Can we unlearn prejudice?

Yes

1 of 2

by Robin Landry

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When it comes to the question of whether it is possible to unlearn prejudice it is almost impossible to resist the temptation to borrow a phrase from a recent, but history-making political campaign, "Yes, we can!"

Why? Prejudice is defined as, "A preconceived notion, belief, opinion or judgment against a person or group of people not validated by actual facts." "Notion", "belief", "opinion", "judgment"; as far as I can tell all of these words represent conditions of the mind that can change. How many of us "believed" in Santa Claus as children, but gave up that childish "notion" long ago? How many times has an unfavorable first impression left us with a negative "opinion" of a new acquaintance only to be reversed when that person later showed us an unexpected kindness? How many legal "judgments" are overturned upon the discovery of new evidence?

Psychologist Julian B. Rotter is credited with being one of the founders of Social Learning Theory which, very generally says that people learn in three basic ways:

1. Association

2. Reinforcement

3. Modeling

In Association we connect certain attributes with certain groups. Examples might be associating attractive blondes with low levels of intelligence, Irish people with alcoholism, or African-Americans with violence.

With Reinforcement, people are either rewarded in some way for holding certain beliefs or sanctioned by the group for believing differently. Parents who laugh when a young child utters a racial slur or discourage children from making friends with children from other backgrounds may be guilty of teaching their children to be prejudiced through reinforcement.

Finally, Modeling is probably one of the most common forms of learning where we simply imitate the actions and beliefs of those around us.

The strongest forms of prejudice are probably most likely to occur when all three pieces of social learning theory are working in conjunction with one another. When I went away to college back in the early 1980s I encountered this phenomenon firsthand. For a lot of the students from small, Indiana farm towns I was the first person of color some of them had ever met. With no personal exposure to people of color many of them formed their initial opinions of me, my family and the other African-American students on campus by associating us with their beliefs about "what black people are really like" from what they had gleaned from television and movies.

In addition, if they had had previous negative encounters with a person of color and had also been encouraged in negative beliefs about ethnic and racial minorities by family or friends their prejudices then seemed to be more deeply entrenched.

But over the course of that first semester it became apparent that, for some of them at least, their attitudes slowly began to change. As students from varying backgrounds began to interact in class and mix and mingle in the dormitory setting prejudices on all sides began to break down. Some of my white dorm mates learned that not all African-Americans were unintelligent, such as when they discovered that I was attending college on a National Merit Scholarship, awarded on the basis of SAT scores. They also learned that not all African-Americans were poor or on welfare, when another African-American dorm mate shared that her father was a doctor and had regularly taken the family to Europe on vacation.

And even though there are some people of color who will argue that it is "impossible for people of color to be prejudiced," I learned a few things about my own prejudicial assumptions as well. I learned that not all white people from small towns hated and feared blacks as I had been brought up to believe. I also learned that there were Hispanic people who had only a few children and had entered the United States on a completely legal basis; I even learned that there were Asian students who were poor at math. It is embarrassing to admit that I held some of these clearly prejudicial beliefs back then, but I also can now recognize where and how I picked up those ideas along the way. Association, modeling and reinforcement definitely came into play

The point is that it is not only Caucasians that harbor prejudice. We all do; but instead of becoming so defensive and worried about being labeled as a racist perhaps we should simply start opening ourselves to developing real relationships with people who aren't like us. This is probably the best single way to begin to stamp out racism and improve race relations in the United States.

There is nothing in the Social Learning Theory to suggest that there is anything irreversible about ideas learned through association, reinforcement, or modeling. My experiences at college and even today in both the workplace and as a partner in an interracial marriage have convinced me that when we form new associations we also tend to form new attitudes, opinions and beliefs. Plus, it is unlikely that the new associates will continue to reinforce our prejudicial attitudes and we will no longer have as much in the way of prejudicial behavior to model.

"Sticking with your own kind" is probably one of the biggest contributing factors to the problem of poor race relations in the United States. Every racial, ethnic, cultural and religious group contains people with every conceivable assortment of talents, weaknesses, favorable attributes and flaws. But if I only know one person with a background that is different from my own and that person has some issues, my views will be much different than that of the person who knows the 99 other people from that same ethnic or cultural group who are perfectly lovely and respectable people.

The trouble is that we've gotten lazy; not just white people, or African-Americans or Latinos; it is all of us. Being prejudiced is easy, it's a shortcut in an increasingly time crunched world. Being able to eliminate whole groups of people based on preconceived notions gives us a sense of efficiency; we think this makes it a whole lot easier to make choices: Whom should I hire? Whom should I befriend? Whom should I allow myself to get close to?

Getting to know people, one-by-one as individuals is time consuming; it's messy; sometimes it's just downright hard!

The difficulty with using prejudicial attitudes as a shortcut is that while this method seems efficient its actually pretty inaccurate and we can find ourselves stuck with some folks with whom we have nothing in common or lose out on some first rate employees, partners and friends because we let our stereotypical beliefs get in the way.

Unlearning prejudice doesn't require expensive diversity training sessions or even long bouts of psychotherapy. It just means expanding your horizons. Get outside your comfort zone. Join a club or volunteer with organizations that will force you to work side-by-side with people who are different. If you're wealthy, volunteer at a homeless shelter or in an inner city school. If you're white, get involved with the Urban League or the NAACP in your community. If you're black, start attending a predominantly white church; but don't just be a "pew warmer", get involved, participate in Bible study or mission projects where you can get to know the other members and they can get to know you.

Consciously seek out friendships with people of different backgrounds. Read about other cultures; go to museums and movies and festivals targeted at ethnic groups other than your own. Learn a foreign language and practice with native speakers either in person or in online chat rooms. Educate yourself.

Prejudice is like a vampire that thrives in the darkness of ignorance. When you open yourself to new people and ideas it is like throwing back the curtains so that the sun can destroy the children of the "undead" that we more commonly refer to as: bigotry, racism, chauvinism and narrow-mindedness. I mean, think about it; when we open ourselves to new things isn't it often called "enlightenment"?

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