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Essays About Discrimination: Top 5 Examples and 8 Prompts

You must know how to connect with your readers to write essays about discrimination effectively; read on for our top essay examples, including prompts that will help you write.

Discrimination comes in many forms and still happens to many individuals or groups today. It occurs when there’s a distinction or bias against someone because of their age, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.

Discrimination can happen to anyone wherever and whenever they are. Unfortunately, it’s a problem that society is yet to solve entirely. Here are five in-depth examples of this theme’s subcategories to guide you in creating your essays about discrimination.

1. Essay On Discrimination For Students In Easy Words by Prateek

2. personal discrimination experience by naomi nakatani, 3. prejudice and discrimination by william anderson, 4. socioeconomic class discrimination in luca by krystal ibarra, 5. the new way of discrimination by writer bill, 1. my discrimination experience, 2. what can i do to stop discrimination, 3. discrimination in my community, 4. the cost of discrimination, 5. examples of discrimination, 6. discrimination in sports: segregating men and women, 7. how to stop my discrimination against others, 8. what should groups do to fight discrimination.

“In the current education system, the condition of education and its promotion of equality is very important. The education system should be a good place for each and every student. It must be on the basis of equal opportunities for each student in every country. It must be free of discrimination.”

Prateek starts his essay by telling the story of a student having difficulty getting admitted to a college because of high fees. He then poses the question of how the student will be able to get an education when he can’t have the opportunity to do so in the first place. He goes on to discuss UNESCO’s objectives against discrimination. 

Further in the essay, the author defines discrimination and cites instances when it happens. Prateek also compares past and present discrimination, ending the piece by saying it should stop and everyone deserves to be treated fairly.

“I thought that there is no discrimination before I actually had discrimination… I think we must treat everyone equally even though people speak different languages or have different colors of skin.”

In her short essay, Nakatani shares the experiences that made her feel discriminated against when she visited the US. She includes a fellow guest saying she and her mother can’t use the shared pool in a hotel they stay in because they are Japanese and getting cheated of her money when she bought from a small shop because she can’t speak English very well.

“Whether intentional or not, prejudice and discrimination ensure the continuance of inequality in the United States. Even subconsciously, we are furthering inequality through our actions and reactions to others… Because these forces are universally present in our daily lives, the way we use them or reject them will determine how they affect us.”

Anderson explains the direct relationship between prejudice and discrimination. He also gives examples of these occurrences in the past (blacks and whites segregation) and modern times (sexism, racism, etc.)

He delves into society’s fault for playing the “blame game” and choosing to ignore each other’s perspectives, leading to stereotypes. He also talks about affirmative action committees that serve to protect minorities.

“Something important to point out is that there is prejudice when it comes to people of lower class or economic standing, there are stereotypes that label them as untrustworthy, lazy, and even dangerous. This thought is fed by the just-world phenomenon, that of low economic status are uneducated, lazy, and are more likely to be substance abusers, and thus get what they deserve.”

Ibarra recounts how she discovered Pixar’s Luca and shares what she thought of the animation, focusing on how the film encapsulates socioeconomic discrimination in its settings. She then discusses the characters and their relationships with the protagonist. Finally, Ibarra notes how the movie alluded to flawed characters, such as having a smaller boat, mismatched or recycled kitchen furniture, and no shoes. 

The other cast even taunts Luca, saying he smells and gets his clothes from a dead person. These are typical things marginalized communities experience in real life. At the end of her essay, Ibarra points out how society is dogmatic against the lower class, thinking they are abusers. In Luca, the wealthy antagonist is shown to be violent and lazy.

“Even though the problem of discrimination has calmed down, it still happens… From these past experiences, we can realize that solutions to tough problems come in tough ways.”

The author introduces people who called out discrimination, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Barbara Henry – the only teacher who decided to teach Ruby Bridges, despite her skin color. 

He then moves on to mention the variations of present-day discrimination. He uses Donald Trump and the border he wants to build to keep the Hispanics out as an example. Finally, Bill ends the essay by telling the readers those who discriminate against others are bullies who want to get a reaction out of their victims. 

Do you get intimidated when you need to write an essay? Don’t be! If writing an essay makes you nervous, do it step by step. To start, write a simple 5 paragraph essay .

Prompts on Essays About Discrimination

Below are writing prompts that can inspire you on what to focus on when writing your discrimination essay:

Essays About Discrimination: My discrimination experience

Have you had to go through an aggressor who disliked you because you’re you? Write an essay about this incident, how it happened, what you felt during the episode, and what you did afterward. You can also include how it affected the way you interact with people. For example, did you try to tone down a part of yourself or change how you speak to avoid conflict?

List ways on how you can participate in lessening incidents of discrimination. Your list can include calling out biases, reporting to proper authorities, or spreading awareness of what discrimination is.

Is there an ongoing prejudice you observe in your school, subdivision, etc.? If other people in your community go through this unjust treatment, you can interview them and incorporate their thoughts on the matter.

Tackle what victims of discrimination have to go through daily. You can also talk about how it affected their life in the long run, such as having low self-esteem that limited their potential and opportunities and being frightened of getting involved with other individuals who may be bigots.

For this prompt, you can choose a subtopic to zero in on, like Workplace Discrimination, Disability Discrimination, and others. Then, add sample situations to demonstrate the unfairness better.

What are your thoughts on the different game rules for men and women? Do you believe these rules are just? Cite news incidents to make your essay more credible. For example, you can mention the incident where the Norwegian women’s beach handball team got fined for wearing tops and shorts instead of bikinis.

Since we learn to discriminate because of the society we grew up in, it’s only normal to be biased unintentionally. When you catch yourself having these partialities, what do you do? How do you train yourself not to discriminate against others?

Focus on an area of discrimination and suggest methods to lessen its instances. To give you an idea, you can concentrate on Workplace Discrimination, starting from its hiring process. You can propose that applicants are chosen based on their skills, so the company can implement a hiring procedure where applicants should go through written tests first before personal interviews.

If you instead want to focus on topics that include people from all walks of life, talk about diversity. Here’s an excellent guide on how to write an essay about diversity .

essay evaluation discrimination

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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Critical analysis of racism, discrimination, and affirmative action.

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Race is an ongoing issue within the United States and an essential issue in the study of sociology . For a nation that was founded with the institution of slavery, the issue has not left since. Several important concepts related to racism are often confused with each other due to the fact that the differences between them (while very important) are relatively subtle. One of the custom writing services available from Ultius is critical analysis and the intent of this sample essay is to compare and contrast the specific concepts of racism, discrimination, and affirmative action.

Racism, discrimination, and affirmative action in America

Properly speaking, the concept of racism always refers to treating a given person badly as a result of his/her racial/ethnic background. Essentially, racism consists of the belief that a given human being is not as fully or equally a "person" as another human being, due solely to his racial/ethnic descent or heritage. Within the United States, racism has unfortunately been a major aspect of the very foundations of the national society.

Slavery, for example, was crucial to the economy of the nation up until the Civil War. It was explicitly based on the ideological belief that Black people were inferior and thus deserved to be owned by White people (Horton). This kind of explicit racism has generally become culturally unacceptable within the modern United States, except among certain fringe groups (such as the Ku Klux Klan) in the Deep South. Nevertheless, it is a disturbing component of the general American heritage. 

Society propagates modern racism

Racism still exists within society, even in the event that there is no person within the society who holds racist values per se. For example, Sanchez has indicated that the recent police brutality events such as those in Ferguson, Missour i are emotionally charged precisely because they are embedded within a broader context of, not personal, but rather societal or structural racism. The entire structure of American society may be such that Blacks have never been able to achieve the status of full citizens among others within the nation.

Likewise, Richardson and Norris have pointed out that Blacks and Hispanics continue to experience proportionally inadequate access to the national healthcare system. Racism may thus be a matter of personal beliefs and sentiments, but it can also have to do with the general structure of a society as such. Society is implicitly structured in such a way that certain groups do not have the same degree of access to social resources as other groups. 

Discrimination

In general, discrimination simply refers to giving special treatment to a given person or object as a result of his/its special intrinsic properties. Within the context under racism, though, discrimination has exclusively negative connotations. It means barring or restricting a given person from opportunities as a result of their demographic properties. For example, it would be discrimination of an employer were to reject the application of a highly qualified Black applicant simply because of their race.

Such discrimination has been deemed unlawful within the United States by the Civil Rights Acts that were passed in the 1960s and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has delineated several different demographic categories along which discrimination is unlawful, including:

Constitutional protection from discrimination

All American laws against discrimination ultimately have their basis in the Constitution of the United States . The Constitution ensures all citizens of the nation equal protection under the law. That is, it ensures that as far as the law is concerned, a given person must be treated first and foremost as a citizen, and not as the representative of one demographic category or another.

In principle, for example, it should not matter whether an applicant for a job is a Black or a White, or a man or a woman; the only thing that should matter is the simple question of who is in fact most qualified to do the job. Anti-discrimination laws essentially mandate that this kind of impartiality is a legal requirement within the United States, and not just a matter of personal preference. Freedom from discrimination, at least at the societal or professional level, is seen as a fundamental right of every American citizen, independent from what any given person's personal preference may or may not be. 

Affirmative action

Turning to affirmative action now, the main idea is certain demographic groups should be granted a competitive advantage (or positive handicap) within society, due to the fact that they have sociologically suffered a negative handicap for a very long time (Leadership Conference). It can be suggested that the Black population has been consistently placed at a disadvantage over the course of American history, as a result both of the institution of slavery and the failures of the Reconstruction era to truly address concerns pertaining to race within the nation.

If this premise is accepted, then the conclusion must also be accepted that there is a structural racism built into the very fabric of modern American society, and that policy initiatives would be needed in order to counteract this structural racism and produce a level playing field. Affirmative action is the general name for such policy initiatives. 

Does affirmative action help or hinder both sides?

Affirmative action is a very difficult subject precisely because depending on one's sociological perspective, it could be seen as either as a remedy against structural discrimination, or as a form of virulent discrimination in its own right. Clegg, for example, has provocatively suggested that " affirmative discrimination " would be a good synonym for affirmative action. Discrimination consists of treating someone in a (negatively) special way simply as a result of his demographic background.

But this is exactly what affirmative action proposes to do. All else being equal, under affirmative action, a Black person will be given a competitive advantage over a White person—which is the same as saying that the White person will be discriminated against relative to the Black person. In principle, then, the people who oppose affirmative action generally do so on the grounds that it is in fact a form of discrimination, and that such a practice is thus unacceptable within the United States. 

A reaction to existing discrimination

Everything hinges upon how one perceives the baseline situation:

  • According to the doctrine of affirmative action, society is already discriminatory at the structural level, therefore, affirmative action would be not a form of discrimination in its own right but rather an antidote against the discrimination that already exists.  
  • In the event that it is acknowledged to exist, there is controversy over whether it would really be appropriate to enhance and/or diminish the life prospects of individual persons in order to address a problem that, in reality, would exist only at the level of entire populations.

However, the extent to which structural discrimination exists is a contested point.

  • If one believes that the structural problem is very serious and that affirmative action does, in fact, address it in a meaningful way, then it follows that affirmative action is policy strategy for ending discrimination within the United States.
  • On the other hand, if one disagrees with either of those premises, then affirmative action could only look like its own form of discrimination. 

Comparative Analysis

On the basis of the delineation of concepts conducted above, three main points can be made:

Racism is essentially one specific form of discrimination.

Discrimination consists of treating a person negatively because of demographic factors. Racism consists of treating someone badly specifically because of the demographic factor of race/ethnicity. Discrimination can thus be conceptualized as a circle, and racism can be conceptualized within that circle. All racism is discrimination, but not all discrimination is racism.

This is because discrimination can occur along various demographic axes not related to race/ethnicity, as has been clearly expressed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Gender discrimination, for example , would be another circle within the larger circle of discrimination. 

Affirmative action is essentially meant to combat racism and discrimination in general within American society.

Again, racism can exist at both the personal and the structural levels. The idea of affirmative action is that racism does in fact exist at the structural level, and that policy level solutions are thus both appropriate and necessary for addressing the problem. This can include, for example, establishing quotas for minority persons in universities and corporation.

If a White male were to have better objective credentials than a Black female for a given position, the Black female would be granted the position due to the fact that her demographic background bestows upon her a sociological handicap that ought to give her a positive handicap against her rival. At the level of individual persons, this seems obviously discriminatory and unjust. The point of affirmative action, though, is that the playing field itself is already discriminatory and unjust and that efforts must thus be taken to address this matter. 

Most modern Americans oppose both racism and discrimination.

Only extremist fringe groups really suggest nowadays that these phenomena are good things. Most people tend to believe that these are archaic feelings that should be overcome by rational and modern persons. Again, though, this is why affirmative action is truly such a contention issue. Let it be granted that everyone opposes discrimination. The question that emerges, then, is:

Is affirmative action a form of discrimination?

The answer to this question would depend entirely on the breadth and validity of one's sociological perspective. The vast majority of people in the upcoming generation, for example, oppose affirmative action on the grounds that every individual person should be treated just the same as every other individual person (Clegg). This obviously just conclusion, however, ignores structural factors and biases that may intrinsically grant a competitive advantage to certain persons over other persons. 

Need your own comparative analysis? Buy an essay from Ultius today, custom written for your exact needs.

A key conclusion that has emerged here is that, despite seemingly increasing racial tensions , most modern Americans probably oppose both racism and discrimination, on simple moral grounds. However, this still leaves affirmative action a highly problematic subject within the nation. This is for the simple fact that it is ambiguous whether affirmative action is an antidote against discrimination, or whether it is a form of discrimination itself.

Following the principle of anti-discrimination itself and considering structural factors, radically different conclusions are possible regarding this matter. Depending on how seriously one takes the reality and/or nature of these structural factors, it can be concluded that affirmative action is either a way of combating discrimination, or a form of discrimination in itself. Whatever your perspective, there is tremendous value to be gained for this vital discussion when studies are conducted and research papers written toward the goal of educating citizens about the world around them.

Works Cited

Clegg, Roger. "Affirmative Discrimination in Higher Education." National Review . 10 Oct. 2014. Web. 24 Jul. 2015. <http://www.nationalreview.com/education-week>. 

Horton, James Oliver. Slavery and the Making of America . New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. 

Leadership Conference. "Affirmative Action." 2015. Web. 24 Jul. 2015. <http://www.civilrights.org/resources/civilrights101/affirmaction.html>. 

Richardson, L. D., and M. Norris. "Access to Health and Health Care: How Race and Ethnicity Matter." Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine 77 (2010): 166-177. Print. 

Sanchez, Ray. "Why Ferguson Touched a Raw, National Nerve." CNN 29 Nov. 2014. Web. 2 Dec. 2014. <http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/29/us/ferguson-national-protests/index.html>.

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. "Discrimination by Type." n.d. Web. 26 Jul. 2015. <http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/>. 

United States. "Constitution of the United States." The Avalon Project . 1789. Web. 24 Jul. 2015. <http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/usconst.asp>.

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National Academies Press: OpenBook

Measuring Racial Discrimination (2004)

Chapter: executive summary, executive summary.

M any racial and ethnic groups intheUnited States, including blacks, Hispanics, Asians, American Indians, and others, have historically faced severe discrimination—pervasive and open denial of civil, social, political, educational, and economic opportunities. Today, large differences in outcomes among racial and ethnic groups continue to exist in employment, income and wealth, housing, education, criminal justice, health, and other areas. Although many factors may contribute to such differences, their size and extent suggest that various forms of discriminatory treatment persist in U.S. society and serve to undercut the achievement of equal opportunity.

In these circumstances, it is critically important to identify where racial discrimination occurs and to measure the extent to which discrimination may contribute to racial and ethnic disparities. The Committee on National Statistics convened a panel of scholars to consider the definition of racial discrimination, assess current methodologies for measuring it, identify new approaches, and make recommendations about the best broad methodological approaches. Specifically, this panel was asked to carry out the following tasks:

Give the policy and scholarly communities new tools for assessing the extent to which discrimination continues to undermine the achievement of equal opportunity by suggesting additional means for measuring discrimination that can be applied not only to the racial question but in other important social arenas as well.

Conduct a thorough evaluation of current methodologies for measuring discrimination in a wide range of circumstances where it may occur.

Consider how analyses of data from other sources could contribute to findings from research experimentation, such as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development paired tests.

Recommend further research as well as the development of data to complement research studies.

