The following is a series of studies on color differences and the beginning stages of "implicit bias". While I am interested in these issues of "race", I'm particularly concerned with their parallel phenomena in religion. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that "religion" is the new "race", undoubtedly much of which is owed to the tensions regarding Muslims post 9-11. However, these divisions between social groups along religious lines have been relatively constant in many societies. For contemporary examples, we need only look at India, Nigeria, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Burma, etc. and indeed violence between groups separated along religious lines will emerge wherever we look. A glimpse into history provides even further evidence of sectarian violence and aggression not only in the U.S. but many countries over.
My question is how do these developed beliefs perpetuate biases and prejudices that we see today? In other words, how do we bridge the discourse between embodiment and belief?
I think the research done on social associations regarding color can be insightful. Primarily because the differences in skin tone is a similar superficial qualifier to distinguishing groups across religious lines. That is, both are founded on a particular social constructivism. And indeed, we see much critical thinking on deconstructing "race" in a similar way we can deconstruct "religion". Both are not clear-cut categories of difference and many scholars have called for the abandonment of these terms due to their frailty as conceptual tools for analysis. In this sense, I think there is a parallel between "race" and "religion" as social "folk psychological" methods of differentiating groups and creating notions of the "other".
In this post, I'll discuss a few studies on "race" and the learned beliefs involved with differences of color. After which I'll try to tie it back together as to how it can relate to beliefs about religious differences.
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This is a study by Harvard Business Prof. Michael Norton which engages participants in a game where they pick a face and the other participant had to guess which one they picked. It's almost exactly like the game 'Guess Who?' You ask a yes/no question and the other responds.
The research found that 57% of the participants didn't mention color, although that would eliminate half of the possible faces. If the other participant was African-American, 79% didn't ask if the chosen face was black or white. In other words, if a non-black participant was playing the game with a black participant then there was a high chance that the color of the face was not mentioned.
When they reproduced the study with children, white children did ask about color but when the age range reached 9 or 10 the question was no longer asked.
The study suggests that "the people who didn’t mention race were probably trying to appear not
racist, but their decision had the opposite effect. The partners of
people who didn’t mention race rated them as more racist than the
partners of people who did. Bringing up race was, in fact, a way to
signal comfort with racial difference." (source)
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The finding reports that not mentioning color in the game created the perception of racism. While it is often common to take the position of being "color-blind" and "non-racist", this stance in effect created the opposite impression.
The finding with children suggests that kids are implicitly taught about racism and color. By 9 or 10, children learn that referencing color is taboo, or that it creates the impression of racism, and thereby learn that one should not ask about color. In other words, children learn to embody a particular disposition towards race. This phenomena gives the space to embody a disposition of being "color-blind", how to talk about color, and formulate the disposition (belief) that one is not racist while actually being (or at least giving the impression of being) racist in other areas of social interaction.
I find this area of learned dispositions particularly interesting as it pertains to how we learn the beliefs that we do have. There are many parallels for this kind of research finding that is applicable to other areas of social life regarding the labels we ascribe to people. Given my area of interest, namely within religion, this relates to how persons formulate beliefs about Christians, Atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, "nones", "spiritual but not religious", or "more spiritual than religious", and the beliefs about religions and nations. In other areas we can talk about social class. The attitudes people may have about "private" and "public" school. Who is "cool" or not "cool". This dives into the area of social acceptability; inclusion v. exclusion.
Much of the research on these types of beliefs, implicit biases, stereotypes, and so on, have been done on "racial differences", beliefs surrounding skin tone and associated content. Back in the 40s, Kenneth and Mamie Clark (social psychologists) devised what has been called the "Doll Test". Their work was very influential and had an impact on Brown v. The Board of Education to end segregation in schools. The "Doll Test" investigated children's attitudes to color when asked questions of character about two identical dolls with different skin color. This study was refined and replicated for contemporary U.S. society and aired on CNN. While the predominant demographic was white and black children, there is a section where they also conducted the same study with Latin-American children (4:30 mark in the video below). The answers, in all demographics (white, black, latino children), overwhelmingly associate negative attributes with the black doll and positive attributes with the white doll.
There are some questions about their methodology when filming some of these - the color of the researcher may have had an effect on the children's judgment. However, this seems to become a minimal issue - or even negated - when the person asking questions range from white, black, and latino (this may not be apparent in the video above but it is shown in the videos below) and children giving the same answers.
The doll test also presents a dichotomy in which the children select one or the other - although they do have the option to say neither or both. Presenting this kind of choice seemingly forces them to make a decision that reflects a value-judgment. This issue is mitigated by the poster that presents a range of skin tones in which they select one.The findings are similar.
Another concern is asking questions of character when all they have to draw on are differences of color. This also forces a selection to associate skin color with a particular adjective (mean, ugly, bad, dumb vs. nice, pretty, good, smart). In other words, without the children's own use of imagination, the only visible reason they can provide for their selection is skin color. This creates the impression of a more severe kind of racism that may or may not reflect what the children learn in social and family settings. In other words, there is the possibility that it reflects a faux racism because of the design of the study.
To investigate this issue of forced selection and association with a particular adjective (that may give the impression of a faux racism), the following video shows an additional study where children are presented with an ambiguous picture (of a white and black child) in which they create their own narrative of what is happening. This allows room for children to create a story of what is happening and ascribe their own adjectives to the characters, which extends into attribution theory. The results are still similar to the study above.
