Lawrence, Harrison and Stone Article

The purpose of the study conducted by Lawrence, Harrison and Stone was to uncover the perceptions that typical college students have about college athletes. With the word 'perception' also comes the word 'stereotype,' and that is the central theme behind the article. A stereotype is defined as, "as an exaggerated belief associated with a category. Its function is to justify (rationalize) our conduct in relation to that category."

As I was reading the section at the beginning about the Perceptual Confirmation Paradigm (PCP), I couldn't help but to somewhat smile. I have had multiple conversations with friends and others of the same race and around the same age. The majority of the people I've had conversations with about racial stereotypes basically don't like to acknowledge the stereotypes exist. I have used an example that I heard from a guest lecturer many times while having this conversation. His example dealt with a study done with employers reviewing the resumes of applicants. The research team put together resumes that had practically identical credentials, including the same quality education, the same amount of experience and the same skill set. The main difference on each resume was the name attached to the top. Half of the resumes included typically "white" sounding names (John, David, Jeff), while the other half of the resumes included typically "black" sounding names (Jamal, Tyrone, Malcolm). I don't remember the exact numbers, but the results were significant. Employers, from all types of companies, regularly would invite the "white" sounding names in for interviews over the "black" sounding names.

Until reading this article, I had never developed a sport-specific example. The article explains how white participants were asked to evaluate a basketball players talents based on listening to a radio broadcast of the contest. Half of the participants were told the player to evaluate was white, and the other half was told the player was black. The participants who thought the athlete was white used terms like "less athletic ability," "court smarts" and "hustle." The perceived black athlete was said to have more athletic ability and less court smarts. Keep in mind, this was the same athlete. As I've mentioned, this is an unbelievable example to show that stereotypes exist whether or not we are willing to believe they do or not.