DEFINING RACE

There is no single concept of race. Rather, race is a complex concept, best viewed for social science purposes as a subjective social construct based on observed or ascribed characteristics that have acquired socially significant meaning. In the United States, ways in which different populations think about their own and others’ racial status have changed over time in response to changing patterns of immigration, changing social and economic situations, and changing societal norms and government policies. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example, some European Americans, such as Italians and Eastern European Jews, were regarded as distinct racial groups. Although these distinctions are no longer sanctioned by the U.S. government, some segments of the population may still act in ways that are consistent with such distinctions. For certain populations and in some situations, race may be difficult to define consistently; for example, many Hispanics consider themselves to be part of a distinct racial group, but many others hold no such perception. Because concepts of race and ethnicity are not clearly defined for many Hispanics and because of the discrimination they have faced, we include Hispanics, along with specific racial groups, in our discussion of racial discrimination.

The ambiguity involved in defining race has implications for how data on race are collected. The official federal government standards for data on race and ethnicity currently identify five major racial groups (black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and white) and one ethnic group (Hispanic) that may be of any race. These categories are used by federal program and statistical agencies to collect data through self-reports (preferably) or by assigning individuals to one or more categories. The federal racial categories have changed over time, in part reflecting the changing conception of race in the United States. The government standards are not always consistent with scholarly concepts of race or with concepts held by individuals and groups; as a result, it may be difficult to obtain data on race and ethnicity that are comparable over time or across different surveys and administrative records. Comparability may also be affected by differences in the data collection

methods used. Yet given the salience of race in so many aspects of social, political, and economic life, it is important to continue collecting these data.

Conclusion: For the purpose of understanding and measuring racial discrimination, race should be viewed as a social construct that evolves over time. Despite measurement problems, data on race and ethnicity are necessary for monitoring and understanding evolving differences and trends in outcomes among groups in the U.S. population. (from Chapters 2 and 10 )

Recommendation: The federal government and, as appropriate, state and local governments should continue to collect data on race and ethnicity. Federal standards for racial categories should be responsive to changing concepts of race among groups in the U.S. population. Any resulting modifications to the standards should be implemented in ways that facilitate comparisons over time to the extent possible. (Recommendation 10.1) 1

Recommendation: Data collectors, researchers, and others should be cognizant of the effects of measurement methods on reporting of race and ethnicity, which may affect the comparability of data for analysis:

To facilitate understanding of reporting effects and to develop good measurement practices for data on race, federal agencies should seek ways to test the effects of such factors as data collection mode (e.g., telephone, personal interview), location (e.g., home, workplace), respondent (e.g., self, parent, employer, teacher), and question wording and ordering. Agencies should also collect and analyze longitudinal data to measure how reported perceptions of racial identification change over time for different groups (e.g., Hispanics and those of mixed race).

Because measurement of race can vary with the method used, reports on race should to the extent practical use multiple measurement methods and assess the variation in results across the methods. (Recommendation 10.2)

DEFINING RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

This report adopts a social science definition of racial discrimination that has two components:

differential treatment on the basis of race that disadvantages a racial group and

treatment on the basis of inadequately justified factors other than race that disadvantages a racial group (differential effect).

In this report, we focus on discrimination against disadvantaged racial minorities. The two components of our definition—differential treatment and differential effect discrimination—are related to but broader than the standards embodied in case law in the U.S. legal system, which are disparate treatment and disparate impact discrimination . An example of potentially unlawful disparate treatment discrimination would be when an individual is not hired for a job because of his or her race. An example of potentially unlawful disparate impact discrimination would be when an employer uses a test in selecting job applicants that is not a good predictor of performance on the job and results in proportionately fewer job offers being extended to members of disadvantaged racial groups compared with whites. 2

Because our intention in this report is to provide guidance to social science researchers interested in measuring discrimination, both components of our definition include a range of behaviors and processes that are not explicitly unlawful or easily measured. For example, many governmental actions that might fall within the legal definition of disparate impact discrimination would not be unlawful because the Supreme Court has interpreted the constitutional prohibition on denials of equal protection by government agencies to bar only cases of intentional discrimination—that is, disparate treatment discrimination. As a second example, discrimination would occur under our definition when interviewers of job applicants more frequently adopt behaviors (e.g., interrupting, asking fewer questions, using a hectoring tone) that result in poorer communication with and performance by disadvantaged minority applicants compared with other applicants. Even if such behaviors became the subject of a legal challenge, the difficulties in measurement and proof would likely mean that such behav-

iors would not be effectively constrained by law. Measuring them is important, however, to understand ways in which subtle forms of discrimination may affect important social and economic outcomes.

MEASURING RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

That racial disparities exist in a wide range of social and economic outcomes is not in question: They can be seen in higher rates of poverty, unemployment, and residential segregation and in lower levels of education and wealth accumulation for some racial groups compared with others. Large and persistent outcome differences, however, do not themselves provide direct evidence of the presence or magnitude of racial discrimination in any particular domain. Differential outcomes may indicate that discrimination is occurring, that the historical effects of racial exclusion and discrimination (cumulative disadvantage) continue to influence current outcomes, that other factors are at work, or that some combination of current and past discrimination and other factors is operating.

The panel evaluated four major methods used across different social and behavioral science disciplines to measure racial discrimination: laboratory experiments, field experiments, analysis of observational data and natural experiments, and analysis of survey and administrative record reports. Each method has strengths and weaknesses, particularly for drawing a causal inference that an adverse outcome is the result of race-based discriminatory behavior.

Because discriminatory behavior is rarely observed directly, researchers must infer its presence by trying to determine whether an observed adverse outcome for an individual would have been different had the individual been of a different race. In other words, researchers attempt to answer the following counterfactual question: What would have happened to a nonwhite individual if he or she had been white? Understanding the extent to which any study succeeds in answering that question requires rigorously assessing the logic and assumptions underlying the causal inferences drawn by the researchers. As was true in determining that smoking causes lung cancer, using a variety of methods implemented in a variety of settings is likely to be most helpful in measuring discrimination.

Conclusion: No single approach to measuring racial discrimination allows researchers to address all the important measurement issues or to answer all the questions of interest. Consistent patterns of results across studies and different approaches tend to provide the strongest argument. Public and private agencies—including the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and private founda -

tions—and the research community should embrace a multidisciplinary, multimethod approach to the measurement of racial discrimination and seek improvements in all major methods employed. (from Chapter 5 )

Laboratory Experiments

Classically, laboratory experimentation in which a stimulus can be administered to research participants in a controlled environment and in which participants can be randomly assigned to an experimental condition or another (e.g., control) condition provides the best approach for inferring causation between a stimulus and a response. Such experiments come closest to addressing the above counterfactual question.

Laboratory experiments have uncovered many subtle yet powerful psychological mechanisms through which racial bias exists. Yet regardless of how well designed and executed they are, laboratory experiments cannot by themselves directly address how much race-based discrimination against disadvantaged groups contributes to adverse outcomes for those groups in society at large.

The major contributions of laboratory experiments are to identify those situations in which discriminatory attitudes and behaviors are more or less likely to occur, as well as the characteristics of people who are more or less likely to exhibit discriminatory attitudes and behaviors, and to provide models of people’s mental processes that may lead to racial discrimination. Such experiments can usefully suggest hypotheses to be tested with other methodologies and real-world data.

Recommendation: To enhance the contribution of laboratory experiments to measuring racial discrimination, public and private funding agencies and researchers should give priority to the following:

Laboratory experiments that examine not only racially discriminatory attitudes but also discriminatory behavior. The results of such experiments could provide the theoretical basis for more accurate and complete statistical models of racial discrimination fit to observational data.

Studies designed to test whether the results of laboratory experiments can be replicated in real-word settings with real-world data. Such studies can help establish the general applicability of laboratory findings. (Recommendation 6.1)

Field Experiments

Large-scale experiments in the field rely on random assignment of subjects to one or more experimental treatments or to no treatment, so that researchers can determine whether an experimental treatment (the stimulus) causes an observed response. Such experiments take longer and are more complex to manage and more costly to conduct than laboratory experiments, and their results are more easily confounded by factors in the environment that the researchers cannot control. However, their results are more readily generalizable to the population at large.

The most significant use of field studies to study discrimination to date has been in the area of housing, specifically seeking new apartments or houses. The results of audit or paired-testing studies—in which otherwise comparable pairs of, say, a black person and a white person are sent separately to realty offices to seek an apartment or house—have been used to measure discrimination in specific housing markets. Audit studies have also been conducted on job seeking. It is likely that audit studies of racial discrimination in other domains (e.g., schooling and health care) could produce useful results as well, even though their use will undoubtedly present methodological challenges specific to each domain.

Recommendation: Nationwide field audit studies of racially based housing discrimination, such as those implemented by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1977, 1989, and 2000, provide valuable data and should be continued. (Recommendation 6.2)

Recommendation: Because properly designed and executed field audit studies can provide an important and useful means of measuring discrimination in various domains, public and private funding agencies should explore appropriately designed experiments for this purpose. (Recommendation 6.3)

Statistical Analysis of Observational Data and Natural Experiments

Observational studies are currently the primary tool through which researchers explore issues of racial disparity and discrimination in the real world. The standard way to explore the difference in an outcome between racial groups is to develop a regression model that includes a variable for race and variables for other relevant observed characteristics. The effect of the former variable on the outcome difference is identified as discrimination.

To support a causal inference from observational data, however, substantial prior knowledge about the mechanisms that generated the data must be available to justify the necessary assumptions. There are two particularly common problems involved in using standard multiple regression models to analyze observational data on outcome differences between race groups: Omitted variables bias occurs whenever a data set contains only a limited number of the characteristics that may reasonably factor into the process under study; sample selection bias occurs when the research systematically excludes subjects from the sample whose characteristics vary from those of the individuals represented in the data. Should either bias be present, it is difficult to draw causal inferences from the coefficient on race (or any other variable) in a regression model, as the race coefficient may overestimate or underestimate the effect labeled as discrimination.

Nationally representative data sets containing rich measures of the variables that are the most important determinants of such outcomes as education, labor market success, and health status can help in estimating and understanding the sources of racial differences in outcomes. Panel data, which include observations over time, are particularly valuable in this regard. There is also an important role for focused studies that target particular settings (e.g., a firm or a school), whereby it is possible to learn a great deal about how decisions are made and to collect most of the information on which decisions are based.

Evaluations of natural experiments are another way to exploit observational data in the measurement of racial discrimination. Such evaluations analyze data before and after enactment of a new law or some other change that forces a reduction in or the complete elimination of discrimination for some groups. Despite limitations, natural experiments provide useful data for measuring the extent of discrimination prior to a policy change and for groups not affected by the change.

Conclusion: The statistical decomposition of racial gaps in social outcomes using multivariate regression and related techniques is a valuable tool for understanding the sources of racial differences. However, such decompositions using data sets with limited numbers of explanatory variables, such as the Current Population Survey or the decennial census, do not accurately measure the portion of those differences that is due to current discrimination. Matching and related techniques provide a useful alternative to race gap decompositions based on multivariate regression in some circumstances. (from Chapter 7 )

Conclusion: The use of statistical models, such as multiple regressions, to draw valid inferences about discriminatory behavior requires appropriate data and methods, coupled with a sufficient understanding

of the process being studied to justify the necessary assumptions. (from Chapter 7 )

Recommendation: Public and private funding agencies should support focused studies of decision processes, such as the behavior of firms in hiring, training, and promoting employees. The results of such studies can guide the development of improved models and data for statistical analysis of differential outcomes for racial and ethnic groups in employment and other areas. (Recommendation 7.1)

Recommendation: Public agencies should assist in the evaluation of natural experiments by collecting data that can be used to evaluate the effect of antidiscrimination policy changes on groups covered by the changes as well as groups not covered. (Recommendation 7.2)

Indicators of Discrimination from Surveys and Administrative Records

Both self-reports of racial attitudes and perceived experiences of discrimination in surveys and reports of discriminatory events in administrative records can contribute to understanding the extent of racial discrimination. Survey data typically cannot directly measure the prevalence of actual discrimination as opposed to reports of perceived discrimination, but they can provide useful supporting evidence. Perceived discrimination may overreport or underreport discrimination assessed by other methods. As expressions of prejudice and discriminatory behavior change over time and become more subtle, new or revised survey questions on racial attitudes and perceived experiences of discrimination may be necessary. Longitudinal and repeated cross-sectional data, including continuous and new measures, are important to illuminate trends and changes in patterns of racially discriminatory attitudes and behaviors among and toward various groups. Such data are also vital for studies of cumulative disadvantage. Administrative reports of discrimination (e.g., equal employment opportunity complaints) may also be useful for research, although the lack of completeness and reliability of such reports can limit their usefulness.

Recommendation: To understand changes in racial attitudes and reported perceptions of discrimination over time, public and private funding agencies should continue to support the collection of rich survey data:

The General Social Survey, which since 1972 has been the leading source of repeated cross-sectional data on trends in racial attitudes and perceptions of racial discrimination, merits continued support

for measurement of important dimensions of discrimination over time and among population groups.

Major longitudinal surveys, such as the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, and others, merit support as data sources for studies of cumulative disadvantage across time, domains, generations, and population groups. To further enhance their usefulness, questions on perceived experiences of racial discrimination and racial attitudes should be added to these surveys.

Data collection sponsors should support research on question wording and survey design that can lead to improvements in survey-based measures relating to perceived experiences of racial discrimination. (Recommendation 8.1)

Recommendation: Agencies that collect administrative record reports of racial discrimination should seek ways to allow researchers to use these data for analyzing discrimination where appropriate. They should also identify ways to improve the completeness, reliability, and usefulness of reports of particular types of discriminatory events for both administrative and research purposes. (Recommendation 8.2)

Racial Profiling as an Illustrative Example

To provide a specific example of an area for which research on discriminatory treatment is needed but difficult to carry out, we discuss methodological issues in profiling. Racial or ethnic profiling is a screening process in which some individuals in a population (e.g., automobile drivers or people boarding an airplane) are selected on the basis of their race or ethnicity (and, typically, other observable characteristics) and investigated to determine whether they have committed or intend to commit a criminal act (e.g., smuggle drugs or blow up an airplane) or other act of interest. This definition excludes cases of identified individuals for whom race or ethnicity is part of their individual description. Many recent public statements (e.g., those made by police officials and legislative bodies since 2001) have recognized the unacceptability of racial profiling in police work. Even when such profiling is not explicitly racial, to the extent that it relies on characteristics that are distributed differently for different racial groups, the result may be a racially disparate impact.

Inferring the presence of discriminatory racial profiling from data on disparate outcomes is difficult for the same reasons that it is difficult to infer causation from any statistical model with observational data. We ex-

plore specific methodological concerns for improving the estimation of outcome rates (e.g., traffic stops for whites and minorities) and developing good statistical models for determining the contribution of discriminatory profiling as compared with other factors to differences in rates. Because of renewed interest in the United States in the use of profiling to identify and apprehend potential terrorists before they commit violent acts, we also examine briefly the challenges of identifying screening factors that could potentially select would-be terrorists with a significantly higher probability than purely random selection, as well as issues that must factor into the public debate if race or ethnicity (or factors that correlate highly with race or ethnicity) are considered as potential screening factors.

CUMULATIVE DISCRIMINATION

Much of the discussion about the presence of racial discrimination and the effects of antidiscrimination policies assumes discrimination to be a phenomenon that occurs at one point in time in a particular process or stage of a particular domain (e.g., initial hires by employers). This episodic view of discrimination is likely inadequate. Discrimination may well have cumulative effects, and it is therefore better viewed as a dynamic process that functions throughout the stages within a domain, across domains, across individual lifetimes, and even across generations. For example, discrimination involving teachers’ expectations during schooling may affect students’ later educational experiences or job opportunities; likewise, discrimination against prior generations may diminish opportunities for present generations even in the absence of current discriminatory practices.

Several theories of the processes by which discrimination may have cumulative effects have been developed, including (1) life-course theory of cumulative disadvantage in criminal justice research, which posits that such behavior as juvenile delinquency can affect certain social outcomes, such as failure in school or poor job stability, and thereby facilitate criminal behavior as an adult; (2) ecosocial theory in public health research (similar to the life-course concept), in which health status at a given age for a given birth cohort reflects not only current conditions but also prior living circumstances from conception onward; and (3) feedback models in labor market research. In such a model, for example, people who anticipate lower future returns to skills—possibly as a result of racial discrimination—might invest less in acquiring those skills. In turn, lower investment could perpetuate prejudice, limit opportunities, and sustain racial disparities in the labor market.

