Análise do comportamento e preconceito racial: Possibilidades de interpretação e desafios

It has been pointed out that, despite the apparent power of behavior analysis as a tool to address several social problems, behavior analysts have not pursued these areas as diligently as possible. The present work sought to contribute to a behavioral analysis of racial prejudice, by relating experimental work dealing with these phenomena with theoretical interpretations relevant to an understanding of prejudice. The conception of attitudes as verbal behavior, contributions of the stimulus equivalence paradigm and Relational Frame Theory (RFT) to the study of racial prejudice were analyzed, as well as experimental models for social stereotyping and social categorization and stigmatization. The analyses showed that, although few researches have analyzed racial prejudice experimentally, using behavior-analytic paradigms and models available, the theoretical formulations of behavior analysis do provide elements to analyze such phenomena. We suggest the articulation with the wide body of knowledge from other areas. Social Psychology, in particular, has been addressing these questions for a long time and can contribute toward the design of experiments, as well as with explanatory models for the formation, maintenance, and specially reduction of racial prejudice.