Our Racist Heart?: An Exploration of Unconscious Prejudice in Everyday Life

by Beattie; Geoffrey

• ISBN13: 9780415612968
• ISBN10: 0415612969
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-01-11
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Few people today would admit to being a racist, or to making assumptions about individuals based on their skin colour, gender or class. In this book, a leading psychological researcher and author in the area of implicit attitudes asks if prejudice is still a part of our everyday life. Geoffrey Beattie suggests that these biases are not only entrenched in small sections of our society, but that they also exist in the psyches of even the most liberal, educated and fair-minded of us. More importantly, the chapters outline how these "hidden" attitudes can be measured, and in turn predict behaviours in a number of important social situations. Our Racist Heart? takes a fresh look at our attitudes to race using new technology and fresh experimental approaches, to show how fundamentally unconscious biases influence our everyday action and thinking. These groundbreaking results are brought to life using the author's own experiences of prejudice, and are also discussed in relation to the history of race, racism and social psychological theory. The book will be of great interest students of psychology, sociology, cultural studies, as well as those who work in human resource and to all those who work or have experienced prejudice in their daily lives.