The Influence of Social Norms on the Endorsement of Anti-Black Attitudes

Abstract

The last few years have been a testament to the fact that anti-Black racism is alive and well in America. It manifests not only in macro-level indicators of social inequity (e.g., housing, education) but also manifests within individual organizations. Importantly, individuals in organizations can express anti-Black and other racist sentiments that influence the attitudes that others express. In the current research, we examine the power of proximal organizational norms in two studies. In Study 1, 269 participants heard a member of their institution condone or condemn anti-Black racism and were then asked to give their own attitudes about that same group. Results revealed that participants were strongly influenced by the racist or anti-racist sentiments they heard; compared to those in the control condition, those who heard an organizational peer condone racism were also more likely to condone, and those who heard an organizational peer condemn racism were also more likely to condemn. In Study 2, we continued to examine the expression of anti-Black racism by investigating the influence of proximal norms (within an organization) in comparison to distal norms (within a more socially and physically distant reference group, i.e., country). Consistent with Study 1, results showed that the proximal norms (but not the global norms) strongly influenced the extent to which 217 participants expressed anti-racist sentiments. We discuss the results by considering the critical role that both individual workplace allies and collective organizations can play in shaping the expression of anti-Black racism.