduced despite age, gender, or ethnicity or culture throughout an individual’s life and that it is not a concrete trait which is born into every human being.
References:
Audrey K. Miller, K. D. M., Maverick M. Wagner, Amy N. Hunt. (2013). Mental simulation and sexual prejudice reduction: the debiasing role of counterfactual thinking. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43(1), 190-194. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2012.00992.x
Jose-Luis Alvarez Castillo, C. P. C., Alfredo Jimenez Eguizabal. (2011). Prejudice Reduction in University Programs for Older Adults. Educational Gerontology, 37(2), 164-190. doi:10.1080/03601271003608811
Joseph B. Walther, E. H., Asmaa Ganayem, Miri Shonfeld. (2015). Computer-mediated communication and the reduction of prejudice: A controlled longitudinal field experiment among Jews and Arabs in Israel. Computers in Human Behaviour, 52, 550-558. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.08.004
Karmela Liebkind, T. A. M., Emilia Solares, Erling Solheim, Inga Jasinskaja-Lahti. (2014). Prejudice-reduction in Culturally Mixed Classrooms: The Development and Assessment of a Theory-driven Intervention Among Majority and Minority Youth in Finland. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 24(4), 325-339. doi:10.1002/casp.2168
Lara Maister, N. S., Gunther Knoblich, Manos, Tsakiris. (2013). Experiencing ownership over a dark-skinned body reduces implicit racial bias. In Cognition, 128(2), 170-178. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.04.002
Li Li, J. G., Li-Jung Liang, Chunqing Lin, Zunyou Wu. (2013). Popular Opinion Leader Intervention for HIV Stigma Reduction in Health Care Settings. AIDS Education & Prevention, 25(4), 327-335. doi:10.1521/aeap.2013.25.4.327
Sofia Stathi, L. C., Bonny Hartley, Shona Bradford. (2014). Imagined contact as a prejudice-reduction intervention in schools: the underlying role of similarity and attitudes. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 44(8), 536-546. doi:10.1111/jasp.12245
Tabitha C. Peck, S. S., Salvatore M. Aglioti, Mel Slater. (2013). Putting yourself in the skin of a black avatar reduces implicit racial bias. Consciousness and Cognition, 22(3), 779-787. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2013.04.016