Perceptual Segregation – Abstract

Russell Robinson posted his interesting new article, “Perceptual Segregation” on SSRN (forthcoming Columbia Law Review, Vol. 108, 2008). We’ve pasted the abstract below.

* * *

This Article argues that outsiders and insiders tend to perceive allegations of discrimination through fundamentally different psychological frameworks. These previously unrecognized differences have profound legal consequences. A workplace may be spatially integrated and yet employees who work side by side may perceive an allegation of discrimination through very different lenses because of their disparate racial and gender identities. Most implicit bias legal scholarship has focused on the cognitive processes of insiders (whites and men) in assessing and evaluating outsiders (people of color and women). This Article opens a new field of legal scholarship, and complements the implicit bias literature, by drawing on empirical studies to explicate the cognitive processes of outsiders in interpreting potential incidents of discrimination. Studies show that blacks and whites are likely to differ substantially in how they conceive of and define discrimination. White people tend to believe that widespread expressions of a commitment to racial equality and the reduction in overt expressions of racist attitudes reflect reductions in racism, whereas black people tend to believe that racist attitudes and behaviors have simply become more difficult to detect. While many whites expect evidence of discrimination to be explicit, and assume that people are colorblind when such evidence is lacking, many blacks perceive bias to be prevalent and primarily implicit. Studies have also revealed that men and women differ significantly in assessing incidents of sexual harassment. Differences in perception have profound implications for how our judicial machinery, which consists predominantly of white male judges, resolves antidiscrimination claims. Judges are likely to impose their own contingent conceptions of discrimination, with little or no awareness of the perceptual limitations shaping their judgments. This Article explores reforms in the judicial system and in workplaces that could help sensitize both insiders and outsiders to the other perspective and break down the rigidity in these clashing mindsets.

Albert Bandura wins Grawemeyer Award

From The Observer:

Albert Bandura was awarded [one of the] 2008 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Awards [for $200,000].

A native of Canada, Albert Bandura received his doctoral degree from the University of Iowa in 1952. He began his appointment at Stanford University in 1953, where he remains as the David Starr Jordan professor of social science in psychology. In 2002 Bandura was ranked the 20th Century’s fourth most eminent psychologist in a survey conducted by the Review of General Psychology, coming in behind only B.F. Skinner, Jean Piaget, and Sigmund Freud. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Bandura has received APS’s highest honors, the William James Fellow Award and the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award, in recognition of his lifetime of contributions to both basic and applied psychological science. In addition to the APS awards, Bandura has received the Gold Medal Award for lifetime contributions from the American Psychological Foundation.

Bandura’s list of distinctions, including the Grawemeyer Award, stems from his ground-breaking research on motivational factors and self-regulatory mechanisms that influence behavior. His famous “Bobo Doll Studies” of the determinants and mechanisms of observational learning led to the development of social learning theory; an approach later termed Social Cognitive Theory. Bandura showed that people’s attitudes, values, and styles of behavior can be shaped through the power of social modeling. the way we learn and act in the future can be shaped simply by watching others and modeling our behavior after them. His early later research focused on the role of self-efficacy in motivation, learning, and action. This emphasis on cognition is what set Bandura apart from other behaviorists at the time, who explained behavior solely in terms of its environmental influence effects.

* * *

To watch a 93-minute video of Albert Bandura discussing his pioneering work in the area of social learning and social cognitive theory, including its direct influence on the design of the original entertainment education telenovelas in Mexico, click on the video below.

The Situation of Race in America

The New York Times has a webpage devoted to a series of reports examining “How Race Is Lived in America.” Below we provide the webpage’s general description, followed by the title (with links) and authors of the specific reports.

* * *

“Two generations after the end of legal discrimination, race still ignites political debates — over Civil War flags, for example, or police profiling. But the wider public discussion of race relations seems muted by a full-employment economy and by a sense, particularly among many whites, that the time of large social remedies is past. Race relations are being defined less by political action than by daily experience, in schools, in sports arenas, in pop culture and at worship, and especially in the workplace. These encounters — race relations in the most literal, everyday sense — make up this series of reports, the outcome of a yearlong examination by a team of Times reporters.”

Shared Prayers, Mixed Blessings: Integration Saved a Church. Then the Hard Work Began by Kevin Sack

Best of Friends, Worlds Apart: Joel Ruiz Is Black. Achmed Valdés Is White. In America They Discovered It Matters by Mirta Ojito

Which Man’s Army: The Military Says It’s Colorblind. Tell That to These Drill Sergeants by Steven A. Holmes

Who Gets to Tell a Black Story?: A White Journalist Wrote It. A Black Director Fought to Own It by Janny Scott

A Limited Partnership: The Black Internet Entrepreneur Had the Idea; The White One Became the Venture’s Public Face by Amy Harmon

At a Slaughterhouse, Some Things Never Die: Who Kills, Who Cuts, Who Bosses Can Depend on Race by Charlie LeDuff

When to Campaign With Color: An Asian-American Told His Story to Whites and Won. For Black Politicians, It’s a Riskier Strategy by Timothy Egan

Reaping What Was Sown on the Old Plantation: A Landowner Tells Her Family’s Truth. A Park Ranger Wants a Broader Truth by Ginger Thompson

Growing Up, Growing Apart: Fast Friends Try to Resist the Pressure to Divide by Race by Tamar Lewin

The Hurt Between the Lines: A Newsroom Divides After a Healing Series on Race by Dana Canedy

The Minority Quarterback: Coaches Chose a White to Call the Plays. The Campus Found That Hard to Swallow by Ira Berkow

Guarding the Borders of the Hip-Hop Nation: In the ‘Hood and in the Burbz, White Money Feeds Rap. True Believers Fear Selling Out by N.R. Kleinfield

Why Harlem Drug Cops Don’t Discuss Race: Color Can Give Anonymity Undercover. But Looking Like a Suspect Has Its Risks by Michael Winerip

Bricks, Mortar and Coalition Building: Houston Is Nearly Equal Parts Black, Hispanic and Anglo. For 3 Contractors, That Means Working Together by Mireya Navarro

Getting Under My Skin: A White Mother and a Black Father Left Him This Legacy: The Struggle to Be an Integrated Man in a Segregated World by Don Terry