Mixed Race Studies

Implicit Attitude Generalization From Black to Black–White Biracial Group Members

Social Psychological and Personality
Published online before print: 2015-01-13
DOI: 10.1177/1948550614567686

Jacqueline M. Chen, Post-doctoral Scholar
Department of Psychology
University of California, Davis

Kate A. Ratliff, Assistant Professor of Psychology
University of Florida

We investigated whether Black–White biracial individuals are perceived as Black in the domain of evaluation. Previous research has documented that White perceivers’ negative evaluation of one Black person leads to a negative implicit evaluation of another Black person belonging to the same minimal group. We built upon this out-group transfer effect by investigating whether perceivers also transferred negative implicit attitudes from one Black person to a novel Black–White biracial person. In three experiments, participants learned about a Black individual who performed undesirable behaviors and were then introduced to a new group member. White perceivers formed negative attitudes toward the original individual and transferred these attitudes to the new group member if she was Black or Biracial, but not if she was White (Experiment 1) or Asian (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 demonstrated that only White participants exhibited transfer to the new Black and Biracial group members; Black participants did not.

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Caught in the Middle: Defensive Responses to IAT Feedback Among Whites, Blacks, and Biracial Black/Whites

Social Psychological and Personality Science
Published online before print: 2014-12-15
DOI: 10.1177/1948550614561127

Jennifer L. Howell
Department of Psychology
University of Florida

Sarah E. Gaither, Provost’s Career Enhancement Postdoctoral Scholar
Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

Kate A. Ratliff, Assistant Professor of Psychology
University of Florida

This study used archival data to examine how White, Black, and biracial Black/White people respond to implicit attitude feedback suggesting that they harbor racial bias that does not align with their self-reported attitudes. The results suggested that people are generally defensive in response to feedback indicating that their implicit attitudes differ from their explicit attitudes. Among monoracial White and Black individuals, this effect was particularly strong when they learned that they were implicitly more pro-White than they indicated explicitly. By contrast, biracial Black/White individuals were defensive about large discrepancies in either direction (more pro-Black or more pro-White implicit attitudes). These results pinpoint one distinct difference between monoracial and biracial populations and pave the way for future research to further explore how monoracial majority, minority, and biracial populations compare in other types of attitudes and responses to personal feedback.

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