Examining a community intervention to help White people understand race and racism and engage in anti-racist behaviours

Uprisings over the past decade have accelerated the search for interventions to support White people in increasing their capacity to understand historical and present-day racial dynamics. This study investigates the impacts and effectiveness of a community-led intervention developed to prime White individuals to challenge injustice through increasing knowledge, confidence, and competence related to race, racism, intragroup dialogue, and colour-blind racial attitudes. Five hundred and thirty seven participants were recruited from four cohorts of community-led groups, which read, reflected, journaled, and completed activities related to race and racism for a total of 40 hr over 10 sessions. Participants were given pre- and post-measures to assess their White racial capacity, and colour-blind racial attitudes. Participants also completed a follow-up assessment on anti-racist behaviours. The results indicated that participants were able to increase their racial capacity in terms of their understanding and knowledge of race and racism. They also indicated that they felt more confident and competent to have racial discussions in an intergroup context. The possibilities and limitations of interventions to shift attitudes and behaviours are discussed.     

Intersectionality and Crime: An Exploratory Look at How Gender and Race Influence Responses to Injustice Associated with Strain

ABSTRACT

Gender and race condition perceptions of and responses to injustice associated with strain. Yet, it is unclear how various types of injustice (distributive, procedural, and interactional) affect criminal coping by gender and race – especially among Asians and whites. A vignette of an academic group project that depicted a distributive injustice and manipulated procedural and interactional injustice was randomly assigned to a sample of undergraduates. Analyses reveal that injustice is associated with Asian and white males engaging in different types of deviance. Implications for the relationship that gender and race have in affecting perceptions of and responses to injustice are discussed.     

Hybrid search in context: How to search for vegetables in the produce section and cereal in the cereal aisle

ABSTRACT

The own race bias (ORB) refers to a finding that faces of members of one's own racial or ethnic group are easier to recognize. Holistic processing theories suggest that the ORB might be moderated by viewing distance. Participants studied photographs of own and other race individuals and then took a recognition memory test. Viewing distance was simulated by varying the degree to which photographs were blurred (Experiment 1) and by varying photograph size (Experiment 2). Findings indicated that own race faces were better recognized, that recognition was impaired by simulated viewing distance, but the size of the ORB was not contingent upon distance.     

Social anxiety and post-event processing among African-American individuals

Background: Social anxiety is among the most prevalent psychiatric conditions, yet little attention has been paid to whether putative cognitive vulnerability factors related to social anxiety in predominantly White samples are related to social anxiety among historically underrepresented groups.

Design: We tested whether one such vulnerability factor, post-event processing (PEP; detailed review of social event that can increase state social anxiety) was related to social anxiety among African-American (AA; n?=?127) persons, who comprise one of the largest underrepresented racial groups in the U.S. Secondarily, we tested whether AA participants differed from non-Hispanic White participants (n?=?127) on PEP and social anxiety and whether race moderated the relation between PEP and social anxiety.

Method: Data were collected online among undergraduates.

Results: PEP was positively correlated with social anxiety among AA participants, even after controlling for depression and income, pr?=?.30, p?=?.001. AA and White participants did not differ on social anxiety or PEP, β?=??1.57, 95% CI: ?5.11, 1.96. The relation of PEP to social anxiety did not vary as a function of race, β?=?0.00, 95% CI: ?0.02, 0.02.

Conclusions: PEP may be an important cognitive vulnerability factor related to social anxiety among AA persons suffering from social anxiety.     

Secret-Keeping Behaviors in Black and White Children as a Function of Interviewer Race,Racial Identity,and Risk for Abuse

Summary

The tendency for children to keep the secret of child abuse is an important practical impediment to adequate research, prevention, assessment, and treatment. While some studies have established that children will readily keep adult secrets, few have investigated the predictors of ease of disclosure. In this research, race of the interviewer requesting the secret strongly affected disclosure, with Black children particularly showing an unwillingness to disclose a negative secret to a different race interviewer. Children at high risk for sexual abuse (as assessed by the Finkelhor checklist) also were more likely to keep the secret.     

