Do the “Eyes” Have It? A Program Evaluation of Jane Elliott's “Blue‐Eyes/Brown‐Eyes” Diversity Training Exercise1

The effectiveness of Jane Elliott's well‐known “blue‐eyes/brown‐eyes” exercise in reducing college students’ stereotyping and prejudice was assessed. College students were randomly assigned to either the exercise group or a comparison group. Blue‐eyed and brown‐eyed exercise participants were given discriminatory versus preferential treatment, respectively; a procedure purportedly designed to sensitize participants to the emotional and behavioral consequences of discrimination. Participation in the exercise was found to be associated with White students (a) indicating significantly more positive attitudes toward Asian American and Latino/Latina individuals, but only marginally more positive attitudes toward African American individuals; and (b) reporting anger with themselves when noticing themselves engaging in prejudiced thoughts or actions—negative affect that theoretically could prove to be either helpful or detrimental in promoting long‐term reduction of stereotyping and prejudice.     

Property and prejudice: How racial attitudes and social‐evaluative concerns shape property appraisals

Property evaluations rarely occur in the absence of social context. However, no research has investigated how intergroup processes related to prejudice extend to concepts of property. In the present research, we propose that factors such as group status, prejudice and pressure to mask prejudiced attitudes affect how people value the property of racial ingroup and outgroup members. In Study 1, White American and Asian American participants were asked to appraise a hand‐painted mug that was ostensibly created by either a White or an Asian person. Asian participants demonstrated an ingroup bias. White participants showed an outgroup bias, but this effect was qualified. Specifically, among White participants, higher racism towards Asian Americans predicted higher valuations of mugs created by Asian people. Study 2 revealed that White Americans' prejudice towards Asian Americans predicted higher valuations of the mug created by an Asian person only when participants were highly concerned about conveying a non‐prejudiced personal image. Our results suggest that, ironically, prejudiced majority group members evaluate the property of minority group members whom they dislike more favourably. The current findings provide a foundation for melding intergroup relations research with research on property and ownership.     

An Expectancy/Value Perspective on the Demotivating Effects of Prejudice

This study examined whether expecting prejudice is demotivating. Women were led to believe they were being evaluated for a co‐manager position. They were randomly assigned to receive information that the evaluator held negative attitudes toward women or that he did not. We hypothesized that compared to women led to believe that the evaluator was unprejudiced, women led to believe the evaluator was prejudiced would: (a) have lower expectations for being chosen as co‐manager; (b) place less value on being chosen as co‐manager; and (c) be less motivated to perform a task that would influence selection as co‐manager. We predicted that the effect of prejudice on motivation would be mediated by expectations and valuing of success. Results were consistent with predictions.     

Prejudice as Self‐Control Failure1

Research has suggested that whereas stereotypical attitudes may be automatically activated, the response to these stereotypes can be controlled. Anything that interferes with self‐control may result in more biased behavior. The ego strength model hypothesizes that after exerting self‐control, subsequent self‐control performance will suffer. Hence, depletion of ego strength may lead to increased prejudice. In 2 studies, depletion was found only to affect individuals who normally try to control their prejudicial responses. Participants who do not normally try to control their use of stereotypes were equally prejudiced, regardless of their level of ego strength. The results have implications for prejudice and stereotyping, as well as models of self‐control.     

Prejudiced People Perceive More Community Support for Their Views: The Role of Own,Media, and Peer Attitudes in Perceived Consensus

People often overestimate others' support for their views (false consensus effect). Recent research has shown that this is particularly marked in the relation between perceived consensus and prejudice. The current research asked whether this partly arises in an in‐group stereotype of the community as prejudiced. We investigated relations between different sources of normative information (self, media, peers), estimates of community attitudes, and perceived consensus in a sample of 135 community members. Media prejudice predicted community attitudes, and this further predicted consensus. However, strongest was a direct relation between own prejudice and perceived consensus. The results indicate a desire to appear nonprejudiced, relative to others. Confronting prejudiced people with information about community norms is a promising intervention under these circumstances.     

