Black Ice? Race and the Political Psychology of Implicit Bias
Year: 2011
Type: preprint
Abstract: Research on implicit bias suggests many individuals hold negative racial attitudes that influence their political judgments without their control or awareness. One implication from this research is that implicit bias is hard to suppress because it operates subconsciously. This paper illustrates that racial differences hold one key to understanding why and how the influence of implicit bias can be minimized. It argues that African Americans’ racialization as a group motivates them to resist learning and expressing racially biased behaviors and preferences. This motivation, I hypothesize, should produce implicit attitudes that are less crystallized and weakly automated for Blacks. I test these expectations using an original survey-experiment on immigration that contains Black and White respondents and a validated measure of implicit attitude toward Latinos (i.e., Implicit Association Test). I find that while African Americans and Whites display negative implicit bias toward Latinos, these attitudes are significantly weaker among Blacks. I also show implicit bias is irrelevant to Black immigration policy judgments. Indeed, while implicit bias toward Latinos consistently guides White immigration policy judgments, it fails to influence Black policy evaluations, even when Latinos are directly cued. Ultimately, Black support for immigration policy is shaped by their in-group attachment - a predisposition which consistently reduces their support for exclusionary immigration policies.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Author: Efrén O. Pérez
Institution: Vanderbilt University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2261491126