White people often associate Black people with negative information and
outcomes. At the same time, many White people value not being or appearing
prejudiced. In an inter-race context, these two forces may conflict. Whites
may be better able to acquire anti-Black associations that align with their
existing explicit or implicit attitudes, but may be unmotivated to
strengthen these associations because they oppose their egalitarian values.
Across five studies (N > 1,100) including two pre-registered designs,
Whites given a learning task were better able to initially acquire
anti-Black racial associations but were unable or unwilling to then
reinforce these associations. Conversely, Whites were less able to
initially acquire pro-Black racial associations but then acquired and
strengthened these associations. Finally, Whites were still unwilling or
unable to reinforce anti-Black associations even when given a non-racial
justification to do so. These results highlight the distinct but related
influences of attitudes and prejudice concerns on race-related behavior.