第一章 心理学概论
案例2：心理研究的力量
In 1954, the United States Supreme Court handed down a judgment, in the case known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, that made segregated schools for black and white children illegal. The Supreme Court’s decision was influenced in no small part by the testimony of psychologists and other social scientists who presented research on the psychological harm done to black school children by segregation. Here is the testimony given by one research psychologist, Kenneth Clark, in a case that led up to Brown—Clark is reporting his research with a group of young black children （Whitman, 1993, pp. 49–51）:00.
I made these tests on Thursday and Friday of this past week at your request, and I presented it to children in the Scott’s Branch Elementary school, concentrating particularly on the elementary group. I used these methods which I told you about—the Negro and White dolls—which were identical in every respect save skin color. And, I presented them with a sheet of paper on which there were these drawings of dolls.
I presented these dolls to them and I asked them the following questions in the following order: “Show me the doll that you like best or that you’d like to play with,” “Show me the doll that is the ‘nice’ doll,”“Show me the doll that looks ‘bad,’”.
I found that of the children between the ages of six and nine whom I tested, which were a total of sixteen in number, that ten of those children chose the white doll as their preference; the doll which they liked best. Ten of them also considered the white doll a “nice” doll. And, I think you have to keep in mind that these two dolls are absolutely identical in every respect except skin color. Eleven of these sixteen children chose the brown doll as the doll which looked “bad.” This is consistent with previous results which we have obtained testing over three hundred children, and we interpret it to mean that the Negro child accepts as early as six, seven or eight the negative stereotypes about his own group.
The conclusion which I was forced to reach was that these children in Clarendon County, like other human beings who are subjected to an obviously inferior status in the society in which they live, have been definitely harmed in the development of their personalities; that the signs of instability in their personalities are clear, and I think that every psychologist would accept and interpret these signs as such.
Can you see why this testimony—a straightforward narration of psychological research—had a great impact on the Supreme Court and the nation’s understanding of the psychological costs of segregation？