Goff Phillip Atiba, Eberhardt Jennifer L, Williams Melissa J, Jackson Matthew Christian
Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802-2130, USA.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2008 Feb;94(2):292-306. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.94.2.292.
Historical representations explicitly depicting Blacks as apelike have largely disappeared in the United States, yet a mental association between Blacks and apes remains. Here, the authors demonstrate that U.S. citizens implicitly associate Blacks and apes. In a series of laboratory studies, the authors reveal how this association influences study participants' basic cognitive processes and significantly alters their judgments in criminal justice contexts. Specifically, this Black-ape association alters visual perception and attention, and it increases endorsement of violence against Black suspects. In an archival study of actual criminal cases, the authors show that news articles written about Blacks who are convicted of capital crimes are more likely to contain ape-relevant language than news articles written about White convicts. Moreover, those who are implicitly portrayed as more apelike in these articles are more likely to be executed by the state than those who are not. The authors argue that examining the subtle persistence of specific historical representations such as these may not only enhance contemporary research on dehumanization, stereotyping, and implicit processes but also highlight common forms of discrimination that previously have gone unrecognized.
在美国，明确将黑人描绘成类猿的历史表述已基本消失，但黑人与猿之间的心理关联依然存在。在此，作者们证明了美国公民会在潜意识里将黑人和猿联系起来。在一系列实验室研究中，作者们揭示了这种关联如何影响研究参与者的基本认知过程，并在刑事司法背景下显著改变他们的判断。具体而言，这种黑人与猿的关联改变了视觉感知和注意力，并增加了对针对黑人嫌疑犯暴力行为的认可。在一项对实际刑事案件的档案研究中，作者们表明，关于被判死刑的黑人罪犯的新闻报道比关于白人罪犯的新闻报道更有可能包含与猿相关的语言。此外，在这些文章中被潜意识描绘得更像猿的人比那些没有被这样描绘的人更有可能被国家处决。作者们认为，审视诸如此类特定历史表述的微妙延续不仅可能会加强当代关于非人化、刻板印象和潜意识过程的研究，还可能会凸显以前未被认识到的常见歧视形式。
