Few studies have empirically investigated the role of individual programmers in correcting or overcoming bias, specifically regarding motivating programmers to engage in bias detection. In this study, we present and test a conceptual framework for the effectiveness of motivational appeals aimed at programmers, considering the role of framing, the speaker's race and gender, and the individual differences in recipients’ social dominance orientation-egalitarianism (SDO-E) in driving bias detection outcomes. The framework suggests that a problem framing, "You are part of the problem," will be more effective than a solution framing, "You are part of the solution," when the speaker is white and male rather than black and female, but this only applies to respondents with low levels of SDO-E and will be reversed for respondents with high levels of SDO-E, due to the pursuit of egalitarian values that automatically inhibits the activation of stereotypes. The authors recruited 575 real US programmers via Prolific. They participated in a between-subjects experiment that measured their ability to detect potential bias in a 2 (problem versus solution framing) × 2 (speaker, white male versus black female) design. Results provide important conceptual and practical implications for understanding the role of programmers in addressing bias.