Only very limited research has been conducted, however, to test empirically the various theories of cumulative disadvantage and to measure the importance of cumulative effects over time and across domains. Longitudi-

nal data are a necessity for such research, as are methods for credibly identifying initial and subsequent incidents of discrimination.

Conclusion: Measures of discrimination from one point in time and in one domain may be insufficient to identify the overall impact of discrimination on individuals. Further research is needed to model and analyze longitudinal and other data and to study how effects of discrimination may accumulate across domains and over time in ways that perpetuate racial inequality. (from Chapter 11 )

Recommendation: Major longitudinal surveys, such as the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, and others, merit support as data sources for studies of cumulative disadvantage across time, domains, generations, and population groups. Furthermore, consideration should be given to incorporating into these surveys additional variables or special topical modules that might enhance the utility of the data for studying the long-term effects of discrimination. Consideration should also be given to including questions in new longitudinal surveys that would help researchers identify experiences of discrimination and their effects. (Recommendation 11.1)

Our report emphasizes the challenges of measuring racial discrimination in various social and economic domains. Establishing that discriminatory treatment or impact has occurred and measuring its effects on outcomes requires very careful analysis to rule out alternative explanatory factors. In some research to date, the data and analytical methods used are not sufficient to justify the assumptions of the underlying theoretical model. Moreover, many analyses never articulate an explicit model, which makes it difficult to judge the adequacy of the data and analysis to support the study findings.

Just because it is challenging to measure discrimination does not mean that sound, adequate research in this area is not possible. To the contrary, existing methods and data have produced useful results on particular types of discrimination in particular aspects of a domain or process. To make further progress, we believe it will be necessary for funding and program agencies to support research that cuts across disciplinary boundaries, makes use of multiple methods and types of data, and studies racial discrimination as a dynamic process. To be cost-effective, such research should be focused and designed to maximize the analytical value of existing bodies of knowledge and ongoing surveys and administrative records data collections.

Agencies with programmatic responsibilities (e.g., to monitor discrimination, investigate complaints, and operate programs that may be affected by the presence of discrimination and by antidiscrimination laws and regulations) will need to single out priority areas of concern and develop detailed research plans for them. This may require studies of key decision-making processes, combined with theoretical models of the ways in which discrimination might occur. For this purpose, the existing literature of laboratory experiments about the kinds of situations in which discriminatory attitudes are most likely to lead to race-based discriminatory treatment should be reviewed and additional experiments commissioned, if the laboratory results are not sufficiently revealing about the decision processes of interest (e.g., employer decisions about job training and promotion, to take a labor market example). In turn, experimental results can help guide focused case studies of decision processes that may be needed to provide the requisite depth of understanding to permit subsequent statistical analysis with appropriate data and methods. To facilitate data availability and use, program agencies can not only support the addition of relevant questions to ongoing cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys but also work to improve the research potential of agency administrative records data.

Research agencies, both public and private, can best leverage their resources by addressing important areas of research on racial discrimination that are less apt to be considered by program agencies. In particular, they are better positioned to support innovative, cross-disciplinary, multimethod research on cumulative disadvantage. They can also usefully consider ways to augment ongoing and new panel surveys to provide relevant data for basic research on racial discrimination, particularly over long periods of time. The kinds of multifaceted studies that have been conducted in recent years of changes in the well-being of low-income populations following major changes in welfare policies may offer useful guidance for discrimination research, which could similarly make use of multiple data sources and perspectives from economics, psychology, ethnography, survey research, and other relevant disciplines. Such complex research will be difficult to conceptualize and carry out, but it offers the promise to expand knowledge about the role that current and past discrimination may play in shaping American society today.

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Many racial and ethnic groups in the United States, including blacks, Hispanics, Asians, American Indians, and others, have historically faced severe discrimination—pervasive and open denial of civil, social, political, educational, and economic opportunities. Today, large differences among racial and ethnic groups continue to exist in employment, income and wealth, housing, education, criminal justice, health, and other areas. While many factors may contribute to such differences, their size and extent suggest that various forms of discriminatory treatment persist in U.S. society and serve to undercut the achievement of equal opportunity.

Measuring Racial Discrimination considers the definition of race and racial discrimination, reviews the existing techniques used to measure racial discrimination, and identifies new tools and areas for future research. The book conducts a thorough evaluation of current methodologies for a wide range of circumstances in which racial discrimination may occur, and makes recommendations on how to better assess the presence and effects of discrimination.

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The Sociology of Discrimination: Racial Discrimination in Employment, Housing, Credit, and Consumer Markets

Persistent racial inequality in employment, housing, and a wide range of other social domains has renewed interest in the possible role of discrimination. And yet, unlike in the pre–civil rights era, when racial prejudice and discrimination were overt and widespread, today discrimination is less readily identifiable, posing problems for social scientific conceptualization and measurement. This article reviews the relevant literature on discrimination, with an emphasis on racial discrimination in employment, housing, credit markets, and consumer interactions. We begin by defining discrimination and discussing relevant methods of measurement. We then provide an overview of major findings from studies of discrimination in each of the four domains; and, finally, we turn to a discussion of the individual, organizational, and structural mechanisms that may underlie contemporary forms of discrimination. This discussion seeks to orient readers to some of the key debates in the study of discrimination and to provide a roadmap for those interested in building upon this long and important line of research.

Persistent racial inequality in employment, housing, and other social domains has renewed interest in the possible role of discrimination. Contemporary forms of discrimination, however, are often subtle and covert, posing problems for social scientific conceptualization and measurement. This article reviews the relevant literature on racial discrimination, providing a roadmap for scholars who wish to build on this rich and important tradition. The charge for this article was a focus on racial discrimination in employment, housing, credit markets, and consumer interactions, but many of the arguments reviewed here may also extend to other domains (e.g., education, health care, the criminal justice system) and to other types of discrimination (e.g., gender, age, sexual orientation). We begin this discussion by defining discrimination and discussing methods for measuring discrimination. We then provide an overview of major findings from studies of discrimination in employment, housing, and credit and consumer markets. Finally, we turn to a discussion of the individual, organizational, and structural mechanisms that may underlie contemporary forms of discrimination.

WHAT IS DISCRIMINATION?

According to its most simple definition, racial discrimination refers to unequal treatment of persons or groups on the basis of their race or ethnicity. In defining racial discrimination, many scholars and legal advocates distinguish between differential treatment and disparate impact, creating a two-part definition: Differential treatment occurs when individuals are treated unequally because of their race. Disparate impact occurs when individuals are treated equally according to a given set of rules and procedures but when the latter are constructed in ways that favor members of one group over another ( Reskin 1998 , p. 32; National Research Council 2004 , pp. 39–40). The second component of this definition broadens its scope to include decisions and processes that may not themselves have any explicit racial content but that have the consequence of producing or reinforcing racial disadvantage. Beyond more conventional forms of individual discrimination, institutional processes such as these are important to consider in assessing how valued opportunities are structured by race.

A key feature of any definition of discrimination is its focus on behavior. Discrimination is distinct from racial prejudice (attitudes), racial stereotypes (beliefs), and racism (ideologies) that may also be associated with racial disadvantage (see Quillian 2006 ). Discrimination may be motivated by prejudice, stereotypes, or racism, but the definition of discrimination does not presume any unique underlying cause.

HOW CAN WE MEASURE DISCRIMINATION?

More than a century of social science interest in the question of discrimination has resulted in numerous techniques to isolate and identify its presence and to document its effects ( National Research Council 2004 ). Although no method is without its limitations, together these techniques provide a range of perspectives that can help to inform our understanding of whether, how, and to what degree discrimination matters in the lives of contemporary American racial minorities.

Perceptions of Discrimination

Numerous surveys have asked African Americans and other racial minorities about their experiences with discrimination in the workplace, in their search for housing, and in other everyday social settings ( Schuman et al. 2001 ). One startling conclusion from this line of research is the frequency with which discrimination is reported. A 2001 survey, for example, found that more than one-third of blacks and nearly 20% of Hispanics and Asians reported that they had personally been passed over for a job or promotion because of their race or ethnicity ( Schiller 2004 ). A 1997 Gallup poll found that nearly half of all black respondents reported having experienced discrimination at least once in one of five common situations in the past month ( Gallup Organ. 1997 ). Further, the frequency with which discrimination is reported does not decline among those higher in the social hierarchy; in fact, middle-class blacks are as likely to perceive discrimination as are working-class blacks, if not more ( Feagin & Sikes 1994 , Kessler et al. 1990 ). Patterns of perceived discrimination are important findings in their own right, as research shows that those who perceive high levels of discrimination are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, and other negative health outcomes ( Kessler et al. 1990 ). Furthermore, perceived discrimination may lead to diminished effort or performance in education or the labor market, which itself gives rise to negative outcomes ( Ogbu 1991 ; Steele 1997 ; Loury 2002 , pp. 26–33). What remains unclear from this line of research, however, is to what extent perceptions of discrimination correspond to some reliable depiction of reality. Because events may be misperceived or overlooked, perceptions of discrimination may over- or underestimate the actual incidence of discrimination.

Reports by Potential Discriminators

Another line of social science research focuses on the attitudes and actions of dominant groups for insights into when and how racial considerations come into play. In addition to the long tradition of survey research on racial attitudes and stereotypes among the general population (cf. Schuman et al. 2001 , Farley et al. 1994 ), a number of researchers have developed interview techniques aimed at gauging propensities toward discrimination among employers and other gatekeepers. Harry Holzer has conducted a number of employer surveys in which employers are asked a series of questions about “the last worker hired for a noncollege job,” thereby grounding employers’ responses in a concrete recent experience (e.g., Holzer 1996 ). In this format, race is asked about as only one incidental characteristic in a larger series of questions concerning this recent employee, thereby reducing the social desirability bias often triggered when the subject of race is highlighted. Likewise, by focusing on a completed action, the researcher is able to document revealed preferences rather than expressed ones and to examine the range of employer, job, and labor market characteristics that may be associated with hiring decisions.

A second prominent approach to investigating racial discrimination in employment has relied on in-depth, in-person interviews, which can be effective in eliciting candid discussions about sensitive hiring issues. Kirschenman & Neckerman (1991) , for example, describe employers’ blatant admission of their avoidance of young, inner-city black men in their search for workers. Attributing characteristics such as “lazy” and “unreliable” to this group, the employers included in their study were candid in their expressions of strong racial preferences in considering low wage workers (p. 213; see also Wilson 1996 , Moss & Tilly 2001 ). These in-depth studies have been invaluable in providing detailed accounts of what goes through the minds of employers—at least consciously— as they evaluate members of different groups. However, we must keep in mind that racial attitudes are not always predictive of corresponding behavior ( LaPiere 1934 , Allport 1954 , Pager & Quillian 2005 ). Indeed, Moss & Tilly (2001) report the puzzling finding that “businesses where a plurality of managers complained about black motivation are more likely to hire black men” (p. 151). Hiring decisions (as with decisions to rent a home or approve a mortgage) are influenced by a complex range of factors, racial attitudes being only one. Where understanding persistent racial prejudice and stereotypes is surely an important goal in and of itself, this approach will not necessarily reveal the extent of discrimination in action.

Statistical Analyses

Perhaps the most common approach to studying discrimination is by investigating inequality in outcomes between groups. Rather than focusing on the attitudes or perceptions of actors that may be correlated with acts of discrimination, this approach looks to the possible consequences of discrimination in the unequal distribution of employment, housing, or other social and economic resources. Using large-scale datasets, researchers can identify systematic disparities between groups and chart their direction over time. Important patterns can also be detected through detailed and systematic case studies of individual firms, which often provide a richer array of indicators with which to assess patterns of discrimination (e.g., Castilla 2008 , Petersen & Saporta 2004 , Fernandez & Friedrich 2007 ).

Discrimination in statistical models is often measured as the residual race gap in any outcome that remains after controlling for all other race-related influences. Differences may be identified through the main effect of race, suggesting a direct effect of race on an outcome of interest, or through an interaction between race and one or more human capital characteristics, suggesting differential returns to human capital investments on the basis of race ( Oaxaca 1973 ; National Research Council 2004 , chapter 7). The main liability of this approach is that it is difficult to effectively account for the multitude of factors relevant to unequal outcomes, leaving open the possibility that the disparities we attribute to discrimination may in fact be explained by some other unmeasured cause(s). In statistical analyses of labor market outcomes, for example, even after controlling for standard human capital variables (e.g., education, work experience), a whole host of employment-related characteristics typically remain unaccounted for. Characteristics such as reliability, motivation, interpersonal skills, and punctuality, for example, are each important to finding and keeping a job, but these are characteristics that are often difficult to capture with survey data (see, for example, Farkas & Vicknair 1996 , Farkas 2003 ). Complicating matters further, some potential control variables may themselves be endogenous to the process under investigation. Models estimating credit discrimination, for example, typically include controls for asset accumulation and credit history, which may themselves be in part the byproduct of discrimination ( Yinger 1998 , pp. 26–27). Likewise, controls for work experience or firm tenure may be endogenous to the process of employment discrimination if minorities are excluded from those opportunities necessary to building stable work histories (see Tomaskovic-Devey et al. 2005 ). While statistical models represent an extremely important approach to the study of race differentials, researchers should use caution in making causal interpretations of the indirect measures of discrimination derived from residual estimates. For a more detailed discussion of the challenges and possibilities of statistical approaches to measuring discrimination, see the National Research Council (2004 , chapter 7).

Experimental Approaches to Measuring Discrimination

Experimental approaches to measuring discrimination excel in exactly those areas in which statistical analyses flounder. Experiments allow researchers to measure causal effects more directly by presenting carefully constructed and controlled comparisons. In a laboratory experiment by Dovidio & Gaertner (2000) , for example, subjects (undergraduate psychology students) took part in a simulated hiring experiment in which they were asked to evaluate the application materials for black and white job applicants of varying qualification levels. When applicants were either highly qualified or poorly qualified for the position, there was no evidence of discrimination. When applicants had acceptable but ambiguous qualifications, however, participants were nearly 70% more likely to recommend the white applicant than the black applicant (see also Biernat & Kobrynowicz’s 1997 discussion of shifting standards). 1

Although laboratory experiments offer some of the strongest evidence of causal relationships, we do not know the extent to which their findings relate to the kinds of decisions made in their social contexts—to hire, to rent, to move, for example—that are most relevant to understanding the forms of discrimination that produce meaningful social disparities. Seeking to bring more realism to the investigation, some researchers have moved experiments out of the laboratory and into the field. Field experiments offer a direct measure of discrimination in real-world contexts. In these experiments, typically referred to as audit studies, researchers carefully select, match, and train individuals (called testers) to play the part of a job/apartment-seeker or consumer. By presenting equally qualified individuals who differ only by race or ethnicity, researchers can assess the degree to which racial considerations affect access to opportunities. Audit studies have documented strong evidence of discrimination in the context of employment (for a review, see Pager 2007a ), housing searches ( Yinger 1995 ), car sales ( Ayres & Siegelman 1995 ), applications for insurance ( Wissoker et al. 1998 ), home mortgages ( Turner & Skidmore 1999 ), the provision of medical care ( Schulman et al. 1999 ), and even in hailing taxis ( Ridley et al. 1989 ).

Although experimental methods are appealing in their ability to isolate causal effects, they nevertheless suffer from some important limitations. Critiques of the audit methodology have focused on questions of internal validity (e.g., experimenter effects, the problems of effective tester matching), generalizability (e.g., the use of overqualified testers, the limited sampling frame for the selection of firms to be audited), and the ethics of audit research (see Heckman 1998 , Pager 2007a for a more extensive discussion of these issues). In addition, audit studies are often costly and difficult to implement and can only be used for selective decision points (e.g., hiring decisions but not training, promotion, termination, etc.).

Studies of Law and Legal Records

Since the civil rights era, legal definitions and accounts of discrimination have been central to both popular and scholarly understandings of discrimination. Accordingly, an additional window into the dynamics of discrimination involves the use of legal records from formal discrimination claims. Whether derived from claims to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the courts, or state-level Fair Employment/Fair Housing Bureaus, official records documenting claims of discrimination can provide unique insight into the patterns of discrimination and antidiscrimination enforcement in particular contexts and over time.

