Study Finds That Making White People Less White Makes Them Less Racist
One of the issues with racism is that people who are prejudiced can't identify with the others' world. They can't see themselves in the other person, so therefore don't have any empathy for what that minority is going through. A group of scientists tried to change that by altering the way some white people's skin looked. The researchers wanted to know, essentially, will people be less racist if they look more like the race that they're biased against?
The idea for this was proposed by a group of experts from the Royal Holloway University in London, the Central European University in Budapest, and the Radboud University Nijmegen, located in the Netherlands. Their idea needed a unique approach. For that, they used "The Rubber Hand Illusion." The team asked 34 white people about race, and crunched their answers to see how racist they were. Then they asked them to sit at table, with one hand beneath a cloth, the other on the table, but separated from their vision. The subjects then watched a dark skinned rubber hand being touched by a paintbrush, while their own hand — which they couldn't see — was also being touched by a paintbrush. This created the "illusion" that the fake hand was theirs.
What is the Rubber Hand Illusion?
The Rubber Hand Illusion tricks the brain into “owning” a fake hand. By synchronizing touch on a hidden real hand and a visible fake hand, participants feel as though the fake hand is part of their own body.
What the teams found was that those who reacted the most to the "painting", changed their racial attitudes the most. "Across two experiments, the more intense the participants’ illusion of ownership over the dark-skinned rubber hand, the more positive their implicit racial attitudes became," the researchers wrote in their report. "Importantly, it was not the pattern of multisensory stimulation per se, but rather, it was the change in the subjective experience of body ownership that altered implicit attitudes. These findings suggest that inducing an overlap between the bodies of self and other through illusory ownership is an effective way to change and reduce negative implicit attitudes towards outgroups."
Changing Implicit Bias
Participants who felt strongest ownership of the dark-skinned rubber hand showed the most positive shift in racial attitudes. This suggests that perceived similarity can reduce prejudice.
A psychologist from Royal Holloway agreed. As Dr Lara Maister, a postdoctoral research fellow, explained in a post on the university's webpage: "This study has important implications for changing and reducing negative racial attitudes. It comes down to a perceived similarity between white and dark skin. The illusion creates an overlap, which in turn helps to reduce negative attitudes because participants see less difference between themselves and those with dark skin.”
Real-World Implications
When people experience overlap with another race, they may develop empathy and reduce negative attitudes, similar to how personal connections can shift opinions on social issues.
It's easy to see how this could impact negative racial thoughts and behaviors. It clearly shows that by identifying as the other race, we ease off our preconceived notions, and seek out new, empathetic ones. It's much like when the Republican Senator Rob Portman suddenly decided to back gay marriage, upon learning his own son was gay. When things hit so close to home, they change our way of thinking. Now, if only we could get everyone to understand this and let go of their hate. Hey, we can dream, right?
[PIc via Flickr - Luke Baldacchino]
