Mejorar La Raza: measuring the implicit anti-black racial bias of multiracial individuals.

Abstract

This dissertation sought to examine if there are implicit anti-Black racial bias differences across multiracial people who identify as Black/White compared to multiracial people who do not identify as Black/White, accounting for age, citizenship, and education level. It was also determined if age, citizenship status, and education level moderate the relationship between multiracial identity and implicit anti-Black racial bias. The theories guiding this dissertation were: Heider’s Balance Theory, Multiracial Identity Development, and White Identity Development. The data were collected from Project Implicit, a non-profit organization and international collaborative of researchers who are interested in implicit social cognition. The data analysis approach was a hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis that also tested for interaction effects. The independent variables were race (Multiracial – Black/White, Multiracial – Not Black/White), age, education level, and U.S. citizenship status. The dependent variable was overall IAT score, which measures implicit anti-Black racial bias. The results of this study suggest that multiracial people who do not identify as Black/White have more implicit anti-Black racial bias than multiracial people who do identify as Black/White. Age, citizenship status, and education level were all found to not moderate the relationship between multiracial identity and implicit anti-Black racial bias. This study begins to fill in a gap in existing literature, as little research has been done that examines the implicit racial bias and implicit anti-Black racial bias of multiracial individuals. The results of this study illustrate the importance of support for multiracial individuals (especially for multiracial people who do not identify as Black/White) in navigating implicit racial biases, implicit anti-Black racial bias, colorism, internalized racism, and horizontal racial oppression. Additionally, the results of this study contradict the idea of a “shared” multiracial experience that exists in previous research. The results of this study imply that there is a need for more individualized attention and support for multiracial individuals based on their specific racial identifications. The results also show a need for more research on implicit racial bias, implicit anti-Black racial bias and multiracial individuals based on specific racial identifications.