William Atkins
Friday, 09 January 2009 22:04
Science -
Health
Page 2 of 4
The scene was set up so that the black actor would receive a cell phone call. As the black actor left the room to take the call, the person appeared to accidently brush up against the leg of the white actor.
The white actor then either: (1) did nothing, (2) stated
“I hate when black people do that.”, or ( 3) said the “N-word.”
Dr.
Kerry Kawakami, one of the co-authors of the study, stated,
“… the racist comments ranged from moderate to one of the most powerful anti-black slurs in the English language.” [Washington Post (1-8-09): “
Many Turn Blind Eye to Racism”]
The scene was concluded.
As mentioned earlier, part of the participants experienced this scene directly, while the others read about it on a piece of paper.
After the scene was concluded or the paper was read by the participants, a researcher came into the room to say the study was ready to begin.
At that point, each participant was asked to choose either the black person (actor) or the white person (actor) as his/her partner.
Page three reports the results from the experiment, along with additional comments from the researchers.
