What predicts employer discrimination? The role of implicit and explicit racial attitudes

Abstract

Hiring discrimination against black jobseekers remains prevalent in the United States. Yet, despite strong evidence about the existence of employer discrimination, we know relatively little about what motivates employers' discriminatory behavior. I draw on an original two-wave study with a sample of white hiring agents to examine whether respondents' explicit (deliberate) and implicit (automatic) racial attitudes predict their evaluations of white and black job applicants. Building on dual-process models of the attitude-behavior relationship, I theorize that the hiring process at many U.S. organizations—characterized by ambiguity, time pressure and distractions, and the legitimacy of emotions as a decision-making tool—encourages decision-making based on implicit rather than explicit cognition. Consistent with this theorization, I find implicit, but not explicit, racial attitudes predict respondents' evaluations of white applicants, and of black applicants relative to white applicants. This suggests hiring agents’ behavior reflects implicit biases, rather than deliberate avoidance. The results further highlight the role of pro-white bias, not solely anti-black sentiment, in explaining discrimination: implicit attitudes were associated with bias in favor of white jobseekers, not only with discrimination against black jobseekers relative to white jobseekers. Finally, in open-ended responses, hiring agents explain their racially-motivated evaluations without invoking race, suggesting the ambiguity of the hiring process enables them to justify their behavior as colorblind. Together, these findings illustrate how employers can portray an egalitarian image while engaging in racially-motivated behavior.