Group Methods for Reducing Racial Prejudice and Discrimination

To compare the efficacy of various group methods in reducing racial prejudice, black and white high school students were assigned to a no-treatment control group and to four experimental groups ( n = 5 per group): game-playing, school-issues discussion, racial discussion, and racial role-playing. After six sessions, all experimental groups reduced their verbal prejudice on the factor Respect of the Behavioral Differential, the game-playing group increased their interracial behavioral interactions, and the racial discussion and racial role-playing groups increased their interracial choices of project partners. The implications of these results, although in need of cross-validation, for various theories of the origin and treatment of prejudice were discussed.