Abstract
Implicit intergroup bias emerges early in development, are typically pro-ingroup, and remain stable across the lifespan. Such findings have been interpreted in terms of an automatic ingroup bias similar to what is observed with minimal groups paradigms. These studies are typically conducted with groups of high cultural standing (e.g., Caucasians in North America and Europe). Research conducted among culturally lower status groups (e.g., African-Americans, Latino-Americans) reveals a notable absence of an implicit ingroup bias. Understanding the environmental factors that contribute to the absence of an implicit ingroup bias among people from culturally lower status groups is critical for advancing theories of implicit intergroup cognition. The present study aimed to elucidate the factors that shape racial group bias among African-American children and young adults by examining their relationship with age, school composition (predominantly Black schools or racially mixed schools), parental racial attitudes and socialization messages among African-American children (N = 86) and young adults (N = 130). Age, school-type and parents’ racial socialization messages were all found to be related to the strength of pro-Black (ingroup) bias. We also found that relationships between implicit and explicit bias and frequency of parents' racial socialization messages depended on the type of school participants attended. Our results highlight the importance of considering environmental factors in shaping the magnitude and direction of implicit and explicit race bias among African-Americans rather than treating them as a monolithic group.
Highlights
Biases to generate positive evaluations of people affiliated with one’s own group have been well documented as normative in the literature on intergroup cognition and its putative evolutionary roots [1]
Researchers have long struggled to understand why African-Americans, on average, show no mean level implicit own group bias, when other groups frequently exhibit an implicit bias for their own group
Studies reporting an absence of an own group bias among African-Americans frequently observe bias scores that are normally distributed around the midpoint, with approximately half the sample exhibiting a bias for their own group, and half exhibiting a bias for the outgroup [24,25; 40; 43; 45,46]
Summary
Biases to generate positive evaluations of people affiliated with one’s own group have been well documented as normative in the literature on intergroup cognition and its putative evolutionary roots [1]. In a study focusing on the relationship between school racial composition and explicit bias among African-American 8-11-year-olds [49], Dutton, Singer, and Devlin (1998) revealed that children from predominantly Black schools had stronger pro-Black bias on an explicit measure than their counterparts in integrated or predominantly White schools This finding suggests that African-American children’s explicit race bias can vary based on their school context. We examined relationships among both implicit and explicit measures of race bias and age, school racial composition, parents’ racial attitudes, and the racial socialization messages that parents conveyed to their children Because this is the first study to examine multiple factors associated with African-American children and young adults’ implicit race bias, it is an exploratory analysis
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