These studies highlight the issue of children learning to associate
skin color with negative or positive adjectives (black-bad, white-nice), which was also represented and indicated by doll preference. As the video shows, not all of them make these association. This further indicates that these associations are socially learned.
Some other questions delve into development and how they may be associating themselves into their decisions. If the child considers him/her self as a bad child then it would be likely to associate his/her skin color with that adjective. All of the children represented are above 2 years of age, which means that they have developed a sense of ongoing autobiographical memory. Some of the answers are revealing: white is associated with trust whereas black is not; black is mean and aggressive. These answers may suggest that this is associated with their own experience of others - black and white - or perception of themselves.
It is not surprising that parents are surprised or shocked at what can be perceived as "racism" by their own children. Especially when the notion of "race" and "color" has been sensitized into the public consciousness. A good example of this sensitization is the emotional connotation associated with calling someone out as "racist". If you would like to see the effect, take someone who has grown up in a primarily "white" society and advocates for the status quo despite acknowledging the systemic injustices on race. The person tends to get very offended when you call their views anglo-centric and racist as they are defending the system in which privilege is overwhelmingly afforded to those who are not of color i.e. "white". A similar reaction can be seen with the white mother above, who is surprised and justifies her daughter's response. The mother notes that they simply have not discussed race at home. A black parent noted that they do discuss the issues with their children and are preparing them for what they may encounter during social life.
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These findings suggest that children pick up on social cues that associate a person's skin color and positive or negative characteristic. Such social cues may be derived from parents or social settings e.g. school, church, playground, etc. This raises further questions about the relationship between social structure and the extent to which we embody certain implicit ideas. There is a necessary transition that occurs between the lines of sociology, anthropology, and psychology within the investigation of persons.
In parallel, we can also discuss the extent to which people associate Christians with certain adjectives, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists and etc. Similarly, we can suggest that whatever adjectives are associated with a religious group are socially derived. The prevailing association is to identify "goodness" with their own social group, despite dissonant or contradicting evidence e.g. rape, paedophilia, fraud, domestic abuse, fraud, bigotry and so on. This association also draws on the in-group v. out-group dynamic, which is the tendency to construct categories of "us" v. "them" and to construe the "other" with a particular disposition or social habits. An easy example is the way religious persons view non-religious persons or those who are "atheists". They are "hedonists", without "morals", self-centered, and capitalist. Such adjectives and methods of description are conceptual boxes in which we place others we know very little about. There are generalizations independent of individual persons. On one hand, the caution is to prevent misconceptions that generalize a group of persons while admitting the individual exceptions. On the other hand, the caution is also about the construction of misconceptions that categorize persons with particular characteristics.
There is a tension that plays on the cusp between group identity and individual identity, as they become represented through public discourse and social interactions It is generally understood that we should not generalize all persons of a particular category with a particular "essentialism". This critique has been launched across categories that are now tentative e.g. color, race, gender, sexual orientation, and so on. That is, we can not and should not generalize all persons of a certain category as possessing an essential character despite the unconscious tendency to understand certain social phenomena in a particular way. However, there is something ironic about this position when we begin to think about systemic injustices, history, and critical theory. One of the major criticisms that tend to lump social categories: white, rich, Christian, and racist. These categories come together to construct a particular view of society and power. While there is certainly nuance, it does raise the question of how many rich white men on wall street will identify as Christian and participate in studies that discern the implicit biases one has regarding color. That is, perhaps there should be a more thorough investigation into the culture and composition of the persons that run the game on wall street. But this digresses into a critique on society, power, race, and economics.
The point is that with the construction of groups and "otherness", underlying them are implicit biases of how persons are. In other words, on a folk psychological level, essentialism in the form of conceptual boxes underlie the way we place persons into certain social categories. This is the case with race and color as seen above, as well as religious denominations and groups. Christian denominations will criticize other Christian denominations just as they will criticize other religious groups. And the same happens with any other religious category i.e. Islamic denominations criticizing other Islamic denominations and other religious, Jewish denominations doing the same, Hindu denominations doing the same, and non-religious persons doing the same as well. These criticisms are far from uni-dimensional. They incorporate other social elements such as socio-economic status and attitudes towards policy in light of certain hermeneutical considerations of sacred text. The complexity is that all of these factors that create certain social constructions and implicit biases come together in the form of a judgment based solely on appearances and then imposed on behaviour. In this sense Marcel Mauss' notion of habitus is also a cognitive theory of perception and social cognition as well as one of learning about the social body and how to act/behave.
It would be interesting to construct a similar study of persons attitudes to certain images of persons (the same person) but with different religious symbolism and asked who is the kind person, who is the mean person, who is the smart person, who is the dumb person, and so on and so on. I think the results would be interesting and quite possibly not so surprising.
Perhaps it is a time to revisit the topic of 'essentialism' as discussed in the discipline of anthropology and cross-reference them with the discussion on essentialism in the discipline of psychology as investigated through the concepts of prejudice and implicit bias. The added discussion from philosophers engaged in this topic would provide an additional perspective as well. With respect to religion, I would be interested to hear the theologians' take on the issue and how it is conceptualized within a broader framework.
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