Racism in Modern Society

Abstract

This paper examines racism in modern society using psychology. Specifically, mental representations and personality theory (social identity theory and ultimate attribution error). This papers looks at both ideas to develop a conclusion about why racism exists and if the problem that affects so many different people around the world can be understood or even changed. When looking at the social identity theory, which looks at the human nature of wanting to belong, it becomes evident that because human search for a sense of belonging, it is natural for members of one group that is superior to other groups either because of economic, political or historical reasons to look down on member of other groups. Also, the stereotypes and prejudices that are created surrounding certain groups means that members of specific groups tend to fall into their stereotypes which enforces negative behaviours leading to increased prejudice and in some cases, elevated levels of violence. This then links to mental representation and how sources such as gatekeepers influence every next generations by exposing them to the different prejudices and stereotypes that have been developed over time due to the social identity theory and in and out groups. Children are then brought up with these preconceived ideas about different groups having specific behavioural characteristics. Whether positive or negative, these representations become part of who they are as people and they subconsciously fall into similar categories and the people they look up to and idolise. For this reason, this paper concludes the idea that in society, racism is not something that can be controlled since racism is a product of human nature.

Introduction

Racism and prejudice both refer to a negative view of one group of people based solely on their membership in that group. Racism is a specific form of prejudice, involving prejudicial attitudes or behaviour towards members of an ethnic group. The definition of race is somewhat variable but commonly refers to an ethnic group originating on a specific continent, such as people of African, European or Asian descent. (Lisa J. Cohen Ph.D. 2011). When you look at the affect that racism has had on people throughout time, it is not surprise that it has been a massive focus of social psychology for many years. As racism is a social psychological issue with so many different avenues to explore, it is no surprise that there are many different perspectives on the issues. When looking at the different approaches to racism in psychology there are two main areas. Mental representations and personality theories, specifically the social identity theory and ultimate attribution error. What this paper looks to accomplish is to look at these different approaches and make a critical analysis of racism using them.

Literary review

Tajfel (1979) proposed that an important source of people’s self-esteem and pride comes from the groups they belong to.  Groups give people a sense of belonging in the world which in turn gives them a sense of social identity. This is what the Social Identity Theory (SIT) states.  Because humans as a species are searching for this sense of belonging, we tend to heighten the status of the groups that we belong to help boost our self-esteem and image.  When looking at this aspect of the of the SIT we can tie in the Ultimate Attribution Error (UAE). The "ultimate attribution error" explains that people are more likely to see an out-group's negative behaviour as flaws in their personality (dispositional), and an out-group's positive behaviour because of chance or circumstance (situational). Whereas positive acts performed by in-group members are a result of their personality, and if an in-group member behaves negatively (this is believed to be rare), it is a result of situational factors (Thomas F. Pettigrew 1979).

This core idea is the reason social psychologists have allocated for the formation of stereotypes. Because of SIT explains that people will enhance their self-image by discriminating against people from a group that is not their own, the out group. When looking at prejudice from this angle and looking at in from a cultural perspective, it is easy to see how this idea could be exemplified into racism. All a person must do is look at history in terms of the Rwanda genocide and Hitler to see just how extreme racism can become.

Morris and Peng (1994) where American or Chinese participants learned about a recent murder committed by an American or Chinese individual. They received the media coverage for the murder and were asked to weight the dispositional and situational explanations for the cause of the murder. As the ultimate attribution error predicts, American participants were biased toward dispositional explanations for the Chinese murder suspect, and biased toward situational explanations for the American murder suspect. In addition, the Chinese participants were attributed dispositional causes for the American murder suspect and situational causes for the Chinese murder suspect. Looking at this study we can see that the difference in culture was the reason that there was prejudice between the American and Chinese groups. When is good about this experiment is that the participants are not aware that they are conforming to the UAE. Is helps support my argument that racism is not something that can always be controls but it is more a bioproduct of the human nature of wanting to belong.

When analysing this intergroup theory, it is very important to look at how mental representations play in role in how in the way that one groups looks and behaves towards their own group or other groups. To do this, we must look at the sources for these representations. The reason for this is because people are not born with preconceived ideas of different groups. “Prejudice is learned through living in and observing a society where prejudices exist. Children's opinions are influenced by what the people around them think, do and say (Derman-Sparks, L., Gutierrez, M., & Phillips, C. B. (1989), (How children learn prejudice? (2016). This suggests that “prejudice does not come from children’s awareness of differences among people, but from their perception of negative attitudes about those differences” (Youth Service Activity Guide, 1999, v). When we look at the way that the Gatekeepers (media, family, teachers, politicians) portray different groups, such as the media constantly reporting terrorist threats, we can also start to understand why groups of people have the specific mental representations of different groups that they do. This is also coupled with personal experience of different group members. For instance, if an individual gets robbed by a black person then they are more likely to associate that group with crime. When looking at these two very large influences that exist everywhere it can be seen that mental representations play a very large role in racism and the way people act upon it.