Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsPsychological HistoryPrejudice vs. RacismCultural Tools That Perpetuate RacismExplanationsFactorsCombating Racism and Promoting Anti-Racism
Table of ContentsView All
View All
Table of Contents
Psychological History
Prejudice vs. Racism
Cultural Tools That Perpetuate Racism
Explanations
Factors
Combating Racism and Promoting Anti-Racism
Close
The psychological study of racism can be summed up in one word: evolving. How society thinks about race and racism has changed and with it, the psychological discourse has changed as well.
Many Americans, particularly White Americans, were complacent going into the year 2020. When the coronavirus pandemic started, the complacency started to wane and was replaced with fear and a sense of unrest. When George Floyd was killed in police custody on May 25, 2020, a bright spotlight was redirected to an uncomfortable reality that mostBIPOCAmericans already knew: Racism is still alive and well in America.
At a GlanceWith the added spotlight has come a renewed interest in understanding racism. In order to combat racism, it’s vital to recognize its effects and take steps to understand the factors that contribute to it. Keep reading to learn more about thepsychologyof racism, including historical perspectives and more current views on the individual and systemic nature of racism.
At a Glance
With the added spotlight has come a renewed interest in understanding racism. In order to combat racism, it’s vital to recognize its effects and take steps to understand the factors that contribute to it. Keep reading to learn more about thepsychologyof racism, including historical perspectives and more current views on the individual and systemic nature of racism.
Psychological History of Racism
Today, some researchers are using and advocating for acultural-psychological approach, which views racism as ideas and practices embedded in culture, where individuals shape culture and culture shapes individuals.
Early Theories of Racism
Early psychological theories of racism justified the domination of one race over another because of Charles Darwin’s concept ofsurvival of the fittest. It was theorized that there was some survival advantage to being racist.However, modern hunter-gatherer tribes were not found to exclude out-groups (people not included in a particular group), and this problematic theory was rejected.
Then, race psychology theorized that there were brain differences between races and thatintelligence testsand segregation were the answer.Later in 1954, American psychologistGordon Allportargued in his book, “The Nature of Prejudice,” that people use categories to understand their world better and that racism was simply an artifact of that process.
Whatever the history of the psychology of racism is in the United States, the actual history of racism is that White people have been and continue to be afforded benefits in society because of a system that was set up for their benefit. Racism is real regardless of whether White people recognize or accept it.
RecapEarly explanations of racism were often inherently racist. Modern views on racism don’t simply focus on individual acts of racism but also look at how racism is perpetuated at a societal and cultural level.
Recap
Early explanations of racism were often inherently racist. Modern views on racism don’t simply focus on individual acts of racism but also look at how racism is perpetuated at a societal and cultural level.
Understanding White Privilege
Many people misunderstand and confuse the definitions of racism and prejudice. Though related, they are different.
Prejudice
Prejudiceis a negative preconception or attitude toward members of a group based on shared characteristics such as race, ethnicity, sex, sexuality, age, religion, language, class, or culture. Prejudice can be racial, but it can also be sexist, ageist, or classist, for example.
Prejudiced beliefs are usually learned early in life and can affect behavior in subtle and overt ways.For example, a teacher with prejudice might hold the belief that girls aren’t good at math. That belief would then affect the teacher’s behavior with their students, whether consciously or subconsciously.
How Does Implicit Bias Influence Behavior?
Racism
In contrast, racism is directed at a particular racial group and is based on systems of power and oppression. Racism is often seen as being a problem with individual racial prejudice, but it is important to recognize that it is much more multifaceted and systemic.
People commonly think of racism in terms of overt individual actions and ideologies (the social-psychological understanding), but it also exists within systems, organizations, and cultures (the cultural-psychological understanding). In this way, racism is embedded in the reality of everyday life.
Since racism is part of daily life, cultural patterns, and historical narratives in the U.S., it is often difficult for people to see how familiar and normalized ideas promote racialized views and behaviors.
Racism isn’t just about individuals demonstrating racial prejudice or engaging in direct acts of racial discrimination; it is often less immediately obvious and much more insidious, affecting institutions like the justice system, in which Black defendants regularly face harsher sentences than White defendants for the same crimes, for example.
