Self-discrimination responses in black school children.

Abstract

Previous studies found that the performance of blacks on intellectual tasks decreases in the presence of whites. This study attempted to determine if this performance decrement still exists by administering three trials of a digit symbol task to black junior high school students in the presence of either white or Negro counselors. The task was labeled as either intellectual or motor skill. In addition, measures of expectancy, incentive, anxiety, hostility, defensiveness, and task satisfaction were obtained. It was found that the students performed better in the presence of whites and that this was a function of task complexity and task labeling. Of several theories considered, Spence's analysis of the relationship of drive level to performance can best explain the data. No source for the increased drive in the presence of whites was found.This article is concerned with responses of blacks which tend to fulfill the expectations of biased whites. These responses, which are pooled under the general rubric of selfdiscrimination responses, may remain a problem for society as a whole and especially for educators even in a hypothetical absence of white discrimination. Katz (1964) surveyed much of the literature relating to predjudice and its effects upon black performance. Examining the studies covered in this article, several types of selfdiscrimination are evident: (a) Blacks may underestimate their own performance when they are being compared with whites, (b) Blacks may fail to utilize their full potential when working with whites, (c) The actual performance level of blacks on difficult tasks may decrease when they are told that they are to be compared with whites on difficult tasks, (d) The actual performance level of blacks may decrease when tasks are supervised by whites. The last effect was found to be a function of task difficulty and also of description of a task as either intellectual or nonintellectual.The present study investigates this lastThe authors gratefully acknowledge the help of Mary Michaux in the preparation of this manuscript.

Motivation, race, social class, and IQ.

“…All groups of subjects, regardless of race or sex, scored higher in IQ in the presence of a white tester, a finding which does not come as a total surprise given the literature reviewed earlier. Sappington and Grizzard (1975) have similarly reported that white experimenters were more effective than black experimenters in eliciting maximal performance from black junior high school students on a digit symbol test. The score advantage of students tested by white experimenters was most pronounced when the task was described as a test of intelligence rather than of motor skills.…”