The Study of Racialism

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Discrimination Against Blacks Linked To Dehumanization, Study Finds

Crude historical depictions of African Americans as ape-like may have disappeared from mainstream U.S. culture, but new research reveals that many Americans subconsciously associate blacks with apes.

In addition, the findings show that society is more likely to condone violence against black criminal suspects as a result of its broader inability to accept African Americans as fully human, according to the researchers.

Co-author Jennifer Eberhardt, a Stanford associate professor of psychology who is black, said she was shocked by the results, particularly since they involved subjects born after Jim Crow and the civil rights movement. "This was actually some of the most depressing work I have done," she said. "This shook me up. You have suspicions when you do the work—intuitions—you have a hunch. But it was hard to prepare for how strong [the black-ape association] was—how we were able to pick it up every time."

The paper, "Not Yet Human: Implicit Knowledge, Historical Dehumanization and Contemporary Consequences," is the result of a series of six previously unpublished studies conducted by Eberhardt, Pennsylvania State University psychologist Phillip Atiba Goff (the lead author and a former student of Eberhardt's) and Matthew C. Jackson and Melissa J. Williams, graduate students at Penn State and Berkeley, respectively. The paper is scheduled to appear Feb. 7 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which is published by the American Psychological Association.

The research took place over six years at Stanford and Penn State under Eberhardt's supervision. It involved mostly white male undergraduates. In a series of studies that subliminally flashed black or white male faces on a screen for a fraction of a second to "prime" the students, researchers found subjects could identify blurry ape drawings much faster after they were primed with black faces than with white faces.

The researchers consistently discovered a black-ape association even if the young adults said they knew nothing about its historical connotations. The connection was made only with African American faces; the paper's third study failed to find an ape association with other non-white groups, such as Asians. Despite such race-specific findings, the researchers stressed that dehumanization and animal imagery have been used for centuries to justify violence against many oppressed groups.

"Despite widespread opposition to racism, bias remains with us," Eberhardt said. "African Americans are still dehumanized; we're still associated with apes in this country. That association can lead people to endorse the beating of black suspects by police officers, and I think it has lots of other consequences that we have yet to uncover."

Historical background

Scientific racism in the United States was graphically promoted in a mid-19th-century book by Josiah C. Nott and George Robins Gliddon titled Types of Mankind, which used misleading illustrations to suggest that "Negroes" ranked between "Greeks" and chimpanzees. "When we have a history like that in this country, I don't know how much of that goes away completely, especially to the extent that we are still dealing with severe racial inequality, which fuels and maintains those associations in ways that people are unaware," Eberhardt said.

Although such grotesque characterizations of African Americans have largely disappeared from mainstream U.S. society, Eberhardt noted that science education could be partly responsible for reinforcing the view that blacks are less evolved than whites. An iconic 1970 illustration, "March of Progress," published in the Time-Life book Early Man, depicts evolution beginning with a chimpanzee and ending with a white man. "It's a legacy of our past that the endpoint of evolution is a white man," Eberhardt said. "I don't think it's intentional, but when people learn about human evolution, they walk away with a notion that people of African descent are closer to apes than people of European descent. When people think of a civilized person, a white man comes to mind."

Consequences of socially endorsed violence

In the paper's fifth study, the researchers subliminally primed 115 white male undergraduates with words associated with either apes (such as "monkey," "chimp," "gorilla") or big cats (such as "lion," "tiger," "panther"). The latter was used as a control because both images are associated with violence and Africa, Eberhardt said. The subjects then watched a two-minute video clip, similar to the television program COPS, depicting several police officers violently beating a man of undetermined race. A mugshot of either a white or a black man was shown at the beginning of the clip to indicate who was being beaten, with a description conveying that, although described by his family as "a loving husband and father," the suspect had a serious criminal record and may have been high on drugs at the time of his arrest.

The students were then asked to rate how justified the beating was. Participants who believed the suspect was white were no more likely to condone the beating when they were primed with either ape or big cat words, Eberhardt said. But those who thought the suspect was black were more likely to justify the beating if they had been primed with ape words than with big cat words. "Taken together, this suggests that implicit knowledge of a Black-ape association led to marked differences in participants' judgments of Black criminal suspects," the researchers write.

According to the paper's authors, this link has devastating consequences for African Americans because it "alters visual perception and attention, and it increases endorsement of violence against black suspects." For example, the paper's sixth study showed that in hundreds of news stories from 1979 to 1999 in the Philadelphia Inquirer, African Americans convicted of capital crimes were about four times more likely than whites convicted of capital crimes to be described with ape-relevant language, such as "barbaric," "beast," "brute," "savage" and "wild." "Those who are implicitly portrayed as more ape-like in these articles are more likely to be executed by the state than those who are not," the researchers write.

The way forward

Despite the paper's findings, Eberhardt said she is optimistic about the future. "This work isn't arguing that there hasn't been any progress made or that we are living in the same society that existed in the 19th century," she said. "We have made a lot of progress on race issues, but we should recognize that racial bias isn't dead. We still need to be aware of that and aware of all the different ways [racism] can affect us, despite our intentions and motivations to be egalitarian. We still have work to do."

