Racism: Further Considerations from Psychological Science 心理科学对种族歧视的深度思考

Racism is undeniably a matter of concern across countries and cultures. In the United States， where slavery was abolished in 1865 and segregation outlawed in 1954， the effects of racism are still pervasive in everyday life. Here is a look at what psychological scientists have uncovered on the topic in recent years.

Systemic racism and implicit biases1

Racism is usually defined by individual psychological processes such as prejudice， stereotyping， or discrimination. But racism is not only ingrained in individual minds; it is also found at historical and cultural levels. Focusing on individual prejudice can obscure the role that institutional and cultural processes play in maintaining race-based hierarchies. In a 2018 article in Current Directions in Psychological Science， Phia S. Salter （Davidson College）， Glenn Adams （University of Kansas）， and Michael J. Perez （Texas A&M University） proposed a cultural-psychological approach to racism. They suggested that racism is reproduced in everyday environments that afford2， promote， and maintain racist processes. People shape and maintain these racist processes through their preferences and actions. For example， people might select some representations of the past， shaping history and intervening in collective memory in a way that serves racism. This interplay between individuals and culture makes it more difficult to dismantle racism. According to Salter and colleagues3， racism cannot be dismantled by solely changing people’s individual biases because aspects of our everyday worlds support those biases.

In Psychological Science， Heidi A. Vuletich and APS4 Fellow Keith Payne （University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill） analyzed individual biases and found that rather than being a property of individuals， implicit bias might be a property of social contexts， and that changing the social context （e.g.， by increasing faculty diversity or removing Confederate monuments5 from campuses） may more effectively reduce bias than changing individual attitudes. In Vuletich and Payne’s reanalysis of a previous study of 18 university campuses before and after a racial bias intervention， the researchers found that individual attitudes varied randomly across time and that campus characteristics such as low faculty diversity predicted high bias. This indicates that the stability of bias may reflect stable environments rather than persistent individual biases. Moreover， campuses’ characteristics that reflect historical and current inequalities， such as low faculty diversity， low social mobility （percentage of students whose parents had moved up from the poorest income quintile6）， and display of Confederate monuments predicted high bias.

Consequences of racism

Racism’s consequences are both physical and psychological. In Perspectives on Psychological Science， Antoinette M. Landor （University of Missouri） and Shardé McNeil Smith （University of Illinois） proposed that assaults resulting from an individual’s skin tone7 may result in traumatic stress reactions and health and interpersonal outcomes （e.g.， low self-esteem， hypertension， risky sexual behavior）. Moreover， African Americans score worse than individuals with other racial backgrounds on most major physical health indicators， such as coronary heart disease， stroke， cancer， and HIV.

Racism also results in economic and legal inequalities. For example， Rebecca C. Hetey and APS Fellow Jennifer L. Eberhardt （Stanford University） reported that there is plenty of evidence for racial disparities in the criminal justice system， where Blacks are much more likely to be punished than Whites. Michael W. Kraus， Ivuoma N. Onyeador， Natalie M. Daumeyer， Julian M. Rucker， and APS Fellow Jennifer A. Richeson （Yale University） suggested in Perspectives on Psychological Science that Americans vastly underestimate current racial economic inequality， especially the racial wealth gap. When the researchers compared participants’ estimates of economic disparities between White and Black families with actual economic data collected by the U.S. government， they found that participants underestimated the racial wealth gap in 1963 by 40% and the racial wealth gap in 2016 by 80%. Kraus and colleagues argued that these underestimates of inequality are driven， in part， by the salience8 of exemplars9 that bolster the belief that oppression has been overcome （e.g.， Oprah Winfrey） and by motivations to perceive society as fair and economic status dependent only on merit.

Ways to combat racism

Reminding the public of dispar-ities between the treatment of Blacks and Whites might not be the best approach to combat racism. For example， in Current Directions in Psychological Science， Rebecca C. Hetey and APS Fellow Jennifer L. Eberhardt suggested that reminders about how Blacks are more likely to be punished by the crim-inal justice system than Whites may trigger fear and increase stereotypical associations between Blacks and crime， increasing biases and support for the policies that created the disparities. Instead， they suggest presenting data on racial disparities in a way that emphasizes that they are not natural， but rather the result of institutions that perpetuate10 structural and sociocultural forms of racism.