Miglena Sternadori, University of South Dakota GOOD NEWS IS NO NEWS? EFFECTS OF POSITIVE STORIES ABOUT AFRICAN AMERICANS ON IMPLICIT BIAS.

GOOD NEWS IS NO NEWS?

EFFECTS OF POSITIVE STORIES ABOUT AFRICAN AMERICANS ON

IMPLICIT BIAS

MAIN QUESTION

Do positively valenced news stories affect the malleability of implicit attitudes?

Answer sought by using a 2 (Session) x 2 (Trial Type) experimental design

2 levels of session: measurement before and after exposure to news stories

2 levels of trial type: speed of associating Black faces with either positive or negative words

WHAT WE KNOW

Members of both majority and minority groups may experience spontaneous and unconscious racist reactions (Banaij & Greenwald, 1994)

Humans have evolved a system that sustains stereotype-based patterns of thought (Macrae, Milne, & Bodenhausen, 1994).

Implicit bias may be malleable through:

Conscious attempts

Exposure to positive depictions or personal experience with minority members

OPERATIONALIZATION

Implicit Attitudes Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998), measured the ease of associating Black faces with positive or negative words.

Reduction of implicit bias measured by looking at the difference in average response latencies on:

Compatible trials (participants respond to White faces/positive words with one key and Black faces/ negative words with another key)

Incompatible trials (participants respond to White faces/negative words with one key and Black faces/positive words with another key)

HYPOTHESES: SET I

Most people show greater ease of associating White faces with positive words and Black faces with negative words:

H1a: The average response latency for compatible trials will be shorter than the average response latency for incompatible trials during the pre-exposure IAT.

H1b: The average response latency for compatible trials will be longer or equal to the average response latency for incompatible trials during the post-exposure IAT.

HYPOTHESES: SET II

After participants read the positive stories, it should become easier to associate Black faces with positive words and less easy to associate with negative words: H2a: The average response latency on

incompatible trials during post-exposure IAT will be shorter than the average response latency on incompatible trials during pre-exposure IAT.

H2b: The average response latency on compatible trials will be longer during post-exposure IAT than the average response latency on compatible trials during pre-exposure IAT.

HYPOTHESES: SET III

Test-repetition effects expected

Bias reduction would be more evident in narrowed gap between latency of associating Blacks with positive words and associating Blacks with negative words:

H3: There will be an interaction between session and trial type, such that the subtraction of the average response latency on compatible trails from the average response latency on incompatible trials in pre-exposure IAT will yield a result greater than the subtraction of the average response latency on compatible trials from the average response latency on incompatible trials in post-exposure IAT.

METHOD

Design: 2 (Session: pre-exposure, post-exposure) x 2 (Trial Type: compatible, incompatible)

120 students at a Midwestern university

DV: average response latency in associating Black faces with either positive or negative words

Procedure: Participants took the IAT, read four stories about successful African Americans, and took the IAT a second time

RESULTS

Main effect for trial type, F(1,115) = 99.2, p < .0001, η2

p=.46 H1a was supported, but H1b was not

Main effect for session, F(1,115) = 50.39, p <. 0001, η2

p = .31 H2a was supported, but H2b was not

Session x Trial type interaction was significant, F(1, 115) = 6.33, p = .01, η2

p = .05. Gap between the average response latencies in

associating Black faces with positive words and the average response latencies in associating Black faces with negative words had narrowed after exposure to the positive news stories (Figure 1)

MEANS

Table 1: Session x Trial Type Means

Session Trial Type Mean Std.

Error

95% Confidence Interval

Lower Bound

Upper Bound

Pre-

exposure

Incompatible 892.004 17.324 857.689 926.319

Compatible 758.224 10.883 736.668 779.781

Post-

exposure

Incompatible 805.375 12.994 779.636 831.114

Compatible 714.280 9.847 694.774 733.785

INTERACTION

DISCUSSION

Results suggest that written news have the potential to decrease implicit bias

Malleability is reliable but weak

Lack of support for H1b shows that exposure to stories about successful African Americans was not sufficient to eliminate bias

Limitations: Within-subject design with no control group, testing effect

Future research: Post-hoc tests, take into account errors in addition to response latencies; replace the IAT with the affect misattribution procedure (AMP)

THANK YOU!

Questions?

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