Implicit Racial Attitudes and Inequality in Resources Allocation

Abstract

Racism has been a long-standing problem for centuries, and when left unchecked, it led to far-reaching adverse consequences on social inequality. To investigate racial attitudes among Chinese adults and whether these attitudes affect Chinese people’s economic decisions, we recruited a sample of 147 participants aged between 18 - 22 years old. We aimed that the racial bias among Chinese young adults will be significant. The level of discrimination was measured through the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The result indicates that Chinese young adults display strong negative implicit racial bias against Black people. Critically, we also found that Chinese adults are less likely to distribute resources to Black people. This study is significant as it uses a few valid methods to test Chinese young adults’ implicit attitudes toward Black people.