For Eberhardt, two stories of race exist in America. "One is about the disappearance of bias—that it's no longer with us," she said. "But the other is about the transformation of bias. It's not the egregious bias anymore, but it's modern bias, subtle bias." With both of these stories, she said, there is an understanding that society has moved beyond the historic battles centered around race. "We want to argue, with this work, that there is one old race battle that we're still fighting," she said. "That is the battle for blacks to be recognized as fully human."

This research was supported by a Stanford University Dean's Award to Jennifer Eberhardt.

Adapted from materials provided by Stanford University.

DucorpsToo · Posted: Fri 08 Feb 2008 16:23 Post subject:

Thanks for the post, Frank. I would be quite curious as to the outcome if, in addition to the scientific study using 115 white male undergraduates, an additional study were done with 115 male AA undergraduates as well.

gemini072 · Moderator Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 2695 }

Thanks for posting this, I love/hate reading actually studies done on this subject.

I wonder how Americas past religious ideas of negroes is connected with the comparison of Apes. Sex with a Negro was considered worse than Bestiality, not having souls etc etc

I remember watch that show where an AA family & a white family changed races. And there was a part where the AA parents sat in on a discussion about race with other whites who didn't know they were white. There was a young man 30something who talked about his connecting blacks with dirt. He said very confusingly, everytime he shakes hands with a black person he feels he has to wash his hands.

There was also an older man(Charles Stanley) on a different show about religion and race (TBN) who talked about how growing up in California during the 50's & 60's and how California was supposed to be much more progressive about race at the time. He had black friends etc etc and he said for a long time into his 20's and 30's he always had the 'urge to wash his hand after shaking hand with his friends or washing he cup/glass after one of them drank out of it'.

punjabtrini · Mentor Joined: 04 Sep 2007 {Posts: 253 } Location: USA

If I were to objectively look at an ape, a 'black' man and a 'white' man, the ape/chimpanzee has thin lips and 'blacks' are known to possess little to none body hair!

Just my observation!

DucorpsToo · Posted: Fri 08 Feb 2008 21:51 Post subject:

Ummm, nowadays I hear the term "chimp" being referred to a certain particular individual who occupies a very high political office right here in the USA Confused

fwsweet · Posted: Fri 08 Feb 2008 22:18 Post subject:

sagascend · Moderator Joined: 17 Jun 2006 {Posts: 2111 }

ImBack · Wizard Joined: 28 Jun 2006 {Posts: 587 }

I would be interested to know how stronlgy such associations are made between mixed afro-european faces and apes, and also, I would like to know how strongly blacks, mixed-race ( self-identified ), asians, and latinos ( any-race ), make the same associations about A) "negro" faces, and b) afro-european faces.

My suspicion is that everyone is affected by this ape-face bias.

fwsweet · Posted: Fri 08 Feb 2008 22:39 Post subject:

ImBack · Wizard Joined: 28 Jun 2006 {Posts: 587 }

Yea Frank.

I think we could use the computer generated faces to test the hypothesis. I think it would be very very interesting indeed.

Im thinking of speaking with university psychology departments about such a study.

MisterLawyer · Posted: Fri 08 Feb 2008 23:39 Post subject:

I can't remember where I read it but there was a recent article about Chinese companies developing infrastructure in Angola that focused in part on the interaction between the Chinese and the Angolan laborers. According to the article, both the Chinese and the Angolans accuse the the others of looking like apes. I will try to find it.

fwsweet · Posted: Sat 09 Feb 2008 00:33 Post subject:

gemini072 · Moderator Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 2695 }

gemini072 · Moderator Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 2695 }

Salsassin · Suspended Joined: 04 Apr 2005 {Posts: 3508 }

I used a few ape faces on those face recognition sites tha match you up with stars. It pulled Blacks and Whites equally.

ImBack · Wizard Joined: 28 Jun 2006 {Posts: 587 }

Thats awesome work Sal. COuld you please upload the images so we can save it and use it to dispell that myth. I think people will listen to an objective determination that neither blacks nor whites really look more like apes.

BlackHaze · Regular User Joined: 29 Dec 2004 {Posts: 76 }

I certainly didn't need a study to know this. Discrimination against blacks has always been linked to dehumanization and I don't expect that to change any time soon. In my opinion, Africans and Asians look very much alike. both tend to have more prognathic jaws and wider noses than europeans do so i find it interesting that the paper's third study failed to find an ape association with other non-white groups.

Even though chimps have silky hair and pale skin underneath, they do have broad facial features, that's probably why blacks are compared to them. But then again, I've read that some English people compare the Irish to apes as well.

punjabtrini · Mentor Joined: 04 Sep 2007 {Posts: 253 } Location: USA

Juego de palabras (word play) but 'chimp' and 'chump' are not that far apart! There is no "I" in chump. jaja

fwsweet · Posted: Sat 09 Feb 2008 15:25 Post subject:

OTHER · Posted: Sat 09 Feb 2008 15:37 Post subject: