Racism exists due to a lineage of misconstrued ideas toward supposedly lesser races through conditioning. The amygdala, located in the medial temporal lobe, processes experiences and emotions, including fear and content, and is trained to fear the unfamiliar. Starting at a young age, the media implants and conditions these emotions in one’s amygdala. Television and films create such stereotypes: colored women act cheap and deafening; colored men are vulgar and dishonest; white women are dainty and proper; white males are heroic and educated. After the repetition of this played-out cliché, Ivan Pavlov’s theory of Classical Conditioning causes the brain to compartmentalize people.
Pavlov signaled a dog with a neutral stimulus, a bell, which had no relation to the unconditioned stimulus, food. The bell rang…show more content… Skinner created a multipurpose box in which tests were administered to a rat. In the first test, the hungry rat would accidentally hit a lever and a pellet would drop (positive reinforcement), causing the rat to associate the lever with a pellet. The positive reinforcement strengthened the behavior. The next test administered electric shocks to the rat until the lever was accidentally pushed (negative reinforcement), causing the rat to associate the lever with relief from shocks. The negative reinforcement allowed the removal of the unpleasant stimuli, strengthening the behavior. The last test administered shocks (punishment) for incorrect behaviors. In the real world, a child would accidentally repeat the words of his or her racist superior and could be positively reinforced with approval, solidifying those actions. A learning child also may be pressured to accept racist beliefs in order to relieve external pressures (negative reinforcement). Lastly, a child might be punished for his or her acceptance towards diversity, causing them to avoid those beliefs in the