Roscigno (2007) , for example, analyzed thousands of “serious claims” filed with the Civil Rights Commission of Ohio related to both employment and housing discrimination. These claims document a range of discriminatory behaviors, from harassment, to exclusion, to more subtle forms of racial bias. [See also Harris et al. (2005) for a similar research design focusing on federal court claims of consumer discrimination.] Although studies relying on formal discrimination claims necessarily overlook those incidents that go unnoticed or unreported, these records provide a rare opportunity to witness detailed descriptions of discrimination events across a wide range of social domains not typically observed in conventional research designs.

Other studies use discrimination claims, not to assess patterns of discrimination, but to investigate trends in the application of antidiscrimination law. Nielsen & Nelson (2005) provide an overview of research in this area, examining the pathways by which potential claims (or perceived discrimination) develop into formal legal action, or conversely the many points at which potential claims are deflected from legal action. Hirsh & Kornrich (2008) examine how characteristics of the workplace and institutional environment affect variation in the incidence of discrimination claims and their verification by EEOC investigators. Donohue & Siegelman (1991 , 2005 ) analyze discrimination claims from 1970 through 1997 to chart changes in the nature of antidiscrimination enforcement over time. The overall volume of discrimination claims increased substantially over this period, though the composition of claims shifted away from an emphasis on racial discrimination toward a greater emphasis on gender and disability discrimination. Likewise, the types of employment discrimination claims have shifted from an emphasis on hiring discrimination to an overwhelming emphasis on wrongful termination, and class action suits have become increasingly rare. The authors interpret these trends not as indicators of changes in the actual distribution of discrimination events, but rather as reflections of the changing legal environment in which discrimination cases are pursued (including, for example, changes to civil rights law and changes in the receptivity of the courts to various types of discrimination claims), which themselves may have implications for the expression of discrimination ( Donohue & Siegelman 1991 , 2005 ).

Finally, a number of researchers have exploited changes in civil rights and antidiscrimination laws as a source of exogenous variation through which to measure changes in discrimination (see Holzer & Ludwig 2003 ). Freeman (1973 , see table 6 therein), for example, investigates the effectiveness of federal EEO laws by comparing the black-white income gap before and after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Heckman & Payner (1989) use microdata from textile plants in South Carolina to study the effects of race on employment between 1940 and 1980, concluding that federal antidiscrimination policy resulted in a significant improvement in black economic status between 1965 and 1975. More recent studies exploiting changes in the legal context include Kelly & Dobbin (1998) , who examine the effects of changing enforcement regimes on employers’ implementation of diversity initiatives; Kalev & Dobbin (2006) , who examine the relative impact of compliance reviews and lawsuits on the representation of women and minorities in management positions; and a volume edited by Skrentny (2001) , which examines many of the complex and unexpected facets related to the rise, expansion, and impact of affirmative action and diversity policies in the United States and internationally.

Although no research method is without flaws, careful consideration of the range of methods available helps to match one’s research question with the appropriate empirical strategy. Comparisons across studies can help to shed light on the relative strengths and weaknesses of existing methodological approaches (see National Research Council 2004 ). At the same time, one must keep in mind that the nature of discrimination may itself be a moving target, with the forms and patterns of discrimination shifting over time and across domains (see Massey 2005 , p. 148). These complexities challenge our traditional modes of operationalization and encourage us to continue to update and refine our measures to allow for an adequate accounting of contemporary forms of racial discrimination.

IS DISCRIMINATION STILL A PROBLEM?

Simple as it may be, one basic question that preoccupies the contemporary literature on discrimination centers around its continuing relevance. Whereas 50 years ago acts of discrimination were overt and widespread, today it is harder to assess the degree to which everyday experiences and opportunities may be shaped by ongoing forms of discrimination. Indeed, the majority of white Americans believe that a black person today has the same chance at getting a job as an equally qualified white person, and only a third believe that discrimination is an important explanation for why blacks do worse than whites in income, housing, and jobs ( Pager 2007a ). Academic literature has likewise questioned the relevance of discrimination for modern-day outcomes, with the rising importance of skill, structural changes in the economy, and other nonracial factors accounting for increasing amounts of variance in individual outcomes ( Heckman 1998 , Wilson 1978 ). Indeed, discrimination is not the only nor even the most important factor shaping contemporary opportunities. Nevertheless, it is important to understand when and how discrimination does play a role in the allocation of resources and opportunities. In the following discussion, we examine the evidence of discrimination in four domains: employment, housing, credit markets, and consumer markets. Although not an exhaustive review of the literature, this discussion aims to identify the major findings and debates within each of these areas of research.

Although there have been some remarkable gains in the labor force status of racial minorities, significant disparities remain. African Americans are twice as likely to be unemployed as whites (Hispanics are only marginally so), and the wages of both blacks and Hispanics continue to lag well behind those of whites (author’s analysis of Current Population Survey, 2006). A long line of research has examined the degree to which discrimination plays a role in shaping contemporary labor market disparities.

Experimental audit studies focusing on hiring decisions have consistently found strong evidence of racial discrimination, with estimates of white preference ranging from 50% to 240% ( Cross et al. 1989 , Turner et al. 1991 , Fix & Struyk 1993 , Bendick et al. 1994 ; see Pager 2007a for a review). For example, in a study by Bertrand & Mullainathan (2004) , the researchers mailed equivalent resumes to employers in Boston and Chicago using racially identifiable names to signal race (for example, names like Jamal and Lakisha signaled African Americans, while Brad and Emily were associated with whites). 2 White names triggered a callback rate that was 50% higher than that of equally qualified black applicants. Further, their study indicated that improving the qualifications of applicants benefited white applicants but not blacks, thus leading to a wider racial gap in response rates for those with higher skill.

Statistical studies of employment outcomes likewise reveal large racial disparities unaccounted for by observed human capital characteristics. Tomaskovic-Devey et al. (2005) present evidence from a fixed-effects model indicating that black men spend significantly more time searching for work, acquire less work experience, and experience less stable employment than do whites with otherwise equivalent characteristics. Wilson et al. (1995) find that, controlling for age, education, urban location, and occupation, black male high school graduates are 70% more likely to experience involuntary unemployment than whites with similar characteristics and that this disparity increases among those with higher levels of education. At more aggregate levels, research points to the persistence of occupational segregation, with racial minorities concentrated in jobs with lower levels of stability and authority and with fewer opportunities for advancement ( Parcel & Mueller 1983 , Smith 2002 ). Of course, these residual estimates cannot control for all relevant factors, such as motivation, effort, access to useful social networks, and other factors that may produce disparities in the absence of direct discrimination. Nevertheless, these estimates suggest that blacks and whites with observably similar human capital characteristics experience markedly different employment outcomes.

Unlike the cases of hiring and employment, research on wage disparities comes to more mixed conclusions. An audit study by Bendick et al. (1994) finds that, among those testers who were given job offers, whites were offered wages that were on average 15 cents/hour higher than their equally qualified black test partners; audit studies in general, however, provide limited information on wages, as many testers never make it to the wage setting stage of the employment process. Some statistical evidence comes to similar conclusions. Cancio et al. (1996) , for example, find that, controlling for parental background, education, work experience, tenure, and training, white men earn roughly 15% more than comparable blacks (white women earned 6% more than comparable black women). Farkas & Vicknair (1996) , however, using a different dataset, find that the addition of controls for cognitive ability eliminates the racial wage gap for young black and white full-time workers. According to the authors, these findings suggest that racial differences in labor market outcomes are due more to factors that precede labor market entry (e.g., skill acquisition) rather than discrimination within the labor market (see also Neal & Johnson 1996 ).

Overall, then, the literature points toward consistent evidence of discrimination in access to employment, but less consistent evidence of discrimination in wages. Differing methodologies and/or model specification may account for some of the divergent results. But there is also reason to believe that the processes affecting access to employment (e.g., the influence of first impressions, the absence of more reliable information on prospective employees, and minimal legal oversight) may be more subject to discriminatory decision making than those affecting wages. Further, the findings regarding employment and wages may be in part causally related, as barriers to labor market entry will lead to a more select sample of black wage earners, reducing measured racial disparities (e.g., Western & Pettit 2005 ). These findings point to the importance of modeling discrimination as a process rather than a single-point outcome, with disparities in premarket skills acquisition, barriers to labor market entry, and wage differentials each part of a larger employment trajectory and shaped to differing degrees by discrimination.

Residential segregation by race remains a salient feature of contemporary American cities. Indeed, African Americans were as segregated from whites in 1990 as they had been at the start of the twentieth century, and levels of segregation appear unaffected by rising socioeconomic status ( Massey & Denton 1993 ). Although segregation appears to have modestly decreased between 1980 and 2000 ( Logan et al. 2004 ), blacks (and to a lesser extent other minority groups) continue to experience patterns of residential placement markedly different from whites. The degree to which discrimination contributes to racial disparities in housing has been a major preoccupation of social scientists and federal housing agents ( Charles 2003 ).

The vast majority of the work on discrimination in housing utilizes experimental audit data. For example, between 2000 and 2002 the Department of Housing and Urban Development conducted an extensive series of audits measuring housing discrimination against blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans, including nearly 5500 paired tests in nearly 30 metropolitan areas [see Turner et al. (2002) , Turner & Ross (2003a) ; see also Hakken (1979) , Feins & Bratt (1983) , Yinger (1986) , Roychoudhury & Goodman (1992 , 1996 ) for additional, single-city audits of housing discrimination]. The study results reveal bias across multiple dimensions, with blacks experiencing consistent adverse treatment in roughly one in five housing searches and Hispanics experiencing consistent adverse treatment in roughly one out of four housing searches (both rental and sales). 3 Measured discrimination took the form of less information offered about units, fewer opportunities to view units, and, in the case of home buyers, less assistance with financing and steering into less wealthy communities and neighborhoods with a higher proportion of minority residents.

Generally, the results of the 2000 Housing Discrimination Study indicate that aggregate levels of discrimination against blacks declined modestly in both rentals and sales since 1989 (although levels of racial steering increased). Discrimination against Hispanics in housing sales declined, although Hispanics experienced increasing levels of discrimination in rental markets.

Other research using telephone audits further points to a gender and class dimension of racial discrimination in which black women and/or blacks who speak in a manner associated with a lower-class upbringing suffer greater discrimination than black men and/or those signaling a middle-class upbringing ( Massey & Lundy 2001 , Purnell et al. 1999 ). Context also matters in the distribution of discrimination events ( Fischer & Massey 2004 ). Turner & Ross (2005) report that segregation and class steering of blacks occurs most often when either the housing or the office of the real estate agent is in a predominantly white neighborhood. Multi-city audits likewise suggest that the incidence of discrimination varies substantially across metropolitan contexts ( Turner et al. 2002 ).

Moving beyond evidence of exclusionary treatment, Roscigno and colleagues (2007) provide evidence of the various forms of housing discrimination that can extend well beyond the point of purchase (or rental agreement). Examples from a sample of discrimination claims filed with the Civil Rights Commission of Ohio point to the failure of landlords to provide adequate maintenance for housing units, to harassment or physical threats by managers or neighbors, and to the unequal enforcement of a residential association’s rules.

Overall, the available evidence suggests that discrimination in rental and housing markets remains pervasive. Although there are some promising signs of change, the frequency with which racial minorities experience differential treatment in housing searches suggests that discrimination remains an important barrier to residential opportunities. The implications of these trends for other forms of inequality (health, employment, wealth, and inheritance) are discussed below.

Credit Markets

Whites possess roughly 12 times the wealth of African Americans; in fact, whites near the bottom of the income distribution possess more wealth than blacks near the top of the income distribution ( Oliver & Shapiro 1997 , p. 86). Given that home ownership is one of the most significant sources of wealth accumulation, patterns that affect the value and viability of home ownership will have an impact on wealth disparities overall. Accordingly, the majority of work on discrimination in credit markets focuses on the specific case of mortgages.

Available evidence suggests that blacks and Hispanics face higher rejection rates and less favorable terms in securing mortgages than do whites with similar credit characteristics ( Ross & Yinger 1999 ). Oliver & Shapiro (1997 , p. 142) report that blacks pay more than 0.5% higher interest rates on home mortgages than do whites and that this difference persists with controls for income level, date of purchase, and age of buyer.

The most prominent study of the effect of race on rejection rates for mortgage loans is by Munnell et al. (1996) , which uses 1991 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data supplemented by data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, including individual applicants’ financial, employment, and property background variables that lenders use to calculate the applicants’ probability of default. Accounting for a range of variables linked to risk of default, cost of default, loan characteristics, and personal and neighborhood characteristics, they find that black and Hispanic applications were 82% more likely to be rejected than were those from similar whites. Critics argued that the study was flawed on the basis of the quality of the data collected ( Horne 1994 ), model specification problems ( Glennon & Stengel 1994 ), omitted variables ( Zandi 1993 , Liebowitz 1993 , Horne 1994 , Day & Liebowitz 1996 ), and endogenous explanatory variables (see Ross & Yinger 1999 for a full explication of the opposition), although rejoinders suggest that the race results are affected little by these modifications ( Ross & Yinger 1999 ; S.L. Ross & G.M.B. Tootell, unpublished manuscript).

Audit research corroborates evidence of mortgage discrimination, finding that black testers are less likely to receive a quote for a loan than are white testers and that they are given less time with the loan officer, are quoted higher interest rates, and are given less coaching and less information than are comparable white applicants (for a review, see Ross & Yinger 2002 ).

In addition to investigating the race of the applicant, researchers have investigated the extent to which the race of the neighborhood affects lending decisions, otherwise known as redlining. Although redlining is a well-documented factor in the origins of contemporary racial residential segregation (see Massey & Denton 1993 ), studies after the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which outlawed redlining, and since the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which made illegal having a smaller pool of mortgage funds available in minority neighborhoods than in similar white neighborhoods, find little evidence of its persistence ( Benston & Horsky 1991 , Schafer & Ladd 1981 , Munnell et al. 1996 ). This conclusion depends in part, however, on one’s definition of neighborhood-based discrimination. Ross & Yinger (1999) distinguish between process-based and outcome-based redlining, with process-based redlining referring to “whether the probability that a loan application is denied is higher in minority neighborhoods than in white neighborhoods, all else equal” whereas outcome-based redlining refers to smaller amounts of mortgage funding available to minority neighborhoods relative to comparable white neighborhoods. Although evidence on both types of redlining is mixed, several studies indicate that, controlling for demand, poor and/or minority neighborhoods have reduced access to mortgage funding, particularly from mainstream lenders ( Phillips-Patrick & Rossi 1996 , Siskin & Cupingood 1996 ; see also Ladd 1998 for methodological issues in measuring redlining).

As a final concern, competition and deregulation of the banking industry have led to greater variability in conditions of loans, prompting the label of the “new inequality” in lending ( Williams et al. 2005 , Holloway 1998 ). Rather than focusing on rejection rates, these researchers focus on the terms and conditions of loans, in particular whether a loan is favorable or subprime ( Williams et al. 2005 , Apgar & Calder 2005 , Squires 2003 ). Immergluck & Wiles (1999) have called this the “dual-mortgage market” in which prime lending is given to higher income and white areas, while subprime and predatory lending is concentrated in lower-income and minority communities (see also Dymski 2006 , pp. 232–36). Williams et al. (2005) , examining changes between 1993 and 2000, find rapid gains in loans to under-served markets from specialized lenders: 78% of the increase in lending to minority neighborhoods was from subprime lenders, and 72% of the increase in refinance lending to blacks was from subprime lenders. Further, the authors find that “even at the highest income level, blacks are almost three times as likely to get their loans from a subprime lender as are others” (p. 197; see also Calem et al. 2004 ). Although the disproportionate rise of subprime lending in minority communities is not solely the result of discrimination, some evidence suggests that in certain cases explicit racial targeting may be at work. In two audit studies in which creditworthy testers approached sub-prime lenders, whites were more likely to be referred to the lenders’ prime borrowing division than were similar black applicants (see Williams et al. 2005 ). Further, subprime lenders quoted the black applicants very high rates, fees, and closing costs that were not correlated with risk ( Williams et al. 2005 ). 4

Not all evidence associated with credit market discrimination is bad news. Indeed, between 1989 and 2000 the number of mortgage loans to blacks and Hispanics nationwide increased 60%, compared with 16% for whites, suggesting that some convergence is taking place ( Turner et al. 2002 ). Nevertheless, the evidence indicates that blacks and Hispanics continue to face higher rejection rates and receive less favorable terms than whites of equal credit risk. At the time of this writing, the U.S. housing market is witnessing high rates of loan defaults and foreclosures, resulting in large part from the rise in unregulated subprime lending; the consequences of these trends for deepening racial inequalities have yet to be fully explored.

