Is Discrimination Widespread? Testing Assumptions about Bias on a University Campus

Abstract

Discrimination has persisted in our society despite steady improvements in explicit attitudes toward marginalized social groups. The most common explanation for this apparent paradox is that due to implicit biases, most individuals behave in slightly discriminatory ways outside of their own awareness (the dispersed discrimination account). Another explanation holds that a numerical minority of individuals who are moderately or highly biased are responsible for most observed discriminatory behaviors (the concentrated discrimination account). We tested these two accounts against each other in a series of studies at a large, public university (total N = 16,600). In four large-scale surveys, students from marginalized groups reported that they generally felt welcome and respected on campus (albeit less so than non-marginalized students) and that a numerical minority of their peers (around 20%) engage in subtle or explicit forms of discrimination. In five field experiments with eight different samples, we manipulated the social group membership of trained confederates and measured the behaviors of naïve bystanders. The results showed that between 5 and 20% of the participants treated the confederates belonging to marginalized groups more negatively than non-marginalized confederates. Our findings are inconsistent with the dispersed discrimination account but support the concentrated discrimination account. The Pareto principle states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Our results suggest that the Pareto principle also applies to discrimination, at least at the large, public university where the studies were conducted. We discuss implications for pro-diversity initiatives. This paper has not been published.

Why Antibias Interventions (Need Not) Fail

“…Interventionists often assume that they can change organizational culture by changing the hearts and minds of individuals in that organization. Yet what targets of bias often report is not a series of unrelated biased episodes but episodes that reveal patterns of BIASes embedded in a culture and perpetuated by social norms (Markus & Kitayama, 2010), albeit enacted by a minority of people (Campbell & Brauer, 2020). Thus, efforts to counteract biased behavior at scale hinge on changing the cultural context.…”

Incorporating Social-Marketing Insights Into Prejudice Research: Advancing Theory and Demonstrating Real-World Applications

“…We also know very little about how widespread different kinds of intergroup behaviors are. We know that individuals belonging to marginalized groups are treated more negatively on average but usually do not know what percentage of the population is actually responsible for negative intergroup behavior (Campbell & Brauer, 2019). For example, the average scientist evaluates female candidates for a lab-manager position more negatively than equally qualified male candidates (Moss-Racusin et al, 2012), but we do not know whether this bias is due to a numerical majority of scientists’ slight preferences for men or to a numerical minority of scientists who systematically prefer the male candidate.…”

“…A similar reasoning can be applied to research examining how different groups differ in readiness to change their intergroup behaviors. Groups of individuals with high scores on motivational measures (e.g., internal motivation to respond without prejudice; Plant & Devine, 1998) or who are strongly committed to diversity (Campbell & Brauer, 2019) are likely to be willing to change their behavior. It is unclear, however, how different segments compare in terms of ability to change their behavior.…”

Using a social marketing approach to develop a pro-diversity intervention

“…A large-scale campus climate survey was conducted while we were holding focus groups (total N = 8,652; Campbell and Brauer, 2020a). The results of this survey showed that 18% of students of color had personally experienced hostile, harassing or intimidating behavior compared to 11% of white students, which is consistent with the finding from focus groups that these incidents did occur, but were less common than often assumed and not the primary factor determining the sense of belonging among students of color.…”

“…Finally, we ran a series of observational field experiments to determine how members of marginalized social groups were treated compared to non-marginalized peers across a series of subtle behaviors (Campbell and Brauer, 2020a). We reasoned that although experiences of overt discrimination may be propagated by a small proportion of students with extreme views, slightly negative treatment of individuals from marginalized backgrounds could be widespread among individuals.…”