The Development Of Consciousness Of Self, By Kenneth B. Clark
Kenneth B. Clark was born in Panama Canal Zone, Panama (). Clark died on May 1, 2005 in Hastings-On-Hudson, New York ().Clark’s mother wanted to give her son a good education and thought it would be best to move to America. Clark’s father disagreed and the couple soon split after Clark and his mother moved to Harlem, New York. Clark then attended public school at age 5. Clark attended the famous George Washington High School (). Clark attended Howard University where he wanted to study economics but soon changed his major after attending a psychology class. He said that he wanted to go into psychology to better understand racism and prejudice (). Clark earned his Bachelors in psychology from Howard and his PhD at Columbia university (). During
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Also the African American community was shocked at the results of the test. This was also the first time that a psychologist was focusing specifically on prejudice and discrimination. Clark’s studies were ground breaking in the field of psychology because of his take on how racism can affect how a person think’s of there “self” worth. In Clark’s journal “The Development of Consciousness of Self”, He explains that the reason that the experiment went the way it did is because “… The “I” or self is only gradually formed, perhaps in the second or third year. Not until then does the concept of property appear, of the belonging of a thing to his or her own person” (). So by stating this Clark believed that the reason the reason the children picked the doll is because of the brain being at such a young age and with racial society surrounding them. Clark wanted to prove this so he created the doll test again only this time he had older children rather than younger ones. In this test the result was reversed and the African American Children picked the black doll for the positive questions. These results proved that the mind at 2 to 3 years old still doesn’t have the development of self-worth. Also with the society boundaries of racism it persuaded the African American children to think of themselves as second class
Also the African American community was shocked at the results of the test. This was also the first time that a psychologist was focusing specifically on prejudice and discrimination. Clark’s studies were ground breaking in the field of psychology because of his take on how racism can affect how a person think’s of there “self” worth. In Clark’s journal “The Development of Consciousness of Self”, He explains that the reason that the experiment went the way it did is because “… The “I” or self is only gradually formed, perhaps in the second or third year. Not until then does the concept of property appear, of the belonging of a thing to his or her own person” (). So by stating this Clark believed that the reason the reason the children picked the doll is because of the brain being at such a young age and with racial society surrounding them. Clark wanted to prove this so he created the doll test again only this time he had older children rather than younger ones. In this test the result was reversed and the African American Children picked the black doll for the positive questions. These results proved that the mind at 2 to 3 years old still doesn’t have the development of self-worth. Also with the society boundaries of racism it persuaded the African American children to think of themselves as second class