Stone, Perry and Darley (1997) demonstrated how the racial stereotypes can affect our assessment of the athletes’ performance and how our description of the athletes can demonstrate confirmation bias of racial stereotypes. They studied the effect by asking the participants to rate the attributes and performance of the players after listening a radio broadcast of a basketball game. The white players were perceived as exhibiting less natural athletically ability but more “court-smarts”. The black players were perceived as exhibiting less “court-smarts” but more natural athletically ability. For this mini-experiment, I will test the following 10 words that could be a component of racial schemas or stereotypes of athletes: “intelligent”, “hustle”,
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The physical capabilities and the history of professional basketball might serve as a bias in our belief for athletic superiority of black players. When people hold the stereotype of the athletic superiority of black players, the stereotypic beliefs might act as expectancies during the assessment of the players’ performances. That stereotypic belief tells us what we may expect from the black players, thus saving us the effort of having to evaluate each individual player. These expectations are so useful that we are reluctant to see them proven wrong. We often think in ways that tend to preserve them. For example, people will pay attention to behaviors and events relevant to their stereotypic belief and often seek information that confirms their …show more content…
Situations choose people that fit their requirements and people choose situations that fit their ability. Basketball games often require players to jump and run, and black players have the suitable body structure that fit themselves in playing basketball games. The dispositional inference may not be only a simple way of understanding the black players’ performance but also an accurate way. Stereotype can also create conditions that lead to confirmation through a process known as the self-fulfilling prophecy. Since the basketball games are dominated by the black players, white players might need to practice more and to be more skilled to compete with the black players. By stereotyping black players as unintelligence and lazy, we can justify white players’ competence in the basketball games. With a justification, it becomes easier to hold negative prejudices and stereotypes about black players than white
The physical capabilities and the history of professional basketball might serve as a bias in our belief for athletic superiority of black players. When people hold the stereotype of the athletic superiority of black players, the stereotypic beliefs might act as expectancies during the assessment of the players’ performances. That stereotypic belief tells us what we may expect from the black players, thus saving us the effort of having to evaluate each individual player. These expectations are so useful that we are reluctant to see them proven wrong. We often think in ways that tend to preserve them. For example, people will pay attention to behaviors and events relevant to their stereotypic belief and often seek information that confirms their …show more content…
Situations choose people that fit their requirements and people choose situations that fit their ability. Basketball games often require players to jump and run, and black players have the suitable body structure that fit themselves in playing basketball games. The dispositional inference may not be only a simple way of understanding the black players’ performance but also an accurate way. Stereotype can also create conditions that lead to confirmation through a process known as the self-fulfilling prophecy. Since the basketball games are dominated by the black players, white players might need to practice more and to be more skilled to compete with the black players. By stereotyping black players as unintelligence and lazy, we can justify white players’ competence in the basketball games. With a justification, it becomes easier to hold negative prejudices and stereotypes about black players than white