Perceiving race

Race is a way we classify people based on common ancestry or descent and is almost entirely judged by physical features (Lustig & Koester, 2006). Once we perceive race, other perceptual judgments follow, most notably the assignment of people to ingrouper versus outgrouper status (Brewer, 1999). People we perceive as being the “same race” we see as being ingroupers. Their communication is perceived more positively than the communication of people of “other races,” and we’re more likely to make positive attributions about their behavior.

Not surprisingly, the perception of racial categories is more salient for people who suffer racial discrimination than for those who don’t. Consider the experience of Canadian professor Tara Goldstein. She asked students in her teacher education class to sort themselves into “same race” groups for a discussion exercise (2001). Four black women immediately grouped together; several East Asian students did the same. But the white students were perplexed. One shouted, “All Italians—over here!” while another inquired, “Any other students of Celtic ancestry?” One white female approached Dr. Goldstein and said, “I’m not white, I’m Jewish.” Following the exercise, the white students commented that they had never been sorted by their whiteness and didn’t perceive themselves or each other as white.

Whiteness has been questioned only recently. Whiteness often can mean “natural” or “normal” to individuals who are white, but for scholars interested in whiteness and for people of color, it means privilege. In her book White Privilege, Peggy McIntosh lists 26 privileges that she largely takes for granted and that result from her skin color (1999). For example, as a white person, McIntosh is able to swear, dress in secondhand clothes, or not answer e-mail without having members of her race or other races attribute these behaviors to bad morals, poverty, or computer illiteracy. This perception of verbal and nonverbal communication may seem mundane, but as McIntosh says, it is part of white privilege, “an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was meant to remain oblivious” (p. 79).

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• What race do you identify with? How does your race affect your perception of ingrouper versus outgrouper communication? How does your race affect other people’s perception of your communication?

• Is race an ethical way to perceive how others communicate? Do you think some races have more or less privilege in their interpersonal communication? If so, why?

Film: December Boys

In the late 1960's, four close-knit orphans in Australia, called the December Boys because they were all born in the same month, leave their orphanage for a holiday by the sea. Having all but given up hope of ever being adopted, the friends are on a seaside holiday one winter when they hear a rumor that a seaside couple are looking to adopt one of the orphans, friendships are tested and new alliances made as the four boys compete for the chance to gain a real family.

Please read the assignment carefully and write a good paragraph in response to each of the questions, referring to at least ONE concept in each of the paragraphs.

1. How different are the worldviews of children and adults in this film?

2. What are the main behavior schemata of the children, and how do they adapt them to changes?

3. Note several examples of how they explain what is going around them. Are their attributions correct or do they make attribution errors?

4. How do they deal with uncertainties that arise before them?

5. How does their gender influence the perception of themselves and other people?

6. What lessons can this film teach us today about viewing the world and perceiving the people around us?

Дата добавления: 2015-10-30