Current Directions in Psychological Science-June 2018

'''Salter, P. S., Adams, G., & Perez, M. J. (2018). Racism in the structure of everyday worlds: A cultural-psychological perspective. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27(3), 150-155.'''

Racism is often not distinguished from individual psychologies such as discrimination, prejudice, stereotyping, and bigotry. Studies of racism can inadvertently ignore the historical and cultural impact of racism and how this influences marginalization and individual cognitions about race. Moving the study and discussion of racism from inside the mind to the world outside is imperative in gaining a full understanding of the psychology of racism. In other words, “the problem with restricted focus on individual bias is that it obscures the institutional, systemic, and cultural processes that perpetuate and maintain race-based hierarchies.” The authors take a cultural-psychology approach in order to illuminate racism as not only a cognitive bias but also a cultural structure. This approach views racism in the mind and in culture as “inseparable outgrowths of one another” that equally contribute to psychological manifestations of racism both inwardly and outwardly. The authors argue that applying the cultural-psychological perspective to racism can provide a better understanding of the cognitive underpinnings of racism as well as the cultural influences and implications.