Consumer Markets

Relative to employment, housing, and credit markets, far less research focuses on discrimination in consumer transactions. Nevertheless, there are some salient disparities. A 2005 report by New Jersey Citizen Action using data from two New Jersey lawsuits found that, between 1993 and 2000, blacks and Hispanics were disproportionately subject to financing markup charges at car dealerships, with minority customers paying an average of $339 more than whites with similar credit histories. Harris et al. (2005) analyze federal court cases of consumer discrimination filed from 1990 to 2002, examining the dimensions of subtle and overt degradation (including extended waiting periods, prepay requirements, and higher prices, as well as increased surveillance and verbal and/or physical attacks) and subtle and overt denial of goods and services. They report cases filed in hotels, restaurants, gas stations, grocery/food stores, clothing stores, department stores, home improvement stores, and office equipment stores filed by members of many racial minority groups. Likewise, Feagin & Sikes (1994) document the myriad circumstances in which their middle-class African American respondents report experiences of discrimination, ranging from poor service in restaurants to heightened surveillance in department stores to outright harassment in public accommodations. Together, these studies suggest that discrimination in consumer markets continues to impose both psychic and financial costs on minority consumers.

Much of the empirical work on discrimination in consumer markets has focused specifically on the case of car purchases, which, aside from housing, represent one of the most significant forms of personal consumption expenditures ( Council of Economic Advisers 1997 , table B-14). 5 Ayres & Siegelman (1995) conducted an audit study in Chicago in which testers posed as customers seeking to purchase a new car, approaching dealers with identical rehearsed bargaining strategies. The results show that dealers were less flexible in their negotiations with blacks, resulting in a significant disparity in the ultimate distribution of prices (relative to white men, black men and black women paid on average $1132 and $446 more, respectively) ( Ayres 1995 ). Although analyses using microdata have come to more mixed conclusions about the relevance of race in actual car purchase prices (see Goldberg 1996 , Morton et al. 2003 ), the audit evidence suggests that simply equating information, strategy, and credit background is insufficient to eliminate the effects of race on a customer’s bargaining position.

Although much of the literature on consumer discrimination focuses on the race of the individual customer, a few studies have also investigated the effects of community characteristics on the pricing of goods and services. Graddy (1997) , for example, investigated discrimination in pricing among fast food chains on the basis of the race and income characteristics of a local area. Using information about prices from over 400 fast food restaurants, matched with 1990 census data for zip code–level income, race, crime, and population density, and controlling for a host of neighborhood, business, and state-level characteristics, the author finds that a 50% increase in a zip code’s percent black is associated with a 5% increase in the price of a meal, corresponding to roughly 15 cents per meal. The study is a useful example of how discrimination, especially in consumer markets, might be examined as a function of segregated residential patterns, suggesting a more contextualized approach to studying discrimination (see also Moore & Roux 2006 ).

Evidence of consumer discrimination points to a range of situations in which minority customers receive poorer service or pay more than their white counterparts. Although few individual incidents represent debilitating experiences in and of themselves, the accumulation of such experiences over a lifetime may represent an important source of chronic stress ( Kessler et al. 1990 ) or distrust of mainstream institutions ( Feagin & Sikes 1994 , Bobo & Thompson 2006 ). Indeed, the cumulative costs of racial discrimination are likely to be far higher than any single study can document.

WHAT CAUSES DISCRIMINATION?

Measuring the prevalence of discrimination is difficult; identifying its causes is far more so. Patterns of discrimination can be shaped by influences at many different levels, and the specific mechanisms at work are often difficult to observe. Following Reskin (2003) , in this discussion we consider influences that operate at the individual, organizational, and societal level. Each level of analysis contains its own range of dynamics that may instigate or mediate expressions of discrimination. Although by no means an exhaustive catalog, this discussion provides some insight into the range of factors that may underlie various forms of discriminatory behavior.

Intrapsychic Factors

Much of the theoretical work on discrimination aims to understand what motivates actors to discriminate along racial lines. Although internal motivations are difficult to measure empirically ( Reskin 2003 ), their relevance to the understanding and conceptualization of discrimination has been central ( Quillian 2006 ). Classical works in this area emphasized the role of prejudice or racial animus as key underpinnings of discrimination, with feelings and beliefs about the inferiority or undesirability of certain racial groups associated with subsequent disadvantaging behavior ( Allport 1954 , Pettigrew 1982 ). Conceptualizations of prejudice range from individual-level factors, such as an authoritarian personality ( Adorno et al. 1950 ) or a “taste for discrimination” ( Becker 1957 ), to more instrumental concerns over group competition and status closure ( Blumer 1958 , Blalock 1956 , Jackman 1994 , Tilly 1998 ).

Scholars have characterized changes in the nature of racial prejudice over the past 50 years—as expressed through racial attitudes— as shifting toward the endorsement of equal treatment by race and a repudiation of overt forms of prejudice and discrimination ( Schuman et al. 2001 ). Some, however, question the degree to which these visible changes reflect the true underlying sentiments of white Americans or rather a more superficial commitment to racial equality. Theories of “symbolic racism” ( Kinder & Sears 1981 ), “modern racism” ( McConahay 1986 ), and “laissez-faire racism” ( Bobo et al. 1997 ), for example, each point to the disconnect between attitudes of principle (e.g., racial equality as an ideal) and policy attitudes (e.g., government action to achieve those ideals) as indicative of limited change in underlying racial attitudes (but see Sniderman et al. 1991 for a countervailing view). These new formulations of prejudice include a blending of negative affect and beliefs about members of certain groups with more abstract political ideologies that reinforce the status quo.

Whereas sociological research on prejudice is based largely on explicit attitudes measured through large-scale surveys, psychologists have increasingly turned to measures of implicit prejudice, or forms of racial bias that operate without conscious awareness yet can influence cognition, affect, and behavior ( Greenwald & Banaji 1995 , Fazio & Olson 2003 ). Experiments in which subjects are unconsciously primed with words or images associated with African Americans reveal strong negative racial associations, even among those who consciously repudiate prejudicial beliefs. Whereas the links between explicit and implicit forms of prejudice and between implicit prejudice and behavior remain less well understood, the presence of widespread unconscious racial biases has been firmly established across a multitude of contexts (see Lane et al. 2007 ).

Parallel to the study of racial prejudice (the more affective component of racial attitudes) is a rich history of research on racial stereotypes (a more cognitive component). Whereas many general racial attitudes have shifted toward more egalitarian beliefs, the content and valence of racial stereotypes appears to have changed little over time ( Devine & Elliot 1995 , Lane et al. 2007 ). 6 White Americans continue to associate African Americans with characteristics such as lazy, violence-prone, and welfare-dependent and Hispanics with characteristics such as poor, unintelligent, and unpatriotic ( Smith 1991 , Bobo & Kluegel 1997 ). Culturally embedded stereotypes about racial differences are reflected in both conscious and unconscious evaluations ( Greenwald & Banaji 1995 ) and may set the stage for various forms of discriminatory treatment ( Farley et al. 1994 ).

Researchers differ in perspectives regarding the cognitive utility and accuracy of stereotypes. Whereas many social psychologists view stereotypes as “faulty or inflexible generalization[s]” ( Allport 1954 ), economic theories of statistical discrimination emphasize the cognitive utility of group estimates as a means of dealing with the problems of uncertainty ( Phelps 1972 , Arrow 1972 ). Group-level estimates of difficult-to-observe characteristics (such as average productivity levels or risk of loan default) may provide useful information in the screening of individual applicants. Although some important research questions the accuracy of group-level estimates (e.g., Bielby & Baron 1986 ), the mechanism proposed in models of statistical discrimination—rational actors operating under conditions of uncertainty—differ substantially from those based on racial prejudice. Indeed, much of the literature across the various domains discussed above attempts to discern whether discrimination stems primarily from racial animus or from these more instrumental adaptations to information shortages (e.g., Ayres & Siegelman 1995 ).

The various factors discussed here, including prejudice, group competition, modern racism, stereotypes, and statistical discrimination, represent just a few of the varied intrapsychic influences that may affect discrimination. It is important to emphasize, however, that the behavioral manifestation of discrimination does not allow one readily to assume any particular underlying intrapsychic motivation, just as a lack of discrimination does not presume the absence of prejudice (see Merton 1970 ). Continued efforts to measure the processes by which internal states translate into discriminatory action [or what Reskin (2003) calls a shift from “motives” to “mechanisms”] will help to illuminate the underlying causes of contemporary racial discrimination.

Organizational Factors

Beyond the range of interpersonal and intrapsychic factors that may influence discrimination, a large body of work directs our attention toward the organizational contexts in which individual actors operate. Baron & Bielby’s (1980) classic article established a central role for organizations in stratification research, arguing for a framework that links “the ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ dimensions of work organization and inequality” (p. 738). More recent theoretical and empirical advances in the field of discrimination have maintained a strong interest in the role of organizations as a key structural context shaping inequality.

Tilly’s (1998) analysis of durable inequality emphasizes the importance of organizational dynamics in creating and maintaining group boundaries. “Durable inequality arises because people who control access to value-producing resources solve pressing organizational problems by means of categorical distinctions” (p. 8). Although actors “rarely set out to manufacture inequality as such,” their efforts to secure access to valued resources by distinguishing between insiders and outsiders, ensuring solidarity and loyalty, and monopolizing important knowledge often make use of (and thereby reinforce the salience of) established categories in the service of facilitating organizational goals (p. 11). Tilly’s analysis places organizational structure at the center stage, arguing that “the reduction or intensification of racist, sexist, or xenophobic attitudes will have relatively little impact on durable inequality, whereas the introduction of new organizational forms … will have great impact” (p. 15). In line with these arguments, an important line of sociological research has sought to map the dimensions of organizational structures that may attenuate or exacerbate the use of categorical distinctions and, correspondingly, the incidence of discrimination ( Vallas 2003 ).

Much of the empirical literature exploring organizational mechanisms of discrimination has focused specifically on how organizational practices mediate the cognitive biases and stereotypes of actors ( Baron & Pfeffer 1994 ). Indeed, Reskin (2000) argues that “the proximate cause of most discrimination is whether and how personnel practices in work organizations constrain the biasing effects of… automatic cognitive processes” (p. 320). Petersen & Saporta (2004) take a bolder stance, starting with the assumption that “discrimination is widespread, and employers discriminate if they can get away with it” (p. 856). Rather than asking why employers discriminate, then, these authors look to the “opportunity structure for discrimination” (in their case, features of job ladders within organizations) that allow or inhibit the expression of discriminatory tendencies (pp. 855–56).

In the following discussion, we briefly consider several important themes relevant to the literature on organizational mechanisms of discrimination. In particular, we examine how organizational structure and practices influence the cognitive and social psychological processes of decision makers (the role of formalized organizational procedures and diversity initiatives), how organizational practices create disparate outcomes that may be independent of decision makers (the role of networks), and how organizations respond to their broader environment.

The role of formalization

One important debate in this literature focuses on the degree to which formalized organizational procedures can mitigate discrimination by limiting individual discretion. The case of the military ( Moskos & Butler 1996 ), for example, and the public sector more generally ( DiPrete & Soule 1986 , Moulton 1990 ) provide examples in which highly rationalized systems of hiring, promotion, and remuneration are associated with an increasing representation of minorities, greater racial diversity in positions of authority, and a smaller racial wage gap. Likewise, in the private sector, formal and systematic protocols for personnel management decisions are associated with increases in the representation of racial minorities ( Reskin et al. 1999 , Szafran 1982 , Mittman 1992 ), and the use of concrete performance indicators and formalized evaluation systems has been associated with reductions in racial bias in performance evaluations ( Krieger 1995 , Reskin 2000 ).

Individual discretion has been associated with the incidence of discrimination in credit markets as well. For example, Squires (1994) finds that credit history irregularities on policy applications were often selectively overlooked in the case of white applicants. Conversely, Gates et al. (2002) report that the use of automated underwriting systems (removing lender discretion) was associated with a nearly 30% increase in the approval rate for minority and low-income clients and at the same time more accurately predicted default than traditional methods. These findings suggest that formalized procedures can help to reduce racial bias in ways that are consistent with goals of organizational efficiency.

At the same time, increased bureaucratization does not necessarily mitigate discriminatory effects. According to Bielby (2000) , rules and procedures are themselves subject to the influence of groups inside and outside the organization who “mobilize resources in a way that advances their interests,” with competition between groups potentially undermining the neutrality of bureaucratic procedures ( Bielby 2000 , p. 123; see also Ross & Yinger 2002 , Acker 1989 ). Additionally, there is evidence that formalized criteria are often selectively enforced, with greater flexibility or leeway applied in the case of majority groups ( Wilson et al. 1999 , Squires 1994 ). Likewise, indications of racial bias in performance evaluations cast doubt on the degree to which even formalized assessments of work quality can escape the influence of race ( McKay & McDaniel 2006 ). The degree to which formalization can reduce or eliminate discrimination, thus, remains open to debate, with effects depending on the specific context of implementation.

Diversity initiatives

Since the passage of Title VII in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, most large organizations have taken active steps to signal compliance with antidiscrimination laws. Deliberate organizational efforts to address issues of discrimination (or the perception thereof), either in disparate treatment or disparate impact, often are labeled as diversity initiatives, and these practices are widespread. Winterle (1992) cites a 1991 survey of organizations demonstrating that roughly two-thirds provided diversity training for managers, half provided a statement on diversity from top management, and roughly one-third provided diversity training for employees and/or had a diversity task force (see also Wheeler 1995 , Edelman et al. 2001 ). Not all such initiatives, however, have any proven relationship to actual diversity outcomes. Kalev et al. (2006) examine the efficacy of active organizational efforts to promote diversity, focusing specifically on three of the most common organizational practices: the implementation of organizational accountability by creating new positions or taskforces designed specifically to address diversity issues, managerial bias training, and mentoring and network practices. They find that practices designed to increase organizational authority and accountability are the most effective in increasing the number of women and minorities in management positions. Networking and mentoring programs appear somewhat useful, whereas programs focused on reducing bias (e.g., diversity training) have little effect. These results suggest that organizational initiatives to reduce racial disparities can be effective, but primarily when implemented with concrete goals to which organizational leadership is held accountable. 7

Taking a broader look at race-targeted employment policies, Holzer & Neumark (2000) investigate the effects of affirmative action on the recruitment and employment of minorities and women. They find that affirmative action is associated with increases in the number of recruitment and screening practices used by employers, increases in the number of minority applicants and employees, and increases in employers’ tendencies to provide training and formal evaluations of employees. Although the use of affirmative action in hiring is associated with somewhat weaker credentials among minority hires, actual job performance appears unaffected.

The role of networks

In addition to examining how organizational policies and practices shape the behavior of decision makers and gatekeepers, researchers must acknowledge that some mechanisms relevant to the perpetuation of categorical inequality might operate independently of the actions of individuals. Indeed, many organizational policies or procedures can impose disparate impact along racial lines with little direct influence from individual decision makers. The case of networks represents one important example. The role of networks in hiring practices is extremely well documented, with networks generally viewed as an efficient strategy for matching workers to employers with advantages for both job seekers (e.g., Granovetter 1995 ) and employers (e.g., Fernandez et al. 2000 ). At the same time, given high levels of social segregation (e.g., McPherson et al. 2001 ), the use of referrals is likely to reproduce the existing racial composition of the company and to exclude members of those groups not already well represented ( Braddock & McPartland 1987 ). In an analysis of noncollege jobs, controlling for spatial segregation, occupational segregation, city, and firm size, Mouw (2002) finds that the use of employee referrals in predominantly white firms reduces the probability of a black hire by nearly 75% relative to the use of newspaper ads. 8 Petersen et al. (2000) using data on a high-technology organization over a 10-year period find that race differences in hiring are eliminated when the method of referral is considered, suggesting that the impact of social networks on hiring outcomes is strong and may be more important than any direct action taken by organization members. Irrespective of an employer’s personal racial attitudes, the use of employee referrals is likely to reproduce the existing racial composition of an organization, restricting valuable employment opportunities from excluded groups (see also Royster 2003 , Waldinger & Lichter 2003 ).

