The Mixed Outcomes of Taking Ownership for Implicit Racial Biases

Abstract

One potential strategy for prejudice reduction is encouraging people to acknowledge, and take ownership for, their implicit biases. Across two studies, we explore how taking ownership for implicit racial bias affects the subsequent expression of overt bias. Participants first completed an implicit measure of their attitudes toward Black people. Then we either led participants to think of their implicit bias as their own or as stemming from external factors. Results revealed that taking ownership for high implicit racial bias had diverging effects on subsequent warmth toward Black people (Study 1) and donations to a Black nonprofit (Study 2) based on people’s internal motivations to respond without prejudice (Internal Motivation Scale [IMS]). Critically, among those low in IMS, owning high implicit bias backfired, leading to greater overt prejudice and smaller donations. We conclude that taking ownership of implicit bias has mixed outcomes—at times amplifying the expression of explicit prejudice.