Most people regard watching television as a passive activity. You
sit, you watch. Occasionally, you change the channel. But a new study
reveals that even this passive diversion may lead to actively damaging
effects, particularly when it comes to issues of race.
In a series of intricately designed experiments, psychologists at Tufts University
demonstrate that subtle racial biases are often expressed by characters
on popular television shows, and that viewers not only pick up these
attitudes but allow them to shape their own outlooks on race. The most
insidious part of this cultural traffic, the researchers found, is that
the transmission of race bias appears to occur subconsciously,
unbeknownst to the viewer. (Watch a video of the best television series of 2009.)
Led
by Max Weisbuch, a postdoctoral student in the lab of Tufts psychology
professor Nalini Ambady, researchers designed the multipart study to
examine the communication of race bias on television to white
college-age volunteers. Weisbuch and his team were intrigued by the
fact that despite a significant reduction in overt expressions of
racism in modern American society - the country has, after all, just
elected its first black president - studies consistently find that many
people still show biased or negative attitudes
toward African-Americans, primarily through nonverbal means such as
facial expressions, crossed arms and averted gazes. The psychologists
wondered how such biases could persist in a society in which racism is
socially unacceptable and indeed publicly denounced.
So
the group decided to examine the medium of television, which connects
the vast majority of Americans, and through which many people
predominantly receive their social and cultural cues. The study looked
at 11 popular prime-time TV shows, such as Heroes, Scrubs, House, CSI: Miami and Grey's Anatomy, whose casts include both white and black recurring characters of equal status.
In
the first of a series of four studies, researchers showed participants
TV clips in which a white character and black character interact - but
the segments were stripped of sound and the black character was
digitally deleted. The idea was to ensure that neither race nor
dialogue would color viewers' analysis. The exercise was repeated with
the white character deleted. Researchers then asked the viewers, white
college students, to evaluate in each circumstance, whether the unseen
character appeared to be treated positively or negatively by the seen
character, and how well liked he or she appeared to be. In the end,
across the majority of TV shows, viewers consistently said that the
white characters had received more positive treatment and were better
liked than their black counterparts.
What fascinated Weisbuch was that the viewers' judgment of the characters was based purely on nonverbal cues,
from facial expressions to body language. In fact, when participants
were given transcripts of the verbal content of the clips, they saw no
difference in the way black or white target characters were treated by
speaking characters. These expressions may have been scripted into the
show by writers, or by productions editors or the director, but
nevertheless, researchers say they demonstrate unfavorably biased
attitudes toward black characters.
Next,
researchers tried to figure out whether this nonverbal bias was being
communicated to people watching the show. Researchers created two sets
of short, silent clips, one pro-white and the other pro-black. In the
pro-white set, white characters were treated positively and black
characters were treated negatively; in the pro-black clips, the reverse
was true. A separate group of students was asked to view either the
pro-white or pro-black TV clips. Afterward, the students completed a
questionnaire that was presented as a different study, but actually
served as a measure of their racial bias. The results suggested that
students who viewed the pro-white clips were much more likely to
demonstrate racial bias than those watching the pro-black clips. "That
suggests that exposure to the nonverbal behaviors affects bias," says Prof. Ambady.
The
scientists went on to demonstrate that the viewers were unaware of the
clips' effect. In another part of the study, students were asked to
watch the same pro-white and pro-black clips, but this time they were
also instructed to be on the look- out for evidence of subtle biased
behavior. Afterward, viewers were asked to determine whether white
characters or black characters were treated better.
Because
each set of clips was created to favor one group or the other, there
was only one right answer to the question. The students had a 50-50
chance of responding correctly - and that's exactly how well they did,
no better than chance. In other words, the patterns of bias expressed
in the characters' nonverbal behavior
were not obvious to the viewers. "The effect [television has] on
viewers might be something less than conscious," says Weisbuch.
The
findings suggest that despite the progress that has been made in
addressing racism in the America, we may still be perpetuating
prejudice in subtle ways - and, if Weisbuch's findings are validated,
in ways that we may not even realize. "Human beings
are thinking, cognizant, conscious beings who can be strategic and
intentional," says John Dovidio, a professor of psychology at Yale University who wrote an editorial accompanying Weisbuch's study, published Thursday in Science.
"But we are also kind of emotional and we do a lot of things without
full conscious awareness. What this research suggests is that although
our minds are in the right places, and we may truly believe we are not
prejudiced, our hearts aren't quite there yet."
Acknowledging the disconnect may be the first step in bridging the gap between our hearts and minds,
says Ambady. Figuring out exactly where and how subtle biases creep
into our culture would be a start. To do that, we may have to start
watching television more actively, and astutely, instead of passively
absorbing everything we see.
