Aversive Racism - Aversive Racism Studies

Aversive Racism Studies

In an experiment conducted by Gaertner and Dovidio in 2000, white college students were asked to assess the credentials and to make hiring recommendations for prospective white and black job candidates with either strong, weak, or marginal credentials. The results showed no overt discrimination when the applicants clearly had strong or weak credentials. Signs of aversive racism appeared only when the applicants possessed marginal credentials. Black candidates were recommended more than 20% less than the same white candidates who had the same marginal credentials.

Dovidio and Gaertner showed evidence of aversive racism in the 1970s and 1980s with their field research. People from a list of conservative and liberal political parties in Brooklyn, New York were called by a "wrong number" caller, a confederate to the researcher, attempting to get hold of a mechanic to come help them with their broken down car. The confederate called from a pay phone and was out of change to make another call and asked the participant to make the call for them. The independent variable, or the variable the experimenter changed, was the dialect of the confederate to convince the participant that the "wrong number" caller was either White or Black. It was also noted how many people just hung-up the phone when they found it was a wrong number.

Conservatives were significantly less helpful to Blacks than Whites, helping Whites out 92% of the time and helping Blacks out 65% of the time (Dovidio & Gaertner, p. 69). The liberals helped Whites 85% of the time and Blacks 75% of the time (Dovidio & Gaertner, p. 69). However, people from the liberal party hung up prematurely on Blacks 19% versus 3% of the time on Whites, while the conservatives prematurely hung up on 8% of the Blacks and 5% of the Whites (Dovidio & Gaertner, p. 69). Such a big percentage gap with the liberals show that they may have a high affinity for an egalitarian society, but they still foster racial prejudices.