An Unintentional, Robust, and Replicable Pro-Black Bias in Social Judgment

Abstract

PRO-BLACK BIAS IN SOCIAL JUDGMENT 2 AbstractEmpirical evidence and social commentary demonstrate favoring of Whites over Blacks in attitudes, social judgment, and social behavior. In 6 studies (N > 4,000), we provide evidence for a pro-Black bias in academic decision-making. When making multiple admissions decisions for an academic honor society, participants from undergraduate and online samples had a more relaxed acceptance criterion for Black than White candidates, even though participants possessed implicit and explicit preferences for Whites over Blacks. This pro-Black criterion bias persisted among subsamples that wanted to be unbiased and believed they were unbiased. It also persisted even when participants were given warning of the bias or incentives to perform accurately.These results suggest opportunity for theoretical and empirical innovation on the conditions under which biases in social judgment favor and disfavor different social groups, and how those biases manifest outside of awareness or control. If there is one conclusion to draw from decades of research on stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination in the United States, it is that Whites are treated more favorably than Blacks (Greenwald & Pettigrew, 2014;List, 2004;Pager & Shepherd, 2008). Historically, this is understood in the context of slavery, lynchings, segregation, and state-sponsored discrimination.But, evidence from late 20th and early 21st century research suggests that the effects persist, if in subtler, even unintentional forms (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995;Nosek, Smyth et al., 2007). Whites exhibited associations, attitudes, or behaviors that favored Whites over Blacks, and two papers in which Whites had attitudes, associations or behaviors that favored Blacks over Whites.In the first instance of pro-Black behavior (Unzueta, Everly & Gutierrez, 2014), White participants reported greater liking for a Black than White person after each complained about experiencing discrimination. In the other instance (Galinsky, Hall, & Cuddy, 2013), a majorityWhite sample was more likely to choose a Black female than White female candidate for a leadership position within a company, though White males were preferred over Black males.That such a majority of the research finds preferences for Whites over Blacks is perhaps not surprising given that, on average, Whites show explicit and implicit preferences for Whites PRO-BLACK BIAS IN SOCIAL JUDGMENT

An unintentional pro‐Black bias in judgement among educators

“…Replicating the results found in Axt, Ebersole, et al . (), Black applicants ( M = −0.36, SD = 0.52) received a lower criterion than White applicants ( M = 0.15, SD = 0.46), t (582) = 21.91, p < .001, d = .91, 95% CI (.81, 1.00), and this pattern held among White, Black, and Hispanic participants (see Table ).…”

“…The sample size allowed for greater than 99.9% power at detecting a Cohen's d = .45, which was the average effect size in differences between White and Black criterion in Axt, Ebersole, et al . ().…”

“…This completion rate is relatively low, but is comparable to other online volunteer samples asked to do similar tasks (e.g., Study 3 in Axt, Ebersole, et al . ; had a completion rate of 64.0%, and Study 5 had a completion rate of 62.6%). The sample size allowed for greater than 99.9% power at detecting a Cohen's d = .45, which was the average effect size in differences between White and Black criterion in Axt, Ebersole, et al .…”

“…Given the growing literature of studies finding both pro‐Black and anti‐Black bias in behaviour, the present study tests whether the same pro‐Black behavioural bias observed in Axt, Ebersole, et al . () would also be found in a large sample likely holding real‐world experience evaluating people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds: education professionals. The study also investigates how such biases relate to perceived and desired performance, as well as explicit and implicit racial attitudes.…”

“…First, by using a sample of professionals who may make academic, administrative, and punitive decisions for students from various races, this study can strengthen the generalizability and potential real‐world impact of earlier findings (Axt, Ebersole, et al . ), and can help identify contexts where behaviour may favour majority versus minority group members. Second, the sample adds to the relatively small amount of research concerning implicit attitudes among teachers (e.g., O'Brien et al ., ; Van den Bergh et al ., ).…”