Interactive Effects of Characteristics of Defendant and Mock Juror on U.S. Participants' Judgment and Sentencing Recommendations

Abstract

The authors examined the effects of interactions (a) between defendant attractiveness and juror gender and (b) between defendant race and juror race on judgment and sentencing among 207 Black, Hispanic, and White participants in the United States. After reading a vehicular-homicide vignette in which the defendant's attractiveness and race varied, the participants rated guilt and recommended sentences. The women treated the unattractive female defendant more harshly than they treated the attractive female defendant; the men showed an opposite tendency. The Black participants showed greater leniency when the defendant was described as Black rather than White. The Hispanic participants showed an opposite trend, and the White participants showed no race-based leniency. The findings on racial effects were consistent (a) with in-group favorability bias among the Black participants and (b) with attribution effects unrelated to race among the White participants.     

Correlates of satisfaction with body function and body appearance in middle- and older aged adults: The activity counseling trial (ACT)

Abstract

This study examined the dimensional structure and correlates of body satisfaction among middle-aged and older adult men (n = 471) and women (n = 383) who were participants in the Activity Counseling Trial. Correlates were grouped as (1) fitness parameters, (2) demographic characteristics, and (3) components of subjective well-being. Factor analyses demonstrated that body function and body appearance were independent components of satisfaction in this population. Body composition and cardiorespiratory fitness were directly related to satisfaction with body appearance; however, satisfaction with body function was most strongly related in expected directions to measures of subjective well-being. Age was positively related to both measures of body satisfaction, whereas data on race revealed that blacks were more satisfied with their body appearance and function than whites. The observed relationships for body satisfaction suggest that older adults may value body function more than body appearance. Furthermore, the associations of race and age with body satisfaction have important implications for intervention research.     

“White Skin”: Lyotard’s Sketch of a Postcolonial Libidinal Economy

ABSTRACT

In 1975 Jean-François Lyotard published a short text entitled Pacific Wall. A mash-up of philosophy, fiction, biography, and art criticism, it is highly gnomic if read in isolation. Studied alongside other works from this period, however, it may be understood as sketching a postcolonial libidinal economy. The book’s central concept, “white (or blank) skin” avoids any simple identification and instead expresses a series of permutations of desire in relation to race and sex: it is equally the skin of white heterosexual women and of black homosexual men; equally the otherness at the borders of capital’s expansion and the supposed identity at the heart of Empire. Lyotard suggests that political issues endemic to the postcolonial situation may be understood in terms of feelings such as lust, jealousy, fear, and the desire for revenge, and that these circulate and mutate along with the flows and transformations of capital.     

Other-race categorisation advantage in a binary- vs. ternary-response race categorisation task*

When categorising a face based on race, people respond faster to other-race faces than own-race faces [Other-Race Categorisation Advantage (ORCA)]. Five experiments were conducted to examine the ORCA in Chinese participants in race categorisation tasks. Participants classified a face either as Chinese vs. non-Chinese (binary response) or as Caucasian, Indian, or Chinese (ternary response). Experiments 1A and 1B replicated the ORCA with Chinese vs. Caucasian and Chinese vs. Indian faces, respectively, in a binary-response task. Experiments 2A/2B and 3 presented faces of all three races in the ternary- and binary-response tasks. Task type was manipulated between and within participants in Experiments 2A/2B and 3, respectively. The typical ORCA occurred in the binary-response task, but did not consistently so in the ternary-response task. These results indicate that neither the race-feature hypothesis [Levin, D. T. 1996. Classifying faces by race: The structure of face categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 22(6), 1364–1382] nor the differential processing hypothesis [Zhao, L., & Bentin, S. 2011. The role of features and configural processing in face-race classification. Vision Research, 51(23-24), 2462–2470] could fully account for the ORCA observed in the ternary-response task.     