Networks and network composition may matter not only for the purposes of obtaining information and referrals for jobs, but also within jobs for the purposes of informal mentoring, contacts, and relevant information important to advancement ( Ibarra 1993 , Grodsky & Pager 2001 ). Mechanisms of homosocial reproduction, or informal preferences for members of one’s own group, can lead to network configurations of informal mentorship and sponsorship that contribute to the preservation of existing status hierarchies ( Kanter 1977 ; see also Elliot & Smith 2001 , Sturm 2001 ). The wide-ranging economic consequences that follow from segregated social networks corresponds to what Loury (2001 , p. 452) refers to as the move from “discrimination in contract” to “discrimination in contact.” According to Loury, whereas earlier forms of discrimination primarily reflected explicit differences in the treatment of racial groups, contemporary forms of discrimination are more likely to be perpetuated through informal networks of opportunity that, though ostensibly race-neutral, systematically disadvantage members of historically excluded groups.

Organizations in context

Much of the research discussed above considers the organization as a context in which decisions and procedures that affect discriminatory treatment are shaped. But organizations themselves are likewise situated within a larger context, with prevailing economic, legal, and social environments conditioning organizational responses ( Reskin 2003 ). When labor markets expand or contract, organizations shift their recruitment and termination/retention strategies in ways that adapt to these broader forces (e.g., Freeman & Rodgers 1999 ). When antidiscrimination laws are passed or amended, organizations respond in ways that signal compliance ( Dobbin et al. 1993 ), with the impact of these measures varying according to shifting levels or strategies of government enforcement ( Kalev & Dobbin 2006 , Leonard 1985 ). At the same time, organizations are not merely passive recipients of the larger economic and legal context. In the case of the legal environment, for example, organizations play an active role in interpreting and shaping the ways that laws are translated into practice. Edelman (1992) , Dobbin et al. (1993) , and Dobbin & Sutton (1998) have each demonstrated ways in which the U.S. federal government’s lack of clear guidance regarding compliance with antidiscrimination laws and regulations allowed organizations to establish and legitimate their own compliance measures. According to Edelman (1992 , p. 1542), “organizations do not simply ignore or circumvent weak law, but rather construct compliance in a way that, at least in part, fits their interests.” Organizational actors, then, can wind up playing the dual role of both defining and demonstrating compliance, with important implications for the nature, strength, and impact of antidiscrimination laws and likewise for the patterns of discrimination that emerge in these contexts.

Organizations occupy a unique position with respect to shaping patterns of discrimination. They mediate both the cognitive and attitudinal biases of actors within the organization as well as the influence of broader economic and legal pressures applied from beyond. Recognizing the specific features of organizational action that affect patterns of discrimination represents one of the most important contributions of sociological research in this area. To date, the vast majority of organizational research has focused on the context of labor markets; investigations of organizational functioning in other domains (e.g., real estate, retail sales, lending institutions) would do much to further our understanding of how collective policies and practices shape the expression of discrimination.

Structural Factors

The majority of research on discrimination focuses on dynamics between individuals or small groups. It is easiest to conceptualize discrimination in terms of the actions of specific individuals, with the attitudes, prejudices, and biases of majority group members shaping actions toward minority group members. And yet, it is important to recognize that each of these decisions takes place within a broader social context. Members of racial minority groups may be systematically disadvantaged not only by the willful acts of particular individuals, but because the prevailing system of opportunities and constraints favors the success of one group over another. In addition to the organizational factors discussed above, broader structural features of a society can contribute to unequal outcomes through the ordinary functioning of its cultural, economic, and political systems (see also National Research Council 2004 , chapter 11). The term structural discrimination has been used loosely in the literature, along with concepts such as institutional discrimination and structural or institutional racism, to refer to the range of policies and practices that contribute to the systematic disadvantage of members of certain groups. In the following discussion, we consider three distinct conceptualizations of structural discrimination, each of which draws our attention to the broader, largely invisible contexts in which group-based inequalities may be structured and reproduced.

A legacy of historical discrimination

This first conceptualization of structural discrimination stands furthest from conventional definitions of discrimination as an active and ongoing form of racial bias. By focusing on the legacies of past discrimination, this emphasis remains agnostic about the relevance of contemporary forms of discrimination that may further heighten or exacerbate existing inequalities. And yet, the emphasis on structural discrimination—as opposed to just inequality— directs our attention to the array of discriminatory actions that brought about present day inequalities. The origins of contemporary racial wealth disparities, for example, have well-established links to historical practices of redlining, housing covenants, racially targeted federal housing policies, and other forms of active discrimination within housing and lending markets (e.g., Massey & Denton 1993 ). Setting aside evidence of continuing discrimination in each of these domains, these historical practices themselves are sufficient to maintain extraordinarily high levels of wealth inequality through the intergenerational transition of advantage (the ability to invest in good neighborhoods, good schools, college, housing assistance for adult children, etc.) ( Oliver & Shapiro 1997 ). According to Conley (1999) , even if we were to eliminate all contemporary forms of discrimination, huge racial wealth disparities would persist, which in turn underlie racial inequalities in schooling, employment, and other social domains (see also Lieberson & Fuguitt 1967 ). Recent work based on formal modeling suggests that the effects of past discrimination, particularly as mediated by ongoing forms of social segregation, are likely to persist well into the future, even in the absence of ongoing discrimination (see Bowles et al. 2007 , Lundberg & Startz 1998 ).

These historical sources of discrimination may become further relevant, not only in their perpetuation of present-day inequalities, but also through their reinforcement of contemporary forms of stereotypes and discrimination. As in Myrdal’s (1944) “principle of cumulation,” structural disadvantages (e.g., poverty, joblessness, crime) come to be seen as cause, rather than consequence, of persistent racial inequality, justifying and reinforcing negative racial stereotypes (pp. 75–78). Bobo et al. (1997 , p. 23) argue that “sharp black-white economic inequality and residential segregation…provide the kernel of truth needed to regularly breathe new life into old stereotypes about putative black proclivities toward involvement in crime, violence, and welfare dependency.” The perpetuation of racial inequality through structural and institutional channels can thus be conducive to reinforcing negative racial stereotypes and shifting blame toward minorities for their own disadvantage (see also Sunstein 1991 , p. 32; Fiske et al. 2002 ).

Contemporary state policies and practices

This second conceptualization of structural discrimination accords more with conventional understandings of the term, placing its emphasis on those contemporary policies and practices that systematically disadvantage certain groups. Paradigmatic cases of structural discrimination include the caste system in India, South Africa under apartheid, or the United States during Jim Crow—each of these representing societies in which the laws and cultural institutions manufactured and enforced systematic inequalities based on group membership. Although the vestiges of Jim Crow have long since disappeared in the contemporary United States, there remain features of American society that may contribute to persistent forms of structural discrimination (see Massey 2007 , Feagin 2006 ).

One example is the provision of public education in the United States. According to Orfield & Lee (2005 , p. 18), more than 60% of black and Latino students attend high poverty schools, compared with 30% of Asians and 18% of whites. In addition to funding disparities across these schools, based on local property taxes, the broader resources of schools in poor neighborhoods are substantially limited: Teachers in poor and minority schools are likely to have less experience, shorter tenure, and emergency credentials rather than official teaching certifications ( Orfield & Lee 2005 ).At the same time, schools in high poverty neighborhoods are faced with a greater incidence of social problems, including teen pregnancy, gang involvement, and unstable households ( Massey & Denton 1993 ). With fewer resources, these schools are expected to manage a wider array of student needs. The resulting lower quality of education common in poor and minority school districts places these students at a disadvantage in competing for future opportunities ( Massey 2006 ).

A second relevant example comes from the domain of criminal justice policy. Although evidence of racial discrimination at selective decision points in the criminal justice system is weak ( Sampson & Lauritsen 1997 ), the unprecedented growth of the criminal justice system over the past 30 years has had a vastly disproportionate effect on African Americans. 9 Currently, nearly one out of three young black men will spend time in prison during his lifetime, a figure that rises to nearly 60% among young black high school dropouts ( Bonczar & Beck 1997 , Pettit & Western 2004 ). Given the wide array of outcomes negatively affected by incarceration—including family formation, housing, employment, political participation, and health—decisions about crime policy, even when race-neutral in content, represent a critical contemporary source of racial disadvantage ( Pattillo et al. 2003 , Pager 2007b , Manza & Uggen 2006 ).

These examples point to contexts in which ostensibly race-neutral policies can structure and reinforce existing social inequalities. According to Omi & Winant (1994) , “through policies which are explicitly or implicitly racial, state institutions organize and enforce the racial politics of everyday life. For example, they enforce racial (non)discrimination policies, which they administer, arbitrate, and encode in law. They organize racial identities by means of education, family law, and the procedures for punishment, treatment, and surveillance of the criminal, deviant and ill” (p. 83). Even without any willful intent, policies can play an active role in designating the beneficiaries and victims of a particular system of resource allocation, with important implications for enduring racial inequalities.

Accumulation of disadvantage

This third category of structural discrimination draws our attention to how the effects of discrimination in one domain or at one point in time may have consequences for a broader range of outcomes. Through spillover effects across domains, processes of cumulative (dis)advantage across the life course, and feedback effects, the effects of discrimination can intensify and, in some cases, become self-sustaining.

Although traditional measures of discrimination focus on individual decision points (e.g., the decision to hire, to rent, to offer a loan), the effects of these decisions may extend into other relevant domains. Discrimination in credit markets, for example, contributes to higher rates of loan default, with negative implications for minority entrepreneurship, home ownership, and wealth accumulation ( Oliver & Shapiro 1997 ). Discrimination in housing markets contributes to residential segregation, which is associated with concentrated disadvantage ( Massey & Denton 1993 ), poor health outcomes ( Williams 2004 ), and limited educational and employment opportunities ( Massey & Fischer 2006 , Fernandez & Su 2004 ). Single point estimates of discrimination within a particular domain may substantially underestimate the cumulative effects of discrimination over time and the ways in which discrimination in one domain can trigger disadvantage in many others.

In addition to linkages across domains, the effects of discrimination may likewise span forward in time, with the cumulative impact of discrimination magnifying initial effects. Blau & Ferber (1987) , for example, point to how the channeling of men and women into different job types at career entry “will virtually ensure sex differences in productivity, promotion opportunities, and pay” (p. 51). Small differences in starting points can have large effects over the life course (and across generations), even in the absence of continuing discrimination [for a rich discussion of cumulative (dis)advantage, see DiPrete & Eirich (2006) ].

Finally, anticipated or experienced discrimination can lead to adaptations that intensify initial effects. Research points to diminished effort or valuation of schooling ( Ogbu 1991 ), lower investments in skill-building ( Farmer & Terrell 1996 ), and reduced labor force participation ( Castillo 1998 ) as possible responses to perceived discrimination against oneself or members of one’s group. These adaptations can easily be coded as choices rather than constraints, as characteristics to be controlled for in estimates of discrimination rather than included as one part of that estimate. And yet, for an understanding of the full range of effects associated with discrimination, these indirect pathways and self-fulfilling prophesies should likewise be examined (see Loury 2002 , pp. 26– 33).

A focus on structural and institutional sources of discrimination encourages us to consider how opportunities may be allocated on the basis of race in the absence of direct prejudice or willful bias. It is difficult to capture the structural and cumulative consequences of discrimination using traditional research designs; advances in this area will require creative new approaches (see National Research Council 2004 , chapter 11). Nevertheless, for an accurate accounting of the impact of discrimination, we must recognize how historical practices and contemporary policies may contribute to ongoing and cumulative forms of racial discrimination.

Discrimination is not the only cause of racial disparities in the United States. Indeed, persistent inequality between racial and ethnic groups is the product of complex and multifaceted influences. Nevertheless, the weight of existing evidence suggests that discrimination does continue to affect the allocation of contemporary opportunities; and, further, given the often covert, indirect, and cumulative nature of these effects, our current estimates may in fact understate the degree to which discrimination contributes to the poor social and economic outcomes of minority groups. Although great progress has been made since the early 1960s, the problem of racial discrimination remains an important factor in shaping contemporary patterns of social and economic inequality.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Barbara Reskin, Douglas Massey, Frank Dobbin, and Lincoln Quillian for their generous comments and suggestions. Support for this research came from grants from NSF (SES-0547810) and NIH (K01-HD053694). The second author also received support from an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

1 Dovidio & Gaertner (2000) also examined changes over time, comparing parallel data collected at two time points, 1989 and 1999. Although the level of self-reported prejudice declined significantly over the decade, the extent of discrimination did not change.

2 Field experiments that rely on contact by mail (rather than in person) are referred to as correspondence studies. Although these studies are typically limited to a more restricted range of job openings than are in-person audit studies, and although the signaling of race is some what more complicated (see Fryer & Levitt 2004 for a discussion of the race-class association among distinctively African American names), these studies are not vulnerable to the concerns over experimenter effects that are relevant in in-person studies (see Heckman 1998 ). For a review of correspondence studies in international contexts, including a range of ethnic groups, see Riach & Rich (2002) .

3 Asian renters and homebuyers experienced similar levels of consistent adverse treatment, though the effects were not statistically significant for renters. The highest levels of discrimination among the groups was experienced by Native American renters, for whom reduced access to information comprised the bulk of differential treatment ( Turner & Ross 2003a , b ).

4 See Stuart (2003) for a useful discussion of how economic risk became defined in the mortgage lending industry and how this approach has impacted discrimination.

5 There is also a growing literature in economics that focuses on online auctions (e.g., eBay®), allowing researchers to test theories about consumer discrimination in more highly controlled (but real-world) environments (e.g., List 2004 ).

6 Indeed, social psychological research points to the hardwired tendency toward categorization, with preferences for in-groups and the stereotyping of out–groups a natural outgrowth of human cognition ( Fiske 1998 ). Although the social context certainly shapes the boundaries of social groups and the content of stereotypes, this cognitive impulse likely contributes to the resilience of social categorization and stereotypes ( Massey 2007 ).

7 Note, however, that the creation of new positions for diversity management may have its own disadvantages, inadvertently diverting minority employees away from more desirable management trajectories. Collins (1989 , 1993 ), for example, finds that upwardly mobile blacks are frequently tracked into racialized management jobs or into jobs that specifically deal with diversity issues, with black customers, or with relations with the black community. According to Collins, these jobs are also characterized by greater vulnerability to downsizing and fewer opportunities for advancement.

8 Mouw (2002) does not find evidence that this sorting process affects aggregate employment rates, although the segregation of job opportunities is itself associated with racial differences in job quality and stability ( Parcel & Mueller 1983 ).

9 The case of drug policy and enforcement is one area for which evidence of direct racial discrimination is stronger (see Beckett et al. 2005 , Tonry 1995 ).

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The authors are not aware of any biases that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.

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Reflections on Eriksen’s seminal essay on discrimination, performance and learning without awareness

  • Published: 15 September 2020
  • Volume 83 , pages 546–557, ( 2021 )

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  • Randolph Blake 1  

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Early in his career C.W. Eriksen published in Psychological Review what turned out to be a highly impactful critique on methods and findings on the topic of unconscious influences on discrimination and awareness. His incisive commentary on extant methodology employed at that time – especially the heavy dependence on subjective reports – clearly was heard by others moving forward, as evidenced by the subsequent, lively discussions within the literature concerning the very definition of the notion of unconscious processing. Of equal importance, Eriksen’s paper provided an impetus for the development of more refined techniques for manipulating perceptual awareness and for measuring the consequences of those manipulations. My purpose in this essay is to ensure that Eriksen’s seminal contributions concerning unconscious phenomena remain within the awareness of the many current investigators working on this popular topic.

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Introduction

Charles Eriksen’s many lasting contributions being honored in this special issue rightfully include his trenchant essay titled “Discrimination and learning without awareness: A methodological survey and evaluation” (Eriksen, 1960 ). This essay (hereafter referred to as DLWA ) deserves prominence in the unfolding – and unfinished – saga of subliminal perception: the mind’s propensity to be swayed by sensory information about environmental objects and events that fall outside our awareness. I am grateful for the opportunity to remind myself and other contemporary researchers about this paper and the role it has played in the evolution of our thinking about perception outside of awareness and about the challenges we face when trying to study that problem.

