Taking a look in the virtual mirror: Implications of self-observation by White individuals during online intergroup exchanges for their own and their racialized partners’ experience

Abstract

Concerns about being viewed negatively by outgroup members can have harmful implications for intergroup interaction. In line with the information search model, research suggests that trying to empathize with outgroup partners—by virtue of still involving taking outgroup members’ perspective—can lead right back to evaluative concerns. The present experiment (276 dyads) tested the model’s further prediction that—by virtue of still involving a focus on the self—stimuli that typically instantiate private self-awareness and prompt enhanced self-regulation also lead right back to evaluative concerns and their disruptive effects in interaction settings. Higher and lower prejudice White individuals (HPs and LPs) turned their self-view on or off during an online exchange with a partner with a marginalized racial background. Although there were some exceptions, results were generally consistent with predictions: Racialized individuals benefitted when HPs engaged in self-observation, but everyone was better off if LPs could not watch themselves.