The affiliative consequences of same-race and cross-race mimicry

ABSTRACT

Few studies have replicated and extended the classic mimicry → liking effect. The present research sought to (a) replicate the affiliative consequences of mimicry; (b) test whether the affiliative consequences hold in a context where mimicry may not be normative (i.e., cross-race interactions); and (c) investigate how excluded individuals respond to same- versus cross-race mimicry and non-mimicry. Participants wrote about a control topic or social exclusion and then engaged in a brief laboratory interaction in which they were mimicked or not mimicked by a confederate who was either same-race or cross-race. Then they reported how much they liked the confederate. Within the control condition, the effect of mimicry on affiliation depended on the race of the confederate – but this pattern did not emerge for excluded individuals. The study was unable to conclusively replicate and extend previous findings. The authors make recommendations to promote a more cumulative science of behavioral mimicry.     

How do supporters perceive positive and negative psychological momentum changes during a simulated cycling competition?

ObjectiveThe present study examined changes in sport supporters' psychological momentum (PM) during a simulated cycling competition through the lens of the dynamical systems approach.DesignParticipants were asked to support one of two competing cyclists involved in a race that was displayed on a screen in a lecture hall.MethodThe race scenario was manipulated so that the image of the supported cyclist underwent either positive or negative momentum. At regular intervals, participants indicated their PM perceptions during the race.ResultsPM perceptions rapidly changed at the onset of both the positive and negative momentum sequences and then remained stable, reflecting negative hysteresis. Supporters tended to anticipate the future performance of a given athlete on the basis of their current performance. Moreover, this anticipatory tendency was stronger during the positive momentum sequence than during the negative momentum sequence.ConclusionThese results provide initial insights into how PM perceptions of sport supporters change during a competition.     

Intersecting Identities as a Source of Religious Incongruence

Chaves (2010) argues that much of the work in the sociology of religion is susceptible to the religious congruence fallacy—the tendency to assume consistency between religious beliefs and one's attitudes and behaviors across situations when they are in fact highly variable. We build on and extend this argument by focusing on intersecting group identities as a mechanism for identifying such incongruence, not only within religious contexts, but also at the intersection of categories such as gender and race. To illustrate this argument, the analysis draws on data from the 2006 Panel Study of American Religion and Ethnicity (PS‐ARE) to assess how race, gender, and religion interact to produce different levels of attitude and behavior incongruencies on key issues of the day, specifically conservative social values and voting behaviors. The results find marked differences and inconsistent relationships between attitudes and behaviors across racial‐gender groups. We use the analysis to highlight the conditions that result in incongruence at the intersections of identity categories and pinpoint where social scientists are most vulnerable to committing the congruence fallacy.     

Sartre and Fanon: The Phenomenological Problem of Shame and the Experience of Race

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that existing accounts of shame are incomplete in so far as they don’t take account of the problem of shame. This is the problem concerning the possibility of a primary experience of shame. It is the problem Sartre considers under the terms of a “primitive shame” or shame “in its primary structure” that grounds other more complex experiences of shame. This problem is centred on the tension between shame as an immediate, pre-reflective experience and the requirement that shame must involve an awareness of some definitive aspect of the self. I’m going to suggest, correlatively, how by trying to resolve this problem we end up with a more nuanced understanding of shame. In the second part of the paper, I go on to look at how this new interpretation of shame helps us understand race. Looking at Fanon, I explore how a fundamental and overlooked ineffability in our relation to others impacts upon responses to racialized shame.     

Recovering Selves

SUMMARY

This is an ethnographic study of a therapeutic-community drug treatment program comprised of mostly court-mandated clients. It explores how women interact with treatment practices and the language of recovery. I argue that deep and inherent contradictions exist between treatment practice and the needs of drug-using women. In particular I investigate the gender and race implications of drug treatment as a moral project aimed at self-reinvention. I also examine tensions between normalizing power and punishment in the therapeutic community. Treatment is analyzed in the therapeutic community as reflective of broader cultural and neoliberal values that privilege notions of family, community, and responsibility. I claim that the treatment ideal of the self-reliant, active citizen is profoundly problematic for women and mothers     

Racial/ethnic differences moderate associations of coping strategies and posttraumatic stress disorder symptom clusters among women experiencing partner violence: a multigroup path analysis

Background: Past research underscores the key role of coping strategies in the development, maintenance, and exacerbation of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. The goal of the current study was to extend existing literature by examining whether race/ethnicity moderates the relations among coping strategies (social support, problem-solving, avoidance) and PTSD symptom clusters (intrusion, avoidance, numbing, arousal).

