Social Psychology and Theories on Racism
Uploaded by spootyhead on Apr 18, 2007
Social Psychology and Theories on Racism
Aversive racism is a term use by Gaertner and Dovido to describe white Americans who have been socialized by the racial history of American culture, along with the cognitive tendency to categorize information which results in subtle, yet commonplace racial beliefs and feelings, while keeping strong egalitarian values. This keeps the aversive racist stuck between their learned negative view of other races and their egalitarian values and beliefs.
The sources of the negativity that underlies the aversive racist’s racial attitudes and provide the motivation to be prejudice are either internal or external according to Devine. One’s own internalized (self-prescribed) standards or guides for regulating behavior is considered to be the internalized source of racism, while the socially prescribed standards or guides for regulatory behavior is the external source of racism. Devine thoroughly researched the conflicts between the two. By looking at the sources we can understand how motivation enforces the responses and how the norms have an impact on the responses. External sources are overemphasized in racism.
The conditions under which aversive racism is likely to exist seem to situations where it is unclear whether there are social prohibitions against expressions of negative racial beliefs, but when the situation clearly shows anti-prejudice views the aversive racist may not show any racist response, but they may seem very egalitarian. The racism is usually expressed as in-group favoritism, rather than out-group derogation.
Comparisons between hiring of racial groups versus whites in 1988 to 1989 and 1998 to 1999 showed black applicants that had a clearly better application were hired over whites are results that agree with the aversive racist theory, reduction of racism over time, but the study also showed when the black applicant and the white had similar qualifications, the participants preferred to hire the whites. Which shows that there is an underlying hostility toward blacks that is dormant in environments that do not allow for it, but when it is unclear, aversive racial attitudes surface.
Aversive racism seems to be self-perpetuating through the lack of awareness that the racist tends to have over his/her own aversively racist actions. Dovidio argues the aversive racism suggests that because white’s negative affect toward blacks manifests itself subtly in terms of opposition to social programs and voting behavior that are aimed at bring more blacks into society, which Dovido believes shows the lack of...