Phia S. Salter, Glenn Adams, and Michael J. Perez in “Current Directions in Psychological Science"Decreases in overt expressions of racial bias might suggest that racial prejudice (and therefore racism) is less extreme in modern America; however, many psychologists suggest that racial bias has gone underground, and they have mounted substantial evidence that it instead thrives in subtle forms.
Phia S. Salter, Glenn Adams, and Michael J. Perez in “Current Directions in Psychological Science”
Decreases in overt expressions of racial bias might suggest that racial prejudice (and therefore racism) is less extreme in modern America; however, many psychologists suggest that racial bias has gone underground, and they have mounted substantial evidence that it instead thrives in subtle forms.
While most blatant individual demonstrations of racism are no longer tolerated or viewed as acceptable in “mainstream” contemporary American society, our society’s understanding of what is racist continues to evolve. In reality, our institutions are not so far removed from the years of colonialism, slavery, and segregation, and racism is still ignored, condoned, or even actively supported in many facets of American life.
RecapIn order to better understand how racism operates, it’s important to look beyond individual psychology to the systemic and cultural practices that continue to uphold racism.
In order to better understand how racism operates, it’s important to look beyond individual psychology to the systemic and cultural practices that continue to uphold racism.
Signs of Different Types of Biases and How to Overcome Each of Them
The dominant American culture’sdiscomfort with race and racismcontinues to result in harmful beliefs and sentiments that promote ignorance about racism and uphold the racial status quo. Perhaps you’ve heard someone say that they are “color-blind,” “don’t see color,” or that “race doesn’t matter.” Maybe you’ve even said something to that effect yourself.
Those ideas, though often promoted asinclusive, actually shut downimportant conversations about raceand deny the fact that racism exists not only on an individual level but as a systemic problem. It’s the same responding to “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter.”
This denial of the significance of race is a tool that allows the dominant racial group to legitimize the effectsof racism under the guise of individual merit. Through this lens, people in positions of power can credit their successes to their own hard work while positioning the disadvantages oppressed racial groups face to personal rather than systemic failures.
Continuing to support this individualistic American narrative results in blindness to the realities of America’s racist systems. For example, research has shown in no uncertain terms that Black Americans experience disparities in income, employment, education, and health.But research shows that White Americans still tend to be less aware of these racial realities than people who are part of racial minority groups.
Explanations for Racism
As more attention is being given to the racism ingrained in our society, many more people are seeking explanations for it. Is it survival of the fittest, or a psychologicaldefense mechanismto help people identify with a primary group and feel more secure? Below is a list of possible psychological explanations for why racism exists.
Personal Insecurity
It’s true that those wholack an identityand struggle with insecurity may seek group membership.Consequently, after finding a group, members of the group may start toalienate non-group members. Sometimes, hostility arises toward those people who have been alienated.
While in a clique, people tend to think and behave more like the people they surround themselves with. It becomes much easier to attack others when you’re among people who share the same viewpoint.
Lack of Compassion
Alienation of others eventually leads to lesscompassionfor those who have been ostracized. People begin to only show compassion and empathy for those they regularly associate with.
Consider, for example, television segments asking viewers to donate to causes that support food security for families in Africa. These messages may be easier for a person to dismiss if they don’t identify with the group or culture in need. This dismissal may or may not be overt racism, but it begins with a lack ofempathy.
Projection of Flaws
When people feel bad about themselves or recognize their shortcomings, instead of dealing with them and trying to fix them, they mayproject their self-loathing onto others. Alienated groups can easily become scapegoats for those who ignore their own personal flaws.
Poor Mental Health
But it’s important to recognize that racist beliefs and actions are certainly not limited to people with mental health disorders.
Hatred and Fear
RecapRacism is not a mental illness, but it is certainly related to psychological adaptation. Factors such as personal insecurity, lack of empathy, and projection may contribute to racism.
Racism is not a mental illness, but it is certainly related to psychological adaptation. Factors such as personal insecurity, lack of empathy, and projection may contribute to racism.
Factors That Contribute to Racism
In a 2020 paper published in the journalAmerican Psychologist, Steven O. Roberts, a Stanford psychologist, and Michael T. Rizzo, a New York University postdoctoral fellow, discuss what leads to racism.With their paper, the authors aimed to provide an overview of several of the major factors theorized to contribute to racism in America. Those factors are the following.