Methods: Participants were 369 community women (134 African Americans, 131 Latinas, 104 Whites) who reported bidirectional aggression with a current male partner. Multigroup path analysis was utilized to test the moderating role of race/ethnicity in a model linking coping strategies to PTSD symptom clusters.

Results: The strength and direction of relations among coping strategies and PTSD symptom clusters varied as a function of race/ethnicity. Greater social support coping was related to more arousal symptoms for Latinas and Whites. Greater problem-solving coping was related to fewer arousal symptoms for Latinas. Greater avoidance coping was related to more symptoms across many of the PTSD clusters for African Americans, Latinas, and Whites, however, these relations were strongest for African Americans.

Conclusion: Results provide support for the moderating role of race/ethnicity in the relations among coping strategies and PTSD symptom clusters, and highlight potential targets for culturally informed PTSD treatments.     

Psychodynamic counsellor training integrating difference

Abstract

Psychodynamic counselling has been criticized for being inflexible, authoritarian, antiquated and unresponsive to the issues of modern-day society. Psychodynamic counsellor training is sometimes seen as a poor relation of ‘proper’ psychotherapy therapy training. This article is written by two psychodynamic counselling course trainers who have wresded with the above criticisms and who have striven to deliver a training course that is coherent in its adherence to a psychodynamic counselling model but which embraces equal opportunities issues and takes account of a diverse society. The article focuses on ways in which sexual identity, race and culture are integrated into the course curriculum and indeed into the course philosophy and community. Traditional psychoanalytic interpretations of homosexuality are challenged and multicultural counselling ideas are merged with psychodynamic counselling theory and skills.     

Nuclear Boundaries: Material and Discursive Containment at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation

Abstract

Current controversies in the field of genetics are provoking a reassessment of claims that race is socially constructed. Drawing upon Bruno Latour's model of how to analyse scientific controversy, this article argues that race is ‘gaining in reality’ in such a way that renders claims about its social construction tenuous and uncertain. Such claims can be seen as failing in two key regards. The first relates to changes in the way genetics is practised and promoted, which are undermining the stability of fundamental assertions that there is ‘no biological basis for race’ or that ‘race does not exist’. The second involves the confusion of analytical domains in making assertions about race. This problem stems from investing genetics research with hopes that it would reveal the ‘truth’ about race. This confidence has led to equating the ‘cultural’ with ‘bias’, while ignoring the cultural dynamics which shape race. Subsequently, I argue for making a domain claim for the primacy of cultural analysis that does not simply dismiss the possible relevance of biology or genetics to racial issues.     

Ratings in Black and White: does racial symmetry or asymmetry influence teacher assessment of a pupil’s work habits?

Racial asymmetry, the circumstance of having a teacher’s race differ from that of his or her student’s race, is often considered important because most Black students are taught by White teachers. This paper analyzes data from a nationally representative sample of students and teachers to ascertain the extent to which Black and White teachers differ in their evaluations of the work habits of their Black pupils. Unlike most other investigations on this topic, we explored the likelihood that subject matter and school demographics influence teacher-student relationships beyond the more visible factors of racial symmetry or asymmetry. Our analyses of NELS: 88 data using this framework reveal an inconsistent racial effect on teachers’ evaluations of Black students. The ratings of African American pupils by both Black and White teachers seem to be influenced by both the academic subject they teach and the demographic characteristic of the school. We discuss these findings and suggest avenues for further study.

Racial differences in sexual activity among affluent adolescents: a relative status approach

ABSTRACT

The experiences of black Americans vary widely depending on socioeconomic status (SES), suggesting that a monotonic view of race is inadequate when examining race differences in adolescent risk behavior. This study considers how class and race intersect as determinants of adolescent multiple sexual partnering. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 3,538), the study adjudicates among three theoretical perspectives, including a relative status hypothesis that draws on Bourdieu’s insights on distinction and Steele’s concept of “stereotype threat.” Findings support the relative status approach: affluent black adolescents have considerably lower odds of engaging in multiple partnering than comparably advantaged whites, suggesting they adjust their behavior to counter stereotypes of “promiscuous” black adolescents.