Prejudice Against Muslim Australians: The Role of Values,Gender and Consensus

Data from an Australian community survey (n = 189) examining the predictors of prejudice against Muslim Australians were analysed. Using thematic analysis, we investigated the specific values our participants reported regarding their perceptions of Muslim Australians and Islam. We then investigated the relationship between prejudice against Muslim Australians, the most important value priorities given by our participants, and other prejudice‐related variables. After entry into a regression analysis, the participants high in prejudice were found to be significantly more likely to have lower educational levels and more right‐wing views. They were also significantly more likely to report high levels of national attitudes (i.e. stronger identification with Australian identity), concern about gender equality within the Muslim community, less concern about equality generally and report that Muslims were not conforming to Australian values. High prejudiced participants also scored higher in the reporting of negative media‐related beliefs, were more likely to perceive higher support in the community for their views than was the case and were more negative towards Muslim men than Muslim women. The implications for anti‐prejudice interventions are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of priming self‐construals on self‐evaluations: Cultural game player perspective

This study examined the validity of situational view on culture‐specific behaviours focusing on self‐evaluation. Two experiments with American students as samples were conducted to examine whether priming their self‐construals would affect individuals' self‐evaluation. In Experiment 1, the participants' self‐evaluation was compared across different conditions of primed self‐contruals. In Experiment 2, the participants were split into 2 groups based on their initial default self‐consturals and, the self‐evaluations were compared across the 2 groups after priming self‐contruals. The results demonstrated that although the participants' self‐evaluation was initially in accord with their default self‐construal, it changed into accord with the primed self‐construals. The findings supported the proposed cultural game player view. Implications on situational view of self‐evaluation are also discussed.     

Sexual prejudice and anger network activation: mediating role of negative affect

The present study sought to establish whether increases in negative affect following exposure to homosexuality mediate the relation between sexual prejudice and anger network activation. Participants were 159 heterosexual men who completed measures of sexual prejudice and state negative affect. Participants were randomly assigned to view a short video depicting either a male–male or male–female sexual interaction and, following the video, again reported state negative affect. Anger network activation was then assessed via response latencies from a lexical decision task that required participants to identify emotion or emotionally neutral words from non‐words. Results indicated that the pattern of covariation between sexual prejudice and anger facilitation was significantly more positive when participants viewed male–male erotica relative to male–female erotica. Increases in negative affect, particularly anxiety/fear, were found to mediate this association. These findings suggest that increases in negative affect following exposure to homosexuality may be the emotional trigger for biases in the processing of anger‐related information and represent the cognitive underpinnings of sexually prejudiced aggression toward gay men. Aggr. Behav. 00:1–10, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Racism or Sexism? Attributional Ambiguity and Simultaneous Membership in Multiple Oppressed Groups1

This study examines short‐term psychological effects of prejudice attributions on African American women. Black female college students (N= 112) imagined themselves in an audiotaped scenario in which White male students made negative evaluations of them. Participants completed self‐report measures of psychological stress and state self‐esteem after they rated the likely contributions of various causal attributions to the negative evaluations. Attributions included personal characteristics of the participant and classmates, as well as 3 kinds of prejudice: racism, sexism, and ethgender prejudice (the interaction of racism and sexism). Attributions to racism and ethgender prejudice predicted increased stress and decreased state social self‐esteem. Results contradict assertions that prejudice attributions are self‐protective and imply that prejudice might involve internal and external causal dimensions.     

Leniency for out‐group offenders

The present research investigates leniency for out‐group offenders and differentiates it from the black sheep effect. The authors assume that leniency for out‐group offenders can be used by in‐group members to protect their group's image by displaying that they are not prejudiced. Thus, leniency should disappear when in‐group members have otherwise shown that they are not prejudiced (i.e., moral credentials). In two experiments, offenders' group membership and participants' opportunity to establish moral credentials were manipulated. Results showed that out‐group offenders received the lowest punishment severity ratings (Studies 1 and 2). However, this leniency effect vanished when participants had established moral credentials by either endorsing the participation of out‐group members in lobby groups (Study 1) or writing about a positive experience with an out‐group member (Study 2). These findings suggest that lenient punishments for out‐group offenders may sometimes reflect a relatively easy strategy to display the in‐group as being unprejudiced. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self‐Representations in Immersive Virtual Environments1

This experiment varied whether individuals interacted with virtual representations of themselves or of others in an immersive virtual environment. In the self‐representation condition, half of the participants interacted with a self‐representation that bore photographic resemblance to them, whereas the other half interacted with a self‐representation that bore no resemblance to them. In the other‐representation condition, participants interacted with a representation of another individual. The experimental design was a 2 (Participant Gender) × 3 (Agent Identity: high‐similarity self‐representation vs. low‐similarity self‐representation vs. other representation). Overall, participants displayed more intimacy‐consistent behaviors for representations of themselves than others. Implications of using immersive virtual environment technology for studying the self are discussed.     

