种族内隐理论:回顾与展望

Lay Theory of Race: Retrospect and Prospect

在种族方面普通民众有两种相反的观点:种族本质论和社会建构论。研究表明,个体持有的种族内隐理论不仅会影响人们对种族信息的组织和编码、对种族差异的知觉;而且,少数种族个体持有的种族内隐理论还会影响他们对主流文化的适应和文化框架转换。未来研究应该扩展内隐理论的成分、创新内隐理论的启动方法、探索内隐理论的改变途径、具体化内隐理论对行为的影响。中国研究者还需要关注民族内隐理论是否存在独特性的问题。

Lay theory of race is the belief that individuals allow themselves to make sense of how the outer differences in physical char- acteristics correspond to inner person attributes such as abilities and personality traits. People hold two opposing views of race. One is the essentialist theory of race, the other is the social constructionist theory of race. These two theories were found to coexist within a sin- gle person＇s mind but were shown to differ in their relative chronic accessibility. Thus, when asked directly, people will indicate their relative endorsement of the essentialist or social constructionist theory. Importantly, individuals＇ relative endorsement of one theory over the other has been found to predict their social judgments and intergroup perceptions. Lay theory of race is knowledge structures. There- fore, its activation and application follow basic principles of knowledge activation. The studies reveal that lay theory of race can be suc- cessfully activated through reading brief fictitious scientific articles supporting the essentialist or social constructionist theory. The theory can also be activated by influence responses when the theory is simply assessed by self- report. The essentialist theory of race emphasizes the discreteness of racial groups and a biological basis of race. The essentialist theory considers different races as ＂tiger＂ and ＂gold＂ and posits that categories possess core underlying properties that are independent of hu- man perceivers. By contrast, the social constructionist theory thinks of different races as ＂chair＂ and ＂table＂ and posits that categories do not possess inalterable, inherent properties, but are categorized by people nonetheless due to their motives to simplify and group by function. The studies show that lay theory of race would elicit different encoding and organization of racial information. The more strong- ly individuals endorsed the essentialist theory of race, the more likely they were to categorize based on racial information and perceive greater sensitivity in discerning racial group membership. Racial minority individuals who believe in the essentialist theory of race perceive the personality attributes of their racial group and the majority racial group as more dissimilar than did those who believe in the social constructionist theory. To those who hold the essen- tialist theory, the differences perceived may be seen as deeply embedded. Therefore, they would be unlikely to identify with the domi- nant culture or easily frame switch into the majority cultural perspective. By contrast, to those who hold the social constructionist theory, they believe that racial categories are arbitrary and racial attributes are overlapping, they do not view racial membership as a meaningful difference. Therefore, in different intergroup contexts, racial minority members who hold the social constructionist theory may tend to understand their identity in terms of the shifting meanings of various other pertinent social categories other than race. Future studies should investigate whether shared historical experience is also a component of lay theory, whether news and real - life situations will activate lay theory, whether individual＇s lay theory can be changed through course education, cross - cultural training and intergroup contact, whether lay theory of minorities will affect their behaviors in the muhicuhural situation. In China, whether lay theory of ethnicity is unique should be focused by researchers.