Insisting you’re not racist may backfire, researchers find
When you insist you're not racist, you may unwittingly be sending the opposite message. That's the conclusion of a new study by three Berkeley Haas researchers who conducted experiments with white participants claiming to hold egalitarian views. After asking them to write statements explaining why they weren't prejudiced against Black people, they found that other white people could nevertheless gauge the writers' underlying prejudice. "Americans almost universally espouse egalitarianism and wish to see themselves as non-biased, yet racial prejudice persists," says Berkeley Haas Asst. Prof. Drew Jacoby Senghor, one of the authors. "Our results suggest that the explicit goal of appearing egalitarian might blind people to the possibility that they could be communicating, and perpetuating, prejudicial attitudes." Co-authored by Derek Brown, PhD 24, and Michael Rosenblum, PhD 20-a post-doctoral scholar at NYU Stern School of Business-the study builds on past research finding people's racial prejudice "leaks out" through nonverbal behavior, such as facial expressions or physical distance. In a series of experiments published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , the researchers looked at perceptions based solely on written content. They selected a group of white participants, screening out the small percentage who expressed overt prejudice, and scored subjects' racial attitudes with two widely used assessments. The subjects were then asked: "Do you believe that all people are equal and should have equality of opportunity?