Psychological disidentification with the academic domain among ethnic minority adolescents in The Netherlands

Background: Among ethnic minority group adolescents, experiences with discrimination and prejudice in school settings are thought to lead to a defensive detachment of the self from the school domain. That is, these adolescents may disengage their self‐feelings from their academic performances causing the academic self to become a less important part of global self‐worth. However, there is limited empirical evidence for this assumption and the existing research is on African American students. Aims: To examine among ethnic minority adolescents in the Netherlands the hypothesis that under conditions of perceived discrimination minority group members tend to psychologically disengage their self‐feelings from educational performance. Samples. Study 1 was conducted among 161 Turkish students between 13 and 16 years of age. The sample in Study 2 consisted of 112 Turkish participants of 11 and 12 years of age. Methods: Two questionnaire studies were conducted and participants responded to questions on perceived academic performance, academic self‐esteem, global self‐worth and perceived discrimination in school. Results: In both studies, academic self‐esteem mediated the relationship between perceived educational performance and feelings of global self‐worth. More importantly, perceived discrimination in school moderated the relationship between academic self‐esteem and global self‐worth. Discrimination did not moderate the relationship between academic performance and academic self‐esteem. Conclusion: The results indicate that for ethnic minorities perceived discrimination in school can lead to psychological disidentification from the academic domain whereby global self‐worth is less based on performances and competencies in the academic domain.     

“White” or “European American”? Self-identifying labels influence majority group members' interethnic attitudes

Multiculturalism (i.e., the recognition and celebration of cultural differences) has many potential benefits for society, including reduced prejudice among nonminorities and increased psychological well-being among ethnic minorities. Yet nonminorities generally tend to resist multiculturalism more than do minorities and believe that it is irrelevant to them. Two studies were conducted to examine why and under what conditions this is the case. In both studies, nonminority participants were randomly assigned to mark their race/ethnicity as either “White” or “European American” on a demographic survey, before answering questions about their interethnic attitudes. Results demonstrated that nonminorities primed to think of themselves as White (versus European American) were subsequently less supportive of multiculturalism and more racially prejudiced, due to decreases in identification with ethnic minorities. Implications for how to improve nonminorities' attitudes toward multiculturalism are discussed.     

Western Anti‐Muslim Prejudice: Value Conflict or Discrimination of Persons Too?

Do Western anti‐Muslim attitudes reflect Islamophobia as a general, ethnoreligious prejudice that does not distinguish between persons and ideas, values, or behavior, or are they limited to issues perceived to be in conflict with Western liberal values? In two experiments, we measured discrimination as decreased willingness to help a Muslim versus non‐Muslim to undertake an action that was either neutral or possibly in conflict with Western liberal values. As opposed to general discrimination, the participants displayed conditional, anti‐Muslim discrimination: The two targets were treated equally when the cause was neutral, but there was less willingness to help the Muslim when the cause was conflicting (protesting against the headscarf ban and against gay rights). However, participants did demonstrate subtle discrimination by showing less willingness to help the protesting Muslim compared to the protesting non‐Muslim target. Individual differences moderated these effects with multiculturalism predicting conditional outgroup prosociality, ethnocentrism predicting global outgroup discrimination, and proatheism attitudes predicting both conditional outgroup prosociality and unprejudiced rejection of value‐conflicting behavior.     

Enhancing the salience of free speech rights increases differential perceived free speech protections for criminal acts against Black versus White targets

Hate crime charges offer enhanced sentences for prejudice‐motivated acts in recognition of the injury that extends beyond the victim to other members of the targeted group. The present study builds upon and extends previous work illuminating how anti‐Black prejudice influences application of free speech protections to justify criminal acts against Black (vs. White) targets, which subsequently reduces support for hate crime charges for the act by investigating the potential effects of environmental cues that increase the salience of free speech rights. The present work tested the main and interactive effects of act target (Black vs. White), anti‐Black prejudice, and the salience of freedom of speech on perceived free speech protections for a prejudice‐motivated criminal act and the consequent influence on support for hate crime charges. Replicating previous findings, greater anti‐Black prejudice predicted more perceived free speech protections for Black‐targeted acts, which predicted less support for hate crime charges. Low‐bias participants viewed Black‐ versus White‐targeted acts as less protected by free speech rights and more deserving of hate crime charges; high‐bias participants viewed the two acts similarly. Making the right to free speech (compared to protections from search and seizure) salient amplified differential perceptions of free speech protections based on prejudice and target group, which predicted support for hate crime charges. This work holds implications for justification processes and highlights the importance of studying culture‐specific values.     