To start on a personal note, my appreciation of this paper dates back to my early years as a graduate student at Vanderbilt University. My mentors at that time were the late Robert Fox (one of Eriksen’s close professional friends) and Joseph Lappin (one of Eriksen’s accomplished graduate students). Their admiration for Eriksen’s ideas were infectiously transmitted to me during my graduate training. In fact, it was Fox who introduced me to this Psychological Review paper, realizing that I was becoming infatuated with the study of binocular rivalry as a psychological scalpel for dissecting aspects of visual processing transpiring outside of awareness (Blake & Fox, 1974 ). Eriksen’s paper was Fox’s constant reminder to me that one must maintain a healthy skepticism about subjective reports of what can be seen and what cannot, meaning that one must redouble the effort to validate “invisibility” when claiming that people do not see things that nonetheless influence their performance on behavioral tasks involving putatively “invisible” stimuli.

Based on its citation count, DLWA should qualify as a citation classic by Google Scholar standards, and the lessons taught in that paper have certainly not been lost in the mists of time. Indeed, a series of influential papers published over the second half of the twentieth century credit this particular paper in kindling a lively debate about perceptual processing outside of awareness (Erdelyi, 1974 ; Dixon 1971 ; Holender, 1986 ; Kihlstrom, 1987 ; Merikle & Daneman, 1998 ). Those contributions, in turn, set the stage for a flood of papers published during the past 20 years on the inter-related topics of awareness and consciousness. Footnote 1 The message voiced in the 1960 DLWA paper has become so ingrained in our thinking that the original citation is no longer deemed necessary. But, thankfully, this special issue gives us opportunity to revisit the essay’s prescient ideas and to appreciate how its influence can be felt in contemporary research.

As a prelude, it is worth noting that this legendary figure in experimental psychology was trained in clinical psychology, with a dissertation awarded in 1950 (published the following year as Eriksen, 1951 ) in which Eriksen endorsed the existence of perceptual defense. Footnote 2 Over that decade, however, this clinically trained psychologist increasingly embraced the mature methods and healthy skepticism of an experimental psychologist, transforming himself into a pioneer in the nascent field dubbed experimental clinical psychology. Upon assuming his first academic position at Johns Hopkins, Eriksen’s interests broadened to other forms of unconscious processing including subception and learning outside of awareness. It was also while at Johns Hopkins that Eriksen partnered with his colleagues Wendall Garner and Harry Hake to create and publish their highly influential Psychological Review paper (Garner, Hake, & Eriksen, 1956 ) questioning the strict operational definition of perception as discriminatory responses to given stimulus conditions (Allport, 1955 ). Rejecting that sterile view, Garner, Hake, and Eriksen argued that perception is a process whose properties “are induced from objectively determined relations between stimuli and responses (p. 150),” with those relations emerging from multiple, convergent operations. That paper, incidentally, justifiably can be characterized as an opening salvo in the cognitive revolution and, by extension, a harbinger of psychology’s enlistment into the quest to understand the nature of consciousness (Koch, 2004 ; Chalmers, 1996 ).

In 1956, Eriksen moved to the University of Illinois where he developed into a full-blown experimental psychologist, leaving the clinical moniker off his credentials. Still early in his career trajectory, Eriksen announced his arrival on the scene with the publication of DWLA , to which we now turn.

The central message in DLWA

Eriksen introduces his essay by questioning the usefulness of the notion of consciousness as it was being used in the literature of his day. In so doing, Eriksen was foreshadowing what others have since echoed about the vagueness of that term, including philosopher Ned Block ( 1995 ), who has colorfully characterized consciousness as a “mongrel concept.” In DLWA , Eriksen instead opined that his aim was to focus on discrimination and awareness, an approach more amenable to the rigor of convergent operational definition (Garner et al., 1956 ). At the risk of putting words in Eriksen’s mouth, my impression is that his conceptualization of awareness included the appearance of things (“content consciousness” as philosophers would call it) as well as the implications of what that appearance conveyed about the opportunities afforded by things we’re looking at. But there’s no getting around the limitation that the contents of awareness are inherently subjective (Koenderink, 2012 ). Dissenting opinions are welcome.

To set the stage for the lessons appearing in DLWA , let’s begin by considering what Eriksen wrote in the concluding section of his essay:

“…at present there is no convincing evidence that the human organism can discriminate or differentially respond to external stimuli that are at an intensity level too low to elicit a discriminated verbal response….There is a great need to spell out explicitly the assumed characteristics of the unconscious and to search for explanations of so called unconscious phenomena in terms of more common-place psychological variables.” p. 298

In reaching this conclusion, Eriksen critiqued several methodological strategies that had been used to assess subliminal discrimination (i.e., dissociations between verbal report and other measures of the impact of weak sensory stimulation). The following subsections summarize those strategies and Eriksen’s reservations about them. In those subsections, I also give selective examples of more recent work that arguably sidesteps some of those reservations and, thus, allows more refined tests for the existence of discrimination outside of awareness (see Text Box 1).

figure a

Indirect, physiological measures

As described by Eriksen, this strategy involves using an involuntary physiological response such as the galvanic skin response (GSR) or the pupillary reflex together with verbal report to ask if those two response modes – autonomic and behavioral - can be dissociated. The two versions of this strategy were to use classical conditioning to determine whether: (1) a conditioned, autonomic reflex could be established using subthreshold stimulation (Wilcott, 1953 ), or (2) whether a previously conditioned autonomic reflex established using a suprathreshold conditioned stimulus could then be evoked by subthreshold intensity levels of the conditioned stimulation (e.g., Newhall & Sears, 1933 ). With the latter version of this strategy, it was further possible to ascertain whether an autonomic response still occurred on trials when the behavioral response was incorrect, in effect generating a pair of psychometric measures obtained concurrently (Lazarus & McCleary, 1951 ). Without going into specific reasons, suffice it to say that Eriksen was generally skeptical of the implementation of these strategies and the oversimplified analyses of the partial correlations of data comprising those two response categories. Eriksen was unconvinced that indirect, autonomic responses are more sensitive at discriminating stimulus presentations than are verbal responses, in part because he was skeptical about the validity of verbal responses.

The approach highlighted in the previous paragraph relied on classical conditioning to empower mundane visual stimuli (e.g., flashes of light) with the capability to evoke autonomic reactions such as GSR. But not all stimuli require preconditioning – some are inherently arousing (e.g., a straight flush hand in poker) as evidenced by the autonomic responses they provoke (e.g., brisk pupillary dilation, as savy poker players recognize). Footnote 3 Moreover, in the laboratory the visibility of such stimuli can be removed from awareness by any one of several psychophysical tricks, as summarized in a subsequent section, that can be deployed to address this question: Does a normally visible, affectively charged image still evoke reflexive autonomic responses when suppressed from awareness? During recent years contemporary work has attempted to answer that question. Thus, for example, there is evidence that an emotionally charged visual stimulus viewed by one eye (e.g., a picture of a spider) tends to dominate in binocular rivalry when pitted against a neutral stimulus viewed by the other eye (Sheth & Pham 2008 ; Gerdes & Alpers, 2014 ). In a similar vein, images of angry faces initially suppressed from awareness during rivalry emerge into dominance more quickly than do neutral or happy faces, an effect that may be traced to the salience of the widened eyes accompanying threatening facial expressions (Gray et al., 2010 ; Whalen et al., 2004 ; Yang et al., 2007 ). And pictures of nude human bodies continue to serve as effective cues guiding spatial attention even when they are suppressed from awareness by the potent form of interocular masking called continuous flash suppression (CFS), (Jiang et al., 2006 ). Tamietto and de Gelder B ( 2010 ) and Hedger et al. ( 2016 ) provide good reviews of this controversial literature on affective processing outside of awareness.

Dual-report strategy

Another methodological approach critiqued by Eriksen in DLWA is the dual-report procedure wherein each detection trial entails collecting a participant’s trial-by-trial report about detectability of a stimulus together with a numerical confidence rating about the correctness of the participant’s judgment on each trial. Detection tasks typically required a yes/no answer or a forced-choice response about some characteristic of the stimulus (e.g., in which one of two intervals was it presented). Eriksen was aware that in a number of studies (e.g., Adams, 1957 ) the dual report method revealed that participants can perform above chance under conditions where they indicate having zero confidence in their judgment on a significant number of trials. For Eriksen, this pattern of results further undermined the utility of verbal report for building a science of awareness. Eriksen also expressed skepticism about the validity of scaling based on verbal descriptors as operational definitions of awareness (e.g., see the Perceptual Awareness Scale devised by Ramsøy and Overgaard, 2004 ) because rating scales were difficult to standardize across experiments or to normalize across participants. Rating scales, in his opinion, were a starting point but, nonetheless, do not uniquely constitute the “operational specification” needed to nail down awareness.

In the contemporary literature on awareness we find multiple instances where versions of the dual-report procedure have been utilized (see, e.g., the paper titled “Blindsight in normal observers” by Kolb & Braun, 1995 , and the rejoinders to this paper by Morgan et al., 1997 and by Robichaud & Stelmach, 2003 ). Moreover, there have been important advances in quantifying the relation between sensory discrimination and judgment confidence that, in my opinion, go some way toward redressing the concerns voiced by Eriksen. I would particularly urge readers to read the theoretical paper by Galvin et al. ( 2003 ) in which the authors derive an operational definition of perception without awareness within the context of statistical decision theory. Their formulation is based on the distinction between Type 1 judgments (“which one of n possible events is most likely to have happened on a given trial”) and Type 2 judgments (“what is the likelihood that my Type 1 judgment was correct on that trial”). Galvin et al. develop a strong case for the conclusion that evidence implicating perception without awareness can be derived by comparing the prediction of Type 2 performance based on Type 1 performance. Without going into details of that derivation, their theory posits that if participants can discriminate between signal and noise but cannot discriminate between their own incorrect and correct decisions, this constitutes evidence for perception without awareness.

To be sure, the debate about the validity of dual-report procedures for dissociating awareness (e.g., confidence rating, wagering) from perceptual performance has endured in the literature and remains a topic of controversy (see, e.g., Dienes and Seth, 2010 ; Overgaard et al., 2010 ; Soto et al., 2011 ).

Subsequent impact of subliminal stimulation

The last class of methods critiqued in DLWA are ones that entail two successive phases: (1) a presentation period during which a complex, meaningful stimulus is viewed under conditions that temporarily disrupt perceptual awareness of that stimulus, and (2) a subsequent behavioral assay of the residual effectiveness of that lack of awareness. To what extent, in other words, does a stimulus retain its effectiveness when a person is unaware of its presence?

During the period of time that Eriksen was working, studies tended to rely on reductions in the intensity, contrast, or exposure duration of stimuli to render them perceptually invisible. To exemplify this strategy, DLWA refers to a study (Dixon, 1958 ) in which participants were shown a series of 12 different words, some neutral (e.g., “barn”) and others with emotional connotation (e.g., “penis”), and each word was presented at a luminance and exposure duration rendering the words unidentifiable. After each presentation, which was signaled by a visible spot of light, participants were forced to guess what the word was, based on the first thought that came to mind. During this phase of the experiment, participants received four repetitions of this series of subliminal exposures of the 12 words, and on no trials were their guesses the correct answer. A week later participants returned to the lab and were given a randomly ordered list of the subliminally presented words, all of which they reported as being unfamiliar. They were then read, one at a time, a word drawn from the list of the participant’s own responses during the previous, subliminal presentation phase and told to pick from the list of words they held the one most likely to match a particular response based on any associative connection that came to mind. Data pooled over participants revealed that the incidence of “correctly” pairing a subliminal word with the response guess made a week before to that word was significantly greater than that predicted based on chance, leading Dixon to conclude that subliminal words could be unconsciously perceived. Moreover, Dixon recorded GSRs during the subliminal phase of the experiment, and those measures revealed that the emotionally valenced, unseen words evoked stronger autonomic reactions than did neutral words.

In a replication and extension of Dixon’s behavioral study (Fuhrer & Eriksen, 1960 ), Eriksen confirmed the behavioral result but also included control conditions (e.g., brief exposure of inverted words) showing that it was structural, not semantic, aspects of the subliminal words (e.g., number of letters) that were likely deployed when participants formulated their “guesses” about word associations. Eriksen nonetheless acknowledged that “there are most likely circumstances where a nonverbal response may be a better indicator than verbalization” (p. 291) when it comes to assaying the residual effectiveness of a stimulus that escapes one’s awareness. The following section summarizes Eriksen’s prescient thoughts on that possibility, and it highlights some of the ways in which those circumstances have been created in contemporary work.

Learning without awareness

Eriksen highlighted another class of studies that he lumped under the rubric “discrimination without awareness.” The gist of these phenomena is a participant’s acquisition over trials of knowledge about some seemingly irrelevant, non-obvious property of visual stimuli that are the focus of a task unrelated to that property. Examples of this kind of unintentional learning can be drawn from the contemporary literature showing that people unwittingly acquire information about statistical regularities in arrays of complex figures as evidenced by their performance on tasks involving visual search (Chun & Jiang, 1998 ) and shape familiarity (Fiser & Aslin, 2001 ). This kind of acquired knowledge about stimulus contingencies has also been demonstrated under conditions where a critical aspect of visual stimulation supporting successful associative learning was blocked from awareness by a camouflage maneuver (Di Luca et al., 2010 ). These findings on incidental perceptual learning fit neatly into conceptualizations of perception that emphasize the importance of learning statistical regularities about our world, especially in situations where vital visual information is missing or is ambiguous (Purves & Lotto, 2003 ; Geisler, 2008 ).

Notable developments following publication of DLWA

By the second half of the DLWA essay, we readily understand that Eriksen reserves the term “subliminal” for situations where a stimulus is degraded in visibility to a point where it cannot be detected or identified. And for him, studies with appropriate control conditions find no demonstrable impact of subliminal stimuli on discrimination. At the same time, he acknowledges the likelihood that ordinarily visible, supraliminal stimuli can and often do retain their effectiveness in shaping perception even when those stimuli fall outside of one’s awareness. These conclusions are summed up in this quote:

“While we have been unable to find evidence for a supersensitive discriminating unconscious, the evidence that behavior can be directed by above threshold cues of which the S is unaware is not only more plausible but somewhat more substantial. Common sense tells us that we are constantly utilizing cues of which we are unaware in our perception of depth, of shape and size constancy…” p. 293, DLWA.

See Text Box 2 for some additional thoughts on “essential cues” that operate outside of awareness.

figure b

In the years following publication of DLWA , new strategies have been developed and refined that permit manipulation of visual awareness and, thus, evaluation of the extent to which an ordinarily visible object or event retains some degree of effectiveness to influence our reactions to those objects or events. The next subsection highlights several of the most popular tactics and illustrates ways in which those tactics have been deployed.