Categories
Category labels can support a belief that category members have a shared identity, which promotes stereotypes. This categorical grouping and the concept of shared identity later lead to factions.
Factions
Categories lead to factions in which people are assigned to a racial group and begin to strongly identify with their racial ingroup. Positive perceptions of their assigned racial group and the desire to show cooperation, loyalty, and empathy to the group commonly lead to behavior that benefits the group, even to the detriment of another group.
Beyond loyalty to their own group, group members can also begin to show hostility toward other groups as a result of real or perceived competition or threats to their self-image, values, or resources.
Segregation
Being segregated from other racial groups greatly influences attitudes and feelings about race. Lack of contact with other racial groups tends to narrow and harden a person’s beliefs and opinions about others and offers few chances for negative beliefs to be challenged.
Hierarchy
Power
Power grants groups the ability to build a society that benefits them. It also allows them to create what are considered to be culturally acceptable standards. They control resources and are allowed to exploit others and assume dominance. When power is distributed along racial divides as it is in the U.S., so are advantages.
Media
The media plays a role in sustaining racism. On one level there is simply representation (or lack thereof). When media consistently portrays a mostly White cast of actors in magazines, television shows, and movies, it makes the White culture the “dominant” or “normal” American culture.
On another level, there is how the media portrays racial groups. When media reinforces racial stereotypes in its representation of different racial groups, it also reinforces individual racial prejudice and the systems that perpetuate institutionalized racism.
Passivism
The final factor Roberts and Rizzo describe is perhaps the most important. It is the passive racism that results from ignorance,apathy, or denial. When racism is systemic and ingrained in social structures, all that is required to sustain it is inaction.
People do not need to be actively racist in their beliefs and actions to support racist systems—they simply need to do nothing to change those systems.
RecapResearch suggests that many factors contribute to racism on both individual and systemic levels. These factors include categorization, factions that pit people against each other, social hierarchies, power, and media influences.
Research suggests that many factors contribute to racism on both individual and systemic levels. These factors include categorization, factions that pit people against each other, social hierarchies, power, and media influences.
When faced with the sheer magnitude of racism in America, it can be easy to feel powerless. But there are things you can do on an individual level to influence both interpersonal racism and systemic racism. Below are some ways in which racism can be combated on an individual level:
The way children learn about American history can affect their understanding of racism. For example, one study looked at how Black History Month was taught in predominantly White and predominantly Black schools. The researchers found marked differences in how information was presented.
In mostly White schools, students were exposed to displays and discussions that were highly abstract and focused more on individual achievements rather than addressing racism. At mostly Black schools, however, information more directly addressed racism and the effects of racial barriers.
RecapCombating racism is about more than being “not racist,” which often equates to passive racism. Learning to be activelyanti-racistis essential. For example, research has shown that taking a more direct, anti-racist approach to teaching children about history has a greater impact on their understanding of the real effects of racism.
Combating racism is about more than being “not racist,” which often equates to passive racism. Learning to be activelyanti-racistis essential. For example, research has shown that taking a more direct, anti-racist approach to teaching children about history has a greater impact on their understanding of the real effects of racism.
Strategies to Help You on Your Anti-Racism Journey
Keep in Mind
For too long, racism has been relegated to the past or reduced to individual beliefs and actions. As a result, America’s lingering systemic and institutionalized racism has been overlooked and allowed to persist and progress. But cultural-psychological approaches to understanding racism challenge these ideas. Racism is in more ways a cultural phenomenon than an individual psychological occurrence.
What this means is that you do not need to be racist to uphold racist systems. We each have a personal responsibility to challenge racism on an individual level, but we also must look toward the cultural structures that perpetuate individual bias and the injustice that racism causes.
