Race, Color-Blind Racial Attitudes, and Judgments About Mental Health: A Shifting Standards Perspective.

Abstract

A fictitious counseling center intake report was given to a sample of 158 White graduate students in counseling and clinical psychology to examine the impact of reported client race (Black or White) on perceptions of clients' symptom severity. As predicted by the shifting standards model of social judgment (M. Biernat, M. Manis, & T. E. Nelson, 1991), participants judged the Black target to be significantly less symptomatic than the White target. After controlling for social desirability (measured as motivation to respond without prejudice; E. A. Plant & P. G. Devine, 1998), a significant interaction effect showed that color-blind racial attitudes (H. A. Neville, R. L. Lilly, G. Duran, R. M. Lee, & L. Browne, 2000) were positively related to symptom perception for the Black target but not the White target. The shift in assessment (rating the Black target more favorably than an identical White target) was more evident for participants with lower levels of color-blind attitudes. Implications for counseling and future research are discussed.