Contemporary strategies for rendering the visible “invisible”

Some years ago Chai-Youn Kim and I published an essay evaluating a variety of popular psychophysical phenomena characterized by induced fluctuations in visual awareness (Kim & Blake, 2005 ). Footnote 4 Among the phenomena evaluated were visual masking (e.g., Kouider & Dehaene, 2007 ), visual crowding (e.g., Levi, 2008 ), attentional blink (e.g., Dux & Marois, 2009 ), bistable figures (e.g., Sterzer et al., 2009 ), and binocular rivalry (e.g., Blake & Logothetis, 2002 ). Figure 1 reproduces the Table summarizing our interpretation of the strengths and weaknesses of each of these phenomena as tools for studying perception outside of awareness. Our essay concluded that the most compelling and effective phenomena were those characterized by robust fluctuations in perception relatively unconstrained by exposure duration, retinal location, or stimulus complexity. For assaying visual processing outside of awareness, we further singled out phenomena evoked by unchanging physical stimulation: in other words, what you are looking at remains the same but what you are seeing changes over time (i.e., phenomena exhibiting multistability).

figure 1

Two prominent phenomena – bistable figures and binocular rivalry – satisfy that criterion, but the two differ in two important respects: (1) when viewing bistable figures (e.g., vase/face figure), the inducing stimulus and its constituent features do not disappear and, instead, it’s your interpretation of what you’re seeing that changes unpredictably; (2) during binocular rivalry, however, one of two dichoptically viewed, dissimilar stimuli, constituent features included, can be erased from awareness for several seconds at a time while the other stimulus is perceptually dominant. With bistable figures, in other words, the inducing figure persists in your awareness but you’re confused about what it portrays; with binocular rivalry the two dissimilar inducing figures themselves replace one another in awareness over time. But in both instances, the brain is confused, figuratively speaking, about what object the eyes are looking at, and the brain resolves this confusion by entertaining each possibility alternately over time. It also appears that volitional control over what you see is easier to achieve when viewing bistable figures than it is when experiencing binocular rivalry (Meng & Tong, 2004 ), a relevant consideration when deciding which psychophysical “trick” to deploy for a given purpose. For more on binocular rivalry from one person’s perspective, see Text Box 3.

figure c

Based on the number of citations to studies employing binocular rivalry during the years spanning 1960–2010, rivalry qualified as the favorite procedure for inducing fluctuations in visual awareness, edging out visual masking (Fig. 1 in Hedger et al., 2016 ). But in 2005 (Fang & He, 2005 ; Tsuchiya & Koch, 2005 ) rivalry was displaced in popularity by introduction of a new, remarkably robust phenomenon called continuous flash suppression (CFS). A form of interocular suppression, this technique entails presenting to one eye a montage of different patterns one after the other at a steady, brisk rate while the other eye views a stationary pattern. A variety of CFS montages have been successfully deployed, including Mondrian-like arrays of different sized, colored rectangles (Tsuchiya & Koch, 2005 ), arrays of small geometric figures (Fang & He, 2005 ), extended series of natural scene images (Kim et al., 2017 ), and arrays of pointillist like pictures (Cha et al., 2019 ). These dynamic animations using densely contoured figures can effectively suppress a monocular stimulus presented to the other eye, with durations of suppression lasting considerably longer than ordinary suppression durations associated with conventional rival displays while, at the same time, minimizing the incidence of mixed dominance states that can corrupt states of dominance during binocular rivalry (Blake et al., 2019 ). Footnote 5 Not surprisingly, CFS was eagerly adopted for studies of visual processing outside of awareness (see reviews by Gayet, Van der Stigchel, & Paffen, 2014 ; Hedger et al., 2016 ; Prioli & Kahan, 2015 ; Sterzer, Stein, Ludwig, Rothkirch, & Hesselmann, 2014 ; Yang, Brascamp, Kang, & Blake, 2014 ). And more recently, CFS has been utilized to tackle a diverse set of questions ranging from the ability to process multiple-word verbal expressions and solve arithmetic equations outside of awareness (Sklar et al., 2012 ) to identifying perceptual concomitants of developmental disorders such as autism (Madipakkam et al., 2017 ) and schizophrenia (Seymour et al., 2016 ).

Neurological conditions affecting awareness

Eriksen’s 1960 Psychological Review article made no mention of neuropsychological results that potentially bear on the question of perception without awareness, a rich literature dating back to the late nineteenth century (LeDoux et al., 2020 ). In his defense, Eriksen did not concern himself with the neural concomitants of visual awareness, so he cannot be faulted for this omission. Still, Eriksen’s strong opinions voiced in DLWA about methodological flaws in extant studies of discrimination without awareness surely would have aroused his interest in the emerging work on blindsight, a syndrome that burst on the scene just over a decade after DLWA was published (Weiskrantz et al., 1974 ). This notable clinical condition was characterized by accurate visually guided behavior achieved in the absence of visual awareness of the object guiding the response (Cowey & Stoerig, 1991 ; Stoerig et al., 2002 ; Weiskrantz, 1980 ), and in later studies blindsight has been extended to unconscious registration of other visual dimensions ranging from color (Cowey & Stoerig, 2001 ) to facial expressions (de Gelder et al., 1999 ). The lack of awareness defining this syndrome is attributable to visual field defects caused by geniculo-cortical brain damage, and for that reason blindsight has provided grist for the mill among those who quarrel about the necessity of primary visual cortex for conscious visual experience (e.g., Barbur et al., 1993 ; Silvanto & Rees, 2011 ; Tong, 2003 ). Originally derived to characterize a clinical condition associated with hemianopia, the term “blindsight” has now crept into the lexicon of papers describing healthy individuals whose performance is relatively unimpaired on tasks where normally visible objects retain their effectiveness despite being erased from awareness by transcranial magnetic stimulation (Boyer et al., 2005 ; Christensen et al., 2008 ), by visual camouflage (Kolb & Braun, 1995 ), by metacontrast masking (Lau & Passingham, 2006 ), or by CFS (Vieira et al., 2017 ).

In a related vein, studies of patients with damage to restricted areas within the occipital, the parietal, or the temporal lobes can exhibit patterns of selective visual deficits that suggest dissociation of awareness of different qualitative aspects of object perception. This literature has spawned impactful ideas about visual specialization within multiple areas identified within dorsal and ventral cortical streams (de Han & Cowey, 2011 ; Goodale & Milner, 1992 ; Kravitz et al., 2011 ; Mishkin et al., 1983 ). Pertinent to the topic of this essay, patients have been described who are unable to perform normal visual discriminations based on certain object properties such as object shape (i.e., they exhibit “shape blindness”) but are reasonably accurate at reaching and appropriately grasping those objects with a facility that belies their shape blindness. This line of research has been generalized to normal individuals tested behaviorally under conditions that putatively isolate functions identified with those different visual streams (e.g., Breitmeyer, 2014 ; Ludwig et al., 2015 ), and in brain imaging studies where activations within select visual areas of the human brain can be correlated with the degree of awareness of given visual qualities of objects (e.g., Fang & He, 2005 ; Tettamanti et al., 2017 ; Tong et al., 1998 ).

Perceptual awareness evoked by intrinsically arising neural activity

Eriksen’s essay did not dwell on neural concomitants of awareness other than to point to physiological measures (e.g., GSR) as proxies for awareness. But he did delineate what was called the concurrent response model (Eriksen, 1956 ) to account for partial correlations between physiological measures and verbal reports. How might that be related to contemporary work? I think they might be related, so bear with me as we work through the following line of reasoning.

These days we take it as a given that the necessary ingredients for the emergence of perceptual awareness are distinctive patterns of neural activity. The question of what constitutes those unique activity patterns remains an ongoing debate (Brascamp et al., 2018 ), and Maier and Tsychiya’s essay in this special issue provides an updated account of this debate. Whatever those brain states supporting awareness may be, they are arising within a larger sea of neural activity that fluctuates intrinsically (i.e., even in the resting state the brain is not inactive). It is not unreasonable to assume that those fluctuations may at times – in the absence of external sensory input – achieve levels and patterns sufficient to provoke a state of awareness that is indistinguishable from the state associated with genuine, externally triggered awareness. Willfully generated eidetic images could be construed as an example of these kinds of intrinsically generated states of awareness, as could unbidden hallucinations. Indeed, brain imaging studies confirm that both visual imagery (Pearson & Kosslyn, 2015 ) and auditory hallucinations (Diederen et al., 2012 ) can be accompanied by activation patterns distributed within modality-specific sensory brain areas.

The same broad conclusion has been advanced by some investigators as an explanation of chromatic synesthesia, the vivid visual experience that achromatic test figures, typically alphanumeric characters, appear distinctly colored (see reviews by Kim & Blake, 2013 ; Ward, 2013 ). In this unusual but non-pathological condition, one component of a person’s perceptual awareness (e.g., the form of the letter A) is readily traceable to an external stimulus while a concomitant, obligatory sensory quality of that stimulus (e.g., the letter’s redness: A ) arises from intrinsic neural events unrelated to specific wavelengths of light received by the eyes. In some studies, but certainly not all, synesthetic experience is accompanied by concomitant, intrinsically arising neural activity within sensory brain areas, including the putative color areas within the ventral stream network (e.g., Hubbard et al., 2005 ). As an aside, people who possess synesthesia often go years before realizing to their great surprise that their extra-colorful visual world is highly exceptional and not the norm – they are unaware that their color awareness is illusory.

Finally, consider the following scenario and what it implies about intrinsically generated visual awareness. Those of us who have spent time in a dark, quiet test room attempting to detect faint sounds or near-threshold visual events have learned that on occasional trials stimulus awareness can be evoked even when no external stimulus has been presented. When testing is structured in the form of a yes/no detection experiment, these mistaken judgments are dubbed “false alarms” and are chalked up to the confluence of internal noise and a liberal criterion for saying “yes, I detected it.” The judgment is deemed objectively incorrect, because the experimenter knows for certain that no stimulus was actually presented. But from the standpoint of awareness, false alarms can provide grist for the mill, so to speak. Consider, for example, the study performed by Ress and Heeger ( 2003 ). They used fMRI to monitor BOLD signals associated with neural activity arising within a person’s visual cortex while, at the same time, that person was making present/absent judgments about the brief presentation of faint, low-contrast spatial patterns presented on some, but not all, trials on a video screen being viewed by the person while lying inside the scanner. By design, this behavioral signal-detection task generated hits, misses, correct rejections, and false alarms, allowing Ress and Heeger to analyze separately the BOLD signals associated with those various categories of responses. As expected, the BOLD signal was significantly larger in amplitude (i.e., neural responses were stronger) on trials when the person reported detection of the actual presentation of a low-contrast pattern compared to the BOLD signal measured on trials when the person responded “no” in the presence of that same weak stimulus. The remarkable finding, however, was that the BOLD response on false-alarm trials – i.e., when the stimulus was not presented but the person said “present” - was significantly larger than the BOLD signal measured when the stimulus was presented but reported as “absent” by the participant. In a real sense, this finding corroborates a central tenet of SDT: owing to fluctuations in neural noise, we can occasionally perceive things that are not really there!

Variations in awareness of visual appearance

The focus in DLWA was on situations where awareness was abolished from consciousness, for example, a designated visual “target” cannot be seen. But as we know, the vision literature is chock-full of instances where the appearance of an object (or an event), while not blocked from awareness, is nonetheless conspicuously altered as a consequence of (1) the context in which that object appears, (2) our expectations about what we’re looking at, and (3) our prior experience including exposure to other objects or events. These alterations in appearance can pertain to low-level visual features such as contour orientation (Gibson & Radnor, 1937 ), surface color (Purves & Lotto, 2000 ), contour width (Blakemore & Sutton, 1969 ), or direction of visual motion (Wohlgemuth, 1911 ), as well as to high-level interpretations of appearance such as perceived facial expression (Thompson, 1980 ), apparent size (Kaufman & Kaufman, 2000 ), or visual event perception (Sekuler et al., 1997 ). This should serve as a reminder that the term “awareness” can have multiple meanings and that we need to be mindful of what aspects of awareness we are focusing on when considering perception outside of awareness. I was vividly reminded of this distinction upon seeing that a colored visual pattern subjected to CFS was fractionated into distinct features: the spatial configuration of the pattern could not be discerned under forced-choice testing but its color could be accurately reported (Hong & Blake, 2009 ). Color information survived CFS but form information did not. In a subsequent study a few years later, colleagues and I observed another instance of fractionation by CFS, this one involving form and flicker (Zadbood et al., 2011 ; see also Carlson & He, 2000 , for an example of form/flicker fractionation in the case of binocular rivalry). CFS, in other words, has the intriguing ability to disrupt unitary awareness of seemingly integrated features (Moors et al. 2017 ).

This is an appropriate place to acknowledge that “awareness” may not always be an all-or-none mental state but, instead, may at times be graded in terms of qualitative clarity (e.g., Dubois & Faivre, 2014 ; Lau & Passingham, 2006 ). As mentioned earlier, efforts have been made to construct scales (Ramsøy, et al., 2004 ; Zeki & Ffytche, 1998 ) and standardized inventories (Niikawa, Nishida & Miyahara, in press) that capture the graded quality of awareness. Moreover, awareness – like attention and visual working memory – has a given channel capacity that can be uniquely quantified by deriving the rate of change in the survival function of yet to be detected items within arrays differing in the number of items (Lappin et al., 2016 ). Lappin et al. ( 2020 ) speculate that this property of awareness may contribute to well-known failures of perceptual awareness documented in the laboratory (e.g., Simons & Chabris, 1999 ) as well as in important real-life situations (Drew et al., 2013 ).

To wrap up this essay succinctly, Charles Eriksen was an influential force in the emergence of our thinking about discrimination and learning outside of awareness, both in terms of his healthy skepticism about the literature on that topic during his nascent career and in terms of his subsequent contributions to the literature on attention and the flanker effect, as documented in other essays in this special issue. It can be said with confidence that the impetus for the recently developed techniques and more sophisticated analytic techniques for exploring visual processing outside of awareness were propelled by the skepticism voiced by DLWA as well as the avowed confidence of DLWA in the rigor of psychophysics to overcome skepticism about the potency of unconscious processes in shaping perception: visually important objects and events can indeed be processed in psychologically meaningful ways even though they have not been consciously identified. Eriksen’s skeptical prodding was an essential impetus in guiding us to a confirmation of that intuition. Indeed, the message contained in DLWA is in the DNA of contemporary thinking about awareness and its neural concomitants. In that respect Eriksen satisfied the aim he expressed in the concluding sentence of this classic paper:

“..to search for explanations of so called unconscious phenomena in terms of more common-place psychological variables. To do so may destroy the titillating mystery that the unconscious seems to hold, but then that is the business of science.” p. 298

The word consciousness, according to Web of Science, appears in the titles of more than 23,000 publications during the period 2000–2020, with those publications distributed among diverse disciplines including philosophy, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, clinical neurology, and the humanities.

Some of the biographical observations in this paragraph were harvested from the essay authored by colleagues and former students of Eriksen (Kramer et al., 1994 ) in honor of his retirement from the Editorship of Perception & Psychophysics .

One could write an article on the fascinating studies that have been published recently on the pupillary reflex and its sensitivity to non-photic, psychological factors, some of which exert their influence outside of consciousness (see, e.g., Binda et al., 2013 ; Jagiello et al., 2019 ; Naber & Nakayama, 2013 ; Laeng & Sulutvedt, 2014 ; Schwiedrzik & Sudmann, 2020 ).

Several subsequent review papers used our paper as a point of departure for expanding on aspects of some of these phenomena (Blake, 2014 ; Breitmeyer et al., 2008 ; Dubois & Faivre, 2014 ; Lin & He, 2009 ).

Nao Tsuchiya wowed people with his poster introducing CFS at the 2004 meetings of the Vision Sciences Society (Tsuchiya & Koch 2004 ). Interested readers can experience CFS for themselves by viewing the animation at this website through red/green anaglyphic filters: http://users.monash.edu.au/~naotsugt/Tsuchiya_Labs_Homepage/Demo_1.html

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Acknowledgements

This essay is dedicated to the memory of the late Robert Fox, my mentor who ingrained in me the lessons Charles Eriksen expressed in DWLA . Gordon Logan and Joseph Lappin, along with two anonymous reviewers, provided helpful comments on the essay. Support for this writing project was provided by the Centennial Research Fund, Vanderbilt University.

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Blake, R. Reflections on Eriksen’s seminal essay on discrimination, performance and learning without awareness. Atten Percept Psychophys 83 , 546–557 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-020-02098-9

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Diversity and Discrimination in the Classroom

What makes diversity unifying in some settings but divisive in others? We examine how the mixing of ethnic groups in German schools affects intergroup cooperation and trust. We leverage the quasi-random assignment of students to classrooms within schools to obtain variation in the type of diversity that prevails in a peer group. We combine this with a large-scale, incentivized lab-in-field-experiment based on the investment game, allowing us to assess the in-group bias of native German students in their interactions with fellow natives (in-group) versus immigrants (out-group). We find in-group bias peaks in culturally polarized classrooms, where the native and immigrant groups are both large, but have different religious or language backgrounds. In contrast, in classrooms characterized by non-cultural polarization, fractionalization, or a native supermajority, there are significantly lower levels of own-group favoritism. In terms of mechanisms, we find empirical evidence that culturally polarized classrooms foster negative stereotypes about immigrants' trustworthiness and amplify taste-based discrimination, both of which are costly and lead to lower payouts. In contrast, accurate statistical discrimination is ruled out by design in our experiment. These findings suggest that extra efforts are needed to counteract low levels of inclusivity and trust in culturally polarized environments.

We thank Samuel Bazzi, V. Bhaskar, Paul Niehaus, and David Yanagizawa-Drott, as well as seminar participants at several universities and conferences. We are grateful to the almost 20 research assistants and interns for their invaluable assistance with data collection. The project received generous financial support from the ifo Institute, University of Munich, University of St. Gallen, and University of Hamburg. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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