7 Strategies to Help You on Your Anti-Racism Journey
10 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Salter PS, Adams G, Perez MJ.Racism in the structure of everyday worlds: A cultural-psychological perspective.Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2018;27(3):150-155. doi:10.1177/0963721417724239Carl N.The fallacy of equating the hereditarian hypothesis with racism.Psych. 2019;1(1):262-278. doi:10.3390/psych1010018Rusch H.The evolutionary interplay of intergroup conflict and altruism in humans: A review of parochial altruism theory and prospects for its extension.Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2014;281(1794). doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.1539Roberts S, Rizzo M.The psychology of American racism.American Psychologist. 2020. doi:10.1037/amp0000642Allport G.The Nature of Prejudice. Addison-Wesley; 1954.Olson M, Zabel K.Measures of prejudice. In: Nelson D, ed.Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination. Psychology Press; 2016:175-211.United States Sentencing Commission.Demographic Differences in Sentencing.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Health, United States, 2015.PEW Research Center.Sharp racial divisions in reactions to Brown, Garner decisions.Salter PS, Adams G.On the intentionality of cultural products: Representations of black history as psychological affordances.Front Psychol. 2016;7. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01166
10 Sources
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Salter PS, Adams G, Perez MJ.Racism in the structure of everyday worlds: A cultural-psychological perspective.Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2018;27(3):150-155. doi:10.1177/0963721417724239Carl N.The fallacy of equating the hereditarian hypothesis with racism.Psych. 2019;1(1):262-278. doi:10.3390/psych1010018Rusch H.The evolutionary interplay of intergroup conflict and altruism in humans: A review of parochial altruism theory and prospects for its extension.Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2014;281(1794). doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.1539Roberts S, Rizzo M.The psychology of American racism.American Psychologist. 2020. doi:10.1037/amp0000642Allport G.The Nature of Prejudice. Addison-Wesley; 1954.Olson M, Zabel K.Measures of prejudice. In: Nelson D, ed.Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination. Psychology Press; 2016:175-211.United States Sentencing Commission.Demographic Differences in Sentencing.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Health, United States, 2015.PEW Research Center.Sharp racial divisions in reactions to Brown, Garner decisions.Salter PS, Adams G.On the intentionality of cultural products: Representations of black history as psychological affordances.Front Psychol. 2016;7. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01166
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Salter PS, Adams G, Perez MJ.Racism in the structure of everyday worlds: A cultural-psychological perspective.Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2018;27(3):150-155. doi:10.1177/0963721417724239Carl N.The fallacy of equating the hereditarian hypothesis with racism.Psych. 2019;1(1):262-278. doi:10.3390/psych1010018Rusch H.The evolutionary interplay of intergroup conflict and altruism in humans: A review of parochial altruism theory and prospects for its extension.Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2014;281(1794). doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.1539Roberts S, Rizzo M.The psychology of American racism.American Psychologist. 2020. doi:10.1037/amp0000642Allport G.The Nature of Prejudice. Addison-Wesley; 1954.Olson M, Zabel K.Measures of prejudice. In: Nelson D, ed.Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination. Psychology Press; 2016:175-211.United States Sentencing Commission.Demographic Differences in Sentencing.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Health, United States, 2015.PEW Research Center.Sharp racial divisions in reactions to Brown, Garner decisions.Salter PS, Adams G.On the intentionality of cultural products: Representations of black history as psychological affordances.Front Psychol. 2016;7. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01166
Salter PS, Adams G, Perez MJ.Racism in the structure of everyday worlds: A cultural-psychological perspective.Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2018;27(3):150-155. doi:10.1177/0963721417724239
Carl N.The fallacy of equating the hereditarian hypothesis with racism.Psych. 2019;1(1):262-278. doi:10.3390/psych1010018
Rusch H.The evolutionary interplay of intergroup conflict and altruism in humans: A review of parochial altruism theory and prospects for its extension.Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2014;281(1794). doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.1539
Roberts S, Rizzo M.The psychology of American racism.American Psychologist. 2020. doi:10.1037/amp0000642
Allport G.The Nature of Prejudice. Addison-Wesley; 1954.
Olson M, Zabel K.Measures of prejudice. In: Nelson D, ed.Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping, and Discrimination. Psychology Press; 2016:175-211.
United States Sentencing Commission.Demographic Differences in Sentencing.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Health, United States, 2015.
PEW Research Center.Sharp racial divisions in reactions to Brown, Garner decisions.
Salter PS, Adams G.On the intentionality of cultural products: Representations of black history as psychological affordances.Front Psychol. 2016;7. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01166
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