Relatively Socially Acceptable Prejudice Within and Between Societies

Two studies investigated the relative social acceptability of certain prejudices within a society (Study 1) and between societies (Study 2), using (less) internal motivation to control prejudice as an indicator of social acceptability. In Study 1, White British participants reported less internal motivation to control prejudice against people with schizophrenia than against Black people. In Study 2, Jamaican participants reported less internal motivation to control anti‐homosexual prejudice than did either British participants or American participants. Other differences in motivation to control prejudice were smaller, absent, or at odds with this difference, indicating that differences in motivation to control anti‐homosexual prejudice were not solely due to cultural differences concerning motivation to control prejudice in general. Results are discussed in terms of novel findings, relevance to the literature and possible future research. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Biased allocation of faces to social categories

Three studies show that social categorization is biased at the level of category allocation. In all studies, participants categorized faces. In Studies 1 and 2, participants overallocated faces with criminal features--a stereotypical negative trait--to the stigmatized Moroccan category, especially if they were prejudiced. On the contrary, the stereotype-irrelevant negative trait stupid did not lead to overallocation to the Moroccan category. In Study 3, using the stigmatized category homosexual, the previously used negative trait criminal--irrelevant to the homosexual stereotype--did not lead to overallocation, but the stereotype-relevant positive trait femininity did. These results demonstrate that normative fit is higher for faces with stereotype-relevant features regardless of valence. Moreover, individual differences in implicit prejudice predicted the extent to which stereotype-relevant traits elicited overallocation: Whereas more negatively prejudiced people showed greater overallocation of faces associated with negative stereotype-relevant traits, they showed less overallocation of faces associated with positive stereotype-relevant traits. These results support our normative fit hypothesis: In general, normative fit is better for faces with stereotypical features. Moreover, normative fit is enhanced for prejudiced individuals when these features are evaluatively congruent. Social categorization thus may be biased in itself.     

I am a better driver than you think: examining self‐enhancement for driving ability

We examined whether people recognized that others might disagree with their high self‐assessments of driving ability, and, if so, why. Participants in four experiments expressed a belief that others would assess them as worse drivers than they assessed themselves. This difference appears to be caused by participants' use of their own, idiosyncratic definition of driving ability. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants reported that others would supply similar assessments of their ability when the skill was less ambiguous. Results of Experiment 4 indicate that participants recognize that there may be more than one way to view driving performance. Participants appear aware that others likely disagree with their self‐assessment of driving ability due to differences in how others define driving ability.     

Group identity‐based self‐protective strategies: the stigma of race,gender, and garlic

We examine the importance of group membership in stigma and its role in the effectiveness of self‐protective cognitions in three experiments. In Experiment 1, men are asked to interact with an attractive female who will judge their value as a potential date, and either eat a mint or a clove of raw garlic prior to the interview. Although the stigmatized‐by‐garlic men discounted negative feedback and attributed it to their garlic breath, discounting and attributions were negatively correlated with self‐esteem. In Experiment 2, White participants were evaluated positively or negatively by a bogus partner who the participants believed had been told that the participant was either White or Black. Although participants receiving negative feedback engaged in several self‐protective cognitions, including attributing their negative feedback to racism, the strategies were uncorrelated with self‐esteem. In Experiment 3, women prepared to interact via computer with a partner who expressed sexist or non‐sexist beliefs. In the absence of feedback, self‐esteem increased when their partner was sexist. In contrast with the first two experiments, perceiving the partner as prejudiced was significantly and positively correlated with self‐esteem. Together, these experiments suggest that self‐protective cognitions find their effectiveness when stigma has a basis in group membership. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Attributional Beliefs About the Controllability of Stigmatized Traits: Antecedents or Justifications of Prejudice?1

Correlational studies show that prejudiced people attribute stigmatized traits to controllable causes, and blame stigmatized groups for their own fate. Attribution theory argues that causal attributions cause prejudice, and that changes in attributional beliefs produce changes in attitudes. In contrast, the justification–suppression model describes attributions to controllable causes as justifications of pre‐existing prejudices. Study participants reported their attitudes toward 1 of 4 stigmatized groups, read information that manipulated their attributional beliefs, listed their thoughts, and reported their attitudes again. Supporting the suppression–justification model, initially prejudiced participants spontaneously produced more thoughts about the controllability of stigmatized identities. Refuting attribution theory, manipulating attributional beliefs had no effect on attitudes. Implications for applications of attribution theory to reduce prejudice are discussed.