Scaife, R., Stafford, T. orcid.org/0000-0002-8089-9479, Bunge, A. et al. (1 more author) (2020) To blame? The effects of moralized feedback on implicit racial bias. Collabra: Psychology, 6 (1). 30. ISSN 2474-7394
Abstract
Implicit bias training (IBT) is now frequently provided by employers, in order to raise awareness of the problems related to implicit biases, and of how to safeguard against discrimination that may result. However, as Atewologun et al (2018) have noted, there is very little systematicity in IBT, and there are many unknowns about what constitutes good IBT. One important issue concerns the tone of information provided regarding implicit bias. This paper engages this question, focusing in particular on the observation that much bias training is delivered in exculpatory tone, emphasising that individuals are not to blame for possessing implicit biases. Normative guidance around IBT exhorts practitioners to adopt this strategy (Moss-Racusin et al 2014). However, existing evidence about the effects of moralized feedback about implicit bias is equivocal (Legault et al 2011; Czopp et al 2006). Through a series of studies, culminating in an experiment with a pre-registered analysis plan, we develop a paradigm for evaluating the impact of moralized feedback on participants’ implicit racial bias scores. We also conducted exploratory analyses of the impact on their moods, and behavioural intentions. Our results indicated that an exculpatory tone, rather than a blaming or neutral tone, did not make participants less resistant to changing their attitudes and behaviours. In fact, participants in the blame condition had significantly stronger explicit intentions to change future behaviour than those in the ‘no feedback’ condition (see experiment 3). These results indicate that considerations of efficacy do not support the need for implicit bias feedback to be exculpatory. We tease out the implications of these findings, and directions for future research.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | Implicit bias; Blame; IAT; Racial bias; Implicit bias training; Moralized feedback |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > Department of Philosophy (Sheffield) The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number The Leverhulme Trust RPG-2013-326 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 25 Jun 2020 14:57 |
Last Modified: | 06 Jul 2020 10:45 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | University of California Press |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1525/collabra.251 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:161856 |