The impact of multiculturalism versus color-blindness on racial bias

Abstract

The present study examined the influence of different interethnic ideologies on automatic and explicit forms of racial prejudice. White American college students were exposed to a message advocating either a color-blind or a multicultural ideological approach to reducing interethnic tension and then completed explicit racial attitude measures, as well as a reaction time measure of automatic evaluations of racial groups. Results suggested that, relative to the multicultural perspective, the color-blind perspective generated greater racial attitude bias measured both explicitly and on the more unobtrusive reaction time measure. The findings of the present study add to previous research advocating a multicultural or dual-identity model of intergroup relations as the more promising route to interracial harmony.