Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science (JCBS)
Volume 42, October 2026
Authors
Changzhi Wu & Matthew Lewon
Key Findings
- Racist beliefs arise from social contingencies shaping race-related verbal behavior.
- Race becomes reified through history, law, and scientific misinterpretation.
- Verbal behavior influences racist actions but is not their cause.
- Limited intergroup contact strengthens verbally constructed racial hostility.
- Reducing racism requires altering social contingencies and race-related verbal practices.
Abstract
Definitions of racism typically describe both racist beliefs and overt racist acts that affect others. Traditional accounts assume that the former causes the latter, but such accounts are not coherent with behavioristic assumptions that (a) beliefs are acts of individuals (typically verbal in nature) and (b) behavior is ultimately understood in terms of its relations to context. The purpose of this paper is to provide a behavioristic analysis of the relation between racist beliefs and overt racist acts. First, we provide an analysis of how people's behavior with respect to the construct of race is established through social contingencies, including a discussion of how historical circumstances contributed to the reification of the race construct as a perceived fundamental difference between groups of people. Second, we provide an analysis of the relationship between race-related verbal behavior and overt racist acts. We suggest that race-related verbal behavior is evoked by individuals' contexts, and that its stimulating properties then become a part of the contexts in which overt racist acts occur, but should not be considered the causes of those acts. Nevertheless, the ubiquity of race-related verbal behaviors in human contexts and the social contingencies that bring them about contribute significantly to the intractability and prevalence of racism. The implications of this analysis for understanding relations between verbal and other forms of behavior, as well as for addressing practical issues, are discussed.