Eliminating Racial Biases
A new technique may help reduce physical racial stereotypes and aid in witnesses’ facial identification.
Researchers at Brown University found simple studying can help people unconsciously distinguish between faces of those of a different race using perceptual training. Such training helped subjects address physical racial biases and improve their ability to distinguish between faces of difference races.
"If you give people the tools to start individuating, maybe they will make more individual (rather than stereotypical) attributions," Sophie Lebrecht, study author and a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences at Brown University, was quoted as saying.
The study only involved Caucasian subjects. Researchers first showed each subject a series of black and white pictures of different races paired with a word association. Using the Affective Lexial Priming Score (ALPS) — a measure built on a Harvard-developed test that helps identify unconscious social biases — researchers first gathered racial bias data.
After 10 hours of testing and visual exposure, researchers found some subjects improved their ability to distinguish between individual African-American faces and reduced their implicit racial bias as measured by the ALPS system.
Study authors caution they are not claiming they can eliminate racial bias, but rather suggesting this study shows teaching can help reduce generalizations based on social stereotypes.
SOURCE: PLoS ONE, 2009
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