Empirical evidence and social commentary demonstrate favoring of Whites over Blacks in
attitudes, social judgment, and social behavior. In 6 studies (N > 4,000), we provide evidence for
a pro-Black bias in academic decision-making. When making multiple admissions decisions for
an academic honor society, participants from undergraduate and online samples had a more
relaxed acceptance criterion for Black than White candidates, even though participants possessed
implicit and explicit preferences for Whites over Blacks. This pro-Black criterion bias persisted
among subsamples that wanted to be unbiased and believed they were unbiased. It also persisted
even when participants were given warning of the bias or incentives to perform accurately.
These results suggest opportunity for theoretical and empirical innovation on the conditions
under which biases in social judgment favor and disfavor different social groups, and how those
biases manifest outside of awareness or control.
Link to final version of article: [http://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/soco.2016.34.1.1][1]
[1]: http://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/soco.2016.34.1.1