Doll Test: The Effects of Racism on Children In the 1940s, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark designed and conducted a series of experiments known colloquially as “the doll tests” to study the psychological effects of segregation on African-American children.Drs. Clark used dolls, identical except for color, to test children’s racial perceptions. Their subjects, children between the ages of three to seven, were asked to identify both the race of the dolls & which color doll they prefer. A maj

It’s wild and heartbreaking that the “Doll Test” is still relevant in 2025. First run in the 1940s by Drs. Kenneth and Mamie Clark, it exposed the deep psychological scars of systemic racism… how children, even before they can spell “prejudice,” already know what the world values… and what it doesn’t. Watching this replicated decades later, across oceans with the same results, it’s not just history repeating, it’s society refusing to evolve. The system doesn’t need chains when it can program min