Racial Issues and Behavior Analysis: Experiences and Contributions From Brazil

Racial disparities are a major social issue that affects not only Brazil but also the world. Racial inequalities in Brazil are highlighted in several social indicators, such as living conditions, years of education, mortality rates, and unemployment rates, among others. The current article aims to highlight the Brazilian contribution to research exploring the relationship between racial issues and behavior analysis to bring visibility to the work of Brazilian researchers and professors. Four contributions of Brazilian researchers are highlighted: (a) behavior-analytic accounts of racial prejudice, (b) stereotype threat (a phenomenon that shows that the performance of an able individual can be impaired when a negative stereotype about this person’s group is highlighted), (c) institutional racism in the Brazilian Military Police Force, and (d) the use of latency-based measures to assess racial biases. We finish with suggestions for future research and for increasing collaboration between Brazilian researchers and researchers in English-speaking (and other) countries, making our contributions more accessible to foreign researchers and students.