Washington, Oct 4 (ANI): Racial prejudice could be fought simply by having a person mimic the movements of a member of the race he or she is prejudiced against, according to a new study.
Asking white people to mirror the movements of a black person lowers their levels of implicit prejudice, the report said.
The method may work by activating brain mechanisms that contribute to feelings of empathy.
"We've shown that when people mimic others who belong to a different race than their own they tend to be less prejudiced toward that race," said Michael Inzlicht, professor in the department of psychology at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC).
Inzlicht, along with Jennifer N. Gutsell and Lisa Legault, also of UTSC, divided 63 white students into three groups and had them watch a video of a person repeatedly reaching for a bottle and taking a drink of water. One group watched a video with a black actor, and group members were instructed to mimic his movements. For comparison, another group mimicked the movements of a white actor, and the third group simply watched a black actor.
After the video, the group that had mimicked the black actor scored lower on a test of implicit prejudice against black people than either of the other two groups.
Inzlicht thinks that the reduction in prejudice he saw in his study is likely only short-term, since it was based on mimicking movements for only 140 seconds.
But he thinks mimicry over the longer term might make more permanent changes.
The study will be published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. (ANI)
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