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An essay on Operant Racism

Operant Racism

by Joaquine G.

B.F. Skinner

Operant conditioning plays an important role in racism. There are many examples that can be found how some people have been conditioned to be racist or to discriminate against some people from different background or religion.  But many of those examples have different outcomes and sometimes it varies, but one “experiment” by Dr. Elliott is able to replicate the outcome time after time. She did an “experiment” where she told a group of kids that blue eyes were more intelligent than the brown eyes ones. The kids during that day segregated and hanged out with the kids with the same eye color, and then the next day she told them that she was wrong and that actually the kids with brown eyes were more intelligent than kids with blue eyes. The kids with brown eyes discriminated the kids with blue eyes that day. She noticed that no matter what eye color group was in power they always discriminated those that were “inferior” and they did not learned anything by being in the other side of the issue.

Dr. Elliot was able to replicate this “experiment” around the country with people in the work place and even in Ophra.  When she did it with adults, she used color things around their necks and some did have it and other did not. This experiment went almost the same as with the kids. But people got a little bit more aggressive because they were adults and some were in denial that they were not discriminating against people of color or for this case people that used different colors around their neck. I think the “experiment” was successful because it showed how people discriminate for the little things such a different eye color or just something different that they are wearing.  I found this very interesting because it also showed that people always tend to discriminate no matter what, and that as long as a figure of power tells them that they are alright they will follow blindly.

The “experiment” using the operant conditioning can be broken in the following way:

Neutral Stimulus + Unconditional Stimulus = Unconditional Response

Eyes/Thing around neck + Positive/Negative Statement = Discrimination

This worked for both groups even after they were shown that Dr. Elliot told them it was just an “experiment” some people were still angry because they were told they were “stupid” and some even left the show. She said that she did it just to show how it felt to be discriminated against just for some false believe that someone is superior just because someone with power tells them to. I really liked this “experiment” and opened my mind to want to keep learning more and more about why people discriminate.  I know it is not easy to get why some people still being racist, but I guess operant conditioning and the use of it can benefit all of us to do some changes in our behavior.