Pro-Black, Pro-White, or Proactive: Examining Predictors of Implicit Racial Bias in Black Participants

The majority of research examining implicit racial bias has focused on the biases held by White participants (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004). By contrast, the implicit racial bias of minority group members has been largely overlooked, despite the potential for these associations to provide new insight into the nature of implicit social cognition. In the current research, I extended previous findings by examining predictors of implicit racial bias for Black participants. Specifically, across three studies conducted in two cultural contexts, I examined whether implicit racial bias was related to Black participants racial ideologies, defined as an individuals philosophy about how racial group members should live and interact with other groups in the larger society (Sellers, et al., 1997, pp.806). Consistent with my expectations, implicit racial bias, as measured by the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald et al., 1998; 2003; Studies 1 & 2) and the Affective Misattribution Procedure (AMP; Payne et al., 2005; Study 3) was significantly correlated with racial ideologies. However, the specific relationship depended on the cultural context as well as the implicit measure. In Study 1, within the predominantly White Canadian context, Nationalist ideology was negatively correlated with implicit pro-White bias. By contrast, in Study 2, within the predominantly Black Jamaican context, Humanist ideology positively predicted pro-White bias (Study 2). In Study 3, again conducted in the predominantly White Canadian context but with a different measure of implicit racial bias (AMP), Nationalist ideology negatively predicted implicit pro-White bias, while both Assimilation and Humanist ideologies were positive predictors of implicit pro-White bias. In Study 3, explicit racial attitudes, system justification and individual versus collective success orientation were also significantly correlated with implicit racial bias as measured by the Affective Misattribution Procedure (AMP; Payne et al., 2005). As expected, however, ideologies accounted for unique variance in implicit racial bias. The implications of these findings for understanding implicit racial bias in Blacks, in predominantly White and Black contexts, are discussed.

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