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Racial Issues and Behavior Analysis: Experiences and Contributions From Brazil

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Abstract

Racial disparities are a major social issue that affects not only Brazil but also the world. Racial inequalities in Brazil are highlighted in several social indicators, such as living conditions, years of education, mortality rates, and unemployment rates, among others. The current article aims to highlight the Brazilian contribution to research exploring the relationship between racial issues and behavior analysis to bring visibility to the work of Brazilian researchers and professors. Four contributions of Brazilian researchers are highlighted: (a) behavior-analytic accounts of racial prejudice, (b) stereotype threat (a phenomenon that shows that the performance of an able individual can be impaired when a negative stereotype about this person’s group is highlighted), (c) institutional racism in the Brazilian Military Police Force, and (d) the use of latency-based measures to assess racial biases. We finish with suggestions for future research and for increasing collaboration between Brazilian researchers and researchers in English-speaking (and other) countries, making our contributions more accessible to foreign researchers and students.

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Notes

  1. To review the studies that used the IRAP to assess racial biases, see Mizael and de Almeida’s (2019) study.

  2. We found a study published by Guerin (2003), but it was not in a behavior-analytic journal.

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Author Note

We would like to thank everyone who is fighting to reduce racial inequalities in Brazil and abroad. We would especially like to thank Professor Julio de Rose for being a key person in the dissemination of studies on the relation between behavior analysis and racial issues in Brazil and for reading and commenting on a previous version of this article.

Funding

Táhcita Mizael was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the São Paulo Research Foundation (Grant 2020/02548-7) and also by the scientific program of the Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia sobre Comportamento, Cognição e Ensino, supported by CNPq (Grants 573972/2008-7 and 465686/2014-1) and FAPESP (Grants 2008/57705-8 and 2014/50909-8). Weslen Chaves was funded by the Coordination of Superior Level Staff Improvement for general continued support (PROEX 23038.005155/2017-67). His research was also funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation with a scientific initiation research scholarship (Process 2018/06379-5).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Experimental Psychology, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, Brazil

    Táhcita Medrado Mizael

  2. Faculty of Science and Humanities, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP), São Paulo, Brazil

    Caroline Luiza Coelho

  3. Department of Psychology, Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar), São Paulo, Brazil

    Weslen Chaves Rodrigues

  4. Department of General Psychology and Behavior Analysis, Universidade Estadual de Londrina (UEL), São Paulo, Brazil

    João Henrique de Almeida

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  1. Táhcita Medrado Mizael
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  2. Caroline Luiza Coelho
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  3. Weslen Chaves Rodrigues
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  4. João Henrique de Almeida
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Correspondence to Táhcita Medrado Mizael.

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Mizael, T.M., Coelho, C.L., Rodrigues, W.C. et al. Racial Issues and Behavior Analysis: Experiences and Contributions From Brazil. Behav. Soc. Iss. 30, 495–513 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-021-00071-1

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