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Dr. Clark & Self-Concept
Dr. Clark & Self-Concept
Even though we tend to think of 'self-concept' as something solitary, private, and innate, research shows that it's actually very social. A famous study by Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark and her husband Dr. Kenneth Clark, referred to as the 'Doll Test', explored some of the ways that social messages impact children's self-concepts. Dr. Phipps Clark, who was originally a math major and physics minor, studied psychology as a graduate student and developed a study that was cited by the Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education.
"In 1938, Mamie Clark graduated magna cum laude from Howard University, and immediately enrolled in the psychology graduate program. In her master's thesis she investigated when black children became aware of themselves as having a distinct "self," and when they became aware of belonging to a particular racial group. Her thesis, "The Development of Consciousness of Self in Negro Pre-School Children," was the beginning of a line of research that became historic when it was used to make racial segregation unconstitutional in American public schools. She defined "race consciousness" as a consciousness of self as belonging to a specific group which is differentiated from other groups by obvious physical characteristics. She concluded that children became aware of their "blackness" very early in their childhood (likely by age 4 or 5), and it was precisely this conclusion that became the foundation and the guiding premise for the Clark's famous doll studies." (source)
The Doll Test
The Doll Test
As Kenneth Clark later reported: "Mamie and I were into the racial preferences and identification of Negro student research…. It was an extension of her Master’s thesis on racial identification of Negro students. That was the thing that came to be known as the “Dolls Test” that the Supreme Court cited. The record should show that was Mamie’s primary project that I crashed. I sort of piggybacked on it." (K. B. Clark, as cited in Nyman, 2010, p. 76)
In their 1947 report, the Clarks presented the results from one of their new methods of assessing racial identification and preferences: the Dolls Test. In this test, black children ages 3 through 7 were presented with four dolls that were identical except for skin and hair color. Two of the dolls had brown skin and black hair, and two of the dolls had white skin and yellow hair. To assess racial preference, the children were presented with the four dolls and responded to the following requests by picking one of the dolls and handing it to the experimenter: “1) Give me the doll that you like to play with or like best; 2) Give me the doll that is a nice doll; 3) Give me the doll that looks bad; and 4) Give me the doll that is a nice color.” The children were then asked to make racial identifications (e.g., “Give me the doll that looks like a colored child”) and self-identification (“Give me the doll that looks like you”).
The Doll Test, cont.
The Doll Test, cont.
The Clarks tested over 250 black children, 134 of whom attended segregated nursery and public schools in the south (Arkansas), and 119 of whom attended racially mixed schools in the northeast (Massachusetts). They found that by age 7, 87% of the children correctly self-identified by choosing the brown doll as the one who looked like them. In terms of racial preference, the majority of black children chose the white doll as the doll they wanted to play with (67%), indicated that the white doll was the nice doll (59%), indicated that the brown doll looked bad (59%), and chose the white doll as having the nice color (60%).
While these findings were similar for children in both the segregated schools of the south and the racially mixed schools of the north, the Clarks reported that many of the southern children appeared to have internalized a passive, resigned acceptance of their inferior racial status, while children in the racially mixed schools seemed more aware of the injustice of racial discrimination and were more actively upset by it. They concluded that integration was a key to helping children, both black and white, achieve healthy racial self-identification and to improve race relations. (source)
Since the 1940s, the study has been reproduced, and continues to find similar results. Below are two videos from modern, non-scientific 'replications' of this experiment. To complete the quiz, make sure you watch both videos (skip to 3:20 on the first one to see the study) before answering the questions.
Reflection Questions
Reflection Questions
The Doll Test is famous both for its findings and the simplicity of its design. If you were going to replicate the experiment, what are one or two things you might add or change? For instance, you might ask children to ask which doll other people like better, or which doll seems smarter, etc. You can maintain the focus on race, or you can expand it to include other aspects of identity (e.g., gender, disability, nationality, etc).
What were your reactions when watching the videos? Where do you think the children picked up these ideas from, and is there any advice you would give to these sources (e.g., parents, teachers, children's media producers, toy designers) about how to reverse these effects?
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