An Article – The Doll Baby Experiment
Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com
Do you remember the first doll that you owned? Was it white or Black? Did teh race of the doll matter when you brought it?
There was a study done years ago where researchers took young children and sat them in front of two dolls. One doll was white and the other was black, the test was to determine how that children was the two races and to see which doll they preferred. They were then ask a series of question like which doll is pretty? Which doll is ugly? Which doll looks just like you? There were a variety of races amongst the children so that researchers could get the most accurate answer from this experiment.
There was a trend amongst the children, many of them said that the white doll was the pretty, kind, better doll while the black doll was the ugly, bad, and least liked doll. When asked why they though that their only explanation was that the black doll was ugly because it was black and the white doll was pretty because it was white. One of the most shocking things was that when asked what doll they looked like the most a majority of the children pointed top the white doll whether of no they were the same race or not.
This leave the question is there racism in the schools or is it something deeper and more complex then that. Many people blame in on the media stating that they give children bad images of who they are suppose to be and idolize. In commercials there are more commercials staring white models and actors whether they are selling hair products or cars.
Then there are the people that blame the parents, stating that the children must first learn form their parents and if the parents do not set a good standard fro the children that they will never be able to appreciate who they are as individuals. If an African American child is willing to look at an African American doll and say that it is ugly then later say that, that doll most closely resembles them it means that they do not have a high viewing of themselves as a race and as a person.
Whether you believe that it is the medias fault, the parents fault, or even the child’s fault, one must stop and think is there truly a way to stop this from happening in the next generation or are we doomed to be stuck in this cycle forever.
( study was done by Kenneth Clark )
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