Racismo e fragilidade branca - um estudo exploratório em análise do comportamento a partir de entrevistas narrativas.

Abstract

This master's dissertation sought to investigate the phenomenon of racial prejudice under the behavior analysis perspective, with emphasis on the intersection of this phenomenon with the concept of White Fragility (DiAngelo, 2018). The general objective was to understand how racial prejudice manifests in the discourse of university students and in what manner white fragility influences this dynamic. The research used an exploratory methodology, based on the Reno method, with the collection of data realized through narrative interviews with five Psychology students of UFG self-declared white, brown, and black. The data were submitted to a Behavioral Analysis of Discourse under the conceptual lens of Relational Frame Theory (RFT) to verify the (in)viability of investigation of racism through verbal behavior and identification of functional relations or of relational frames in the narratives of the volunteers. The results indicated that White Fragility manifests as an operant avoidance behavior, where white individuals utilize avoidance strategies to the racial theme. In contrast, racism manifests in black/brown individuals as an operant cost of “internalized avoidance”, suffering and aesthetic conformity. The analysis of the narratives confirmed the possibility of clear identifications of relational frames in the discourse, and how that racism is maintained by arbitrary chains of coordination, hierarchization and opposition, especially when relating black phenotypic characteristics to negative and aversive values (e.g., “Dark Skin” → “Danger”; “Afro Hair” → “Bad”). The conclusion of the dissertation is that racism is maintained by an arbitrary relational responding repertoire in the verbal community. The implications point to the necessity of opposition to White Fragility and for the development of antiracist interventions based on RFT in future research, that aim at the dismantling of symbolic chains not only at the individual level of learning of each person, but also in environments of more generalized learning, especially the school and/or academic context.