Related Experiment Videos
Can race be erased? Coalitional computation and social categorization
R Kurzban1, J Tooby, L Cosmides
1Center for Evolutionary Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-2070, USA. rkurzban@ucla.edu
Summary
Encoding race is not automatic and can be reduced by altering social alliance cues. This suggests racism is a learned behavior that can be unlearned by changing social perceptions.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Social psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Previous research indicated automatic and mandatory racial categorization.
- Racial categorization is a prerequisite for race-based discrimination.
- The automaticity of racial encoding has been widely accepted.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether racial categorization is inevitable.
- To test the hypothesis that racial encoding is a byproduct of coalitional alliance detection.
- To explore the malleability of racial categorization.
Main Methods:
- Experiments utilizing unobtrusive measures.
- Manipulation of cues linking coalitional affiliation to race.
- Assessment of participants' tendency to categorize individuals by race.
Main Results:
- Participants encode coalitional affiliations during person representation.
- Reducing the correspondence between race and coalitional cues significantly decreased racial categorization.
- Even brief exposure to altered social contexts reduced racial categorization tendencies.
Conclusions:
- Racial categorization is not an inevitable cognitive process.
- Encoding by race is a reversible byproduct of cognitive mechanisms for detecting social alliances.
- Racism may be an eradicable construct maintained by its association with social alliance systems.