Aversive Racism - Combating Aversive Racism

Combating Aversive Racism

Re-directing ingroup bias

Several possibilities exist for how to combat aversive racism. One method looks to the cognitive foundations of prejudice. The basic socio-cognitive process of creating in-groups and out-groups is what leads many to identify with their own race while feeling averted to other races, or out-group members. According to the common ingroup identity model inducing individuals to recategorize themselves and others as part of a larger, superordinate group can lead to more positive attitudes towards members of a former out-group. Research has shown this model to be effective. This shows that changing the in-group criteria from race to something else that includes both groups, implicit biases can be diminished. It is important to note that this does not mean that each group has to necessarily relinquish subgroup identities. According to the Common Ingroup Identity Model, individuals can retain their original identity while simultaneously harboring a larger more inclusive identity – a dual identity representation (see Gaertner and Dovidio, 2000).

Acknowledging and addressing unconscious bias:

Other research has indicated that, although often preferred by explicitly nonprejudiced Whites and seen to be an egalitarian approach, adopting a "colorblind" approach to interracial interactions has actually proven to be detrimental. While minorities often prefer to have their racial identity recognized, Whites who employ the "colorblind" approach can generate greater feelings of distrust and impressions of prejudice in interracial interactions. Thus, embracing diversity, rather than ignoring the topic, can be seen as one way of improving these interactions.

The research of Monteith and Voils has demonstrated that, in aversively racist Whites, the recognition of disparity between their personal standards and their actual behaviors can lead to feelings of guilt, which in turn causes them to monitor their prejudicial behaviors and perform them less often. Furthermore, when practiced consistently, these monitored behaviors become less and less disparate from the personal standards of the individual, and can eventually even suppress negative responses that were once automatic. This is encouraging, as it suggests that aversive racists' good intentions can be used to help eliminate their implicit prejudices.

Some research has directly supported this notion. In one study, people who scored nonprejudiced (low explicit and implicit racism scores) and as aversive racists (low explicit but high implicit racism scores) were placed in either a hypocrisy or a control condition. Those in the hypocrisy condition were made to write about some time they had been unfair or prejudiced towards an Asian person, while those in the control group were not. They were then asked to make recommendations for funding to the Asian Students Association. Aversively racist participants in the hypocrisy group made much larger funding recommendations (the highest of any of the four groups, actually) than the aversive racists in the control group. The nonprejudiced participants, on the other hand, displayed no significant difference in funding recommendations, whether they were in the hypocrisy group or the control group. In another study measuring the correction of implicit bias among aversively racist Whites, Green et al. examined physicians treatment recommendations for Blacks and Whites. While aversive racists typically recommended an aggressive treatment plan more often for White than for Black patients, those who were made aware of the possibility that their implicit biases could be informing their treatment recommendations did not end up showing such a disparity in their treatment plans.

While all of the above-mentioned studies attempt to address the nonconscious process of implicit racism through conscious thought processes and self-awareness, others have sought to combat aversive racism through altering nonconscious processes. In the same way that implicit attitudes can be learned through sociocultural transmission, they can be "unlearned". By making individuals aware of the implicit biases affecting their behavior, they can take steps to control automatic negative associations that can lead to discriminatory behavior. A growing body of research has demonstrated that practice pairing minority racial out-groups with counter-stereotypic examples can reduce implicit forms of bias. Moskowitz, Salomon and Taylor found that people with egalitarian attitudes responded faster to egalitarian words after being shown an African-American face, relative to a White face. In later research, it was shown that when primed in such a way as to motivate egalitarian behaviors, stereotype-relevant reactions were slower, but notably, these reactions were recorded at speeds too fast to have been consciously controlled, indicating an implicit bias shift, rather than explicit.

One very interesting finding may have implied that aversive racism can be combated simply by eliminating the desire to employ the time- and energy-saving tactic of stereotyping. By priming and inducing participants' creativity, which causes people to avoid leaning on their energy-saving mental shortcuts, such as stereotyping, reduced participants' propensity to stereotype.

Finally, there is evidence to suggest that simply having a greater amount of intergroup contact is associated with less implicit intergroup bias.

Each of these strategies supplies us with a possible route towards the elimination of aversive racism.