This project capitalizes upon current understanding of implicit attitudes in social psychology. The study of implicit processes has been especially prevalent in the area of stereotyping and prejudice where researchers have determined that attitudes and associations activated implicitly may be consistent with or strikingly contradictory to attitudes activated explicitly. For example, White people's explicit attitudes may lead them to espouse egalitarian and non-prejudiced attitudes toward African Americans. However, various cognitive, motivational and social processes can simultaneously lead to negative implicit attitudes and stereotypic associations in relation to African Americans. These associations have been linked to discriminatory outcomes in many domains, including education, psychological health, employment outcomes, medical care, and policing. Therefore, understanding how implicit biases can be changed is critically important not only for advances in our knowledge of attitudes, but also for reducing the pervasive consequences of implicit prejudice.
The purpose of the research in this grant is to improve understanding of the potential effectiveness of different strategies for changing implicit attitudes, the time course and persistence of change brought about through these strategies, as well as the underlying processes through which change may be achieved. In addition, the research examines the effects of implicit bias reduction strategies on judgmental and evaluative behavioral outcomes in short and long term contexts, and with respect to interracial interactions. The first set of experiments examines the effectiveness of intergroup bias reduction strategies among Whites. The second set of experiments examines the effects of the change strategies on judgmental and evaluative behavioral outcomes. The final set of experiments focuses on the outcomes of implicit bias change among members of stereotyped groups who have negative implicit biases related to their own group. Ultimately, this research will advance current understanding of the interplay of automatic and controlled processes by providing and testing a framework of implicit bias change.
Implicit racial biases are forms of intergroup bias (e.g., negative evaluations or stereotypes) that can be activated and influence people’s responses without people’s conscious awareness or intent. Considerable research has shown that people behave in discriminatory ways because of implicit biases—even people whose conscious beliefs are egalitarian and non-prejudiced. The pernicious effects of these biases in producing discriminatory outcomes have been documented in the laboratory and in a variety of real-world settings, having implications for unequal treatment in realms such as interpersonal interactions, employment and education, and in health care diagnoses and treatment plans. The critical goals of this grant included discovering how best to increase people’s awareness of their implicit biases, and providing people with scientifically sound guidelines for reducing their implicit biases. Indeed, these goals are critical to the pursuit of equality in the 21st century, as many people currently profess their egalitarianism but simultaneously treat outgroups in subtly biased ways. Three strategies for managing and reducing implicit biases were examined across many experiments, both in laboratory-based single-session experiments and in longitudinal research in real-world contexts. These strategies included 1) self-regulatory learning, which entails becoming aware of one’s proneness to implicit biases and learning to monitor, detect, and inhibit the processes that otherwise would result in relying on implicit biases; 2) counterstereotypic learning, which entails practicing group-based associations with target group members that run counter to stereotypes (e.g., activating "motivated" upon seeing a Black student, rather than "lazy"); and 3) self-outgroup linking, which involves linking an outgroup member to the self through a common ingroup. Methods for teaching people about implicit biases and these strategies were developed and tested across multiple contexts. Results from the experiments suggest that practice using these strategies (and, in particular, entraining inhibitory responses to stereotype activation plus practicing non-biased associations) decreases proneness to implicit biases and their discriminatory outcomes. In addition, the extent of effectiveness for certain strategies can depend on one being sufficiently internally or externally motivated to avoid prejudiced responses. This is particularly the case for self-regulation learning. Furthermore, certain strategies are more likely to reduce evaluative (having overall positive or negative reactions to outgroups) but not stereotypic (i.e., thinking of outgroups in terms of certain traits) implicit biases. This is particularly the case for self-regulation learning and self-outgroup linking. The project has also examined the implications of using these strategies for interracial interactions (i.e., whether such interactions are approached or avoided, and how the course of interactions is affected). Although additional research is needed, my preliminary conclusions are that the strategies 1) facilitate a promotion focus in which people are motivated to approach interracial interactions with the goal of having achieving positive interactions, and 2) the self-regulation learning strategy is more likely to facilitate this promotion focus among people who are strongly motivated to respond without prejudice, whereas the counterstereotyping method is more effective for less internally motivated people. These findings are encouraging, as we know from past research that merely learning about one’s proneness to implicit outgroup biases, without being equipped with a strategy for managing them, can have negative outcomes for interracial interactions. In conclusion, the automaticity of implicit biases against outgroups can easily lead people to be pessimistic about the possibility of effectual change of the biases and associated discriminatory responses. However, research funded by this project resulted in the development of three strategies that people can be taught for recognizing and managing their implicit biases.
