Differences in Anglo and Asian Australians' explicit and implicit prejudice and the attenuation of their implicit in-group bias

Interventions designed to reduce implicit prejudices and implicit stereotypes in real world contexts: a systematic review

BACKGROUND

Implicit biases are present in the general population and among professionals in various domains, where they can lead to discrimination. Many interventions are used to reduce implicit bias. However, uncertainties remain as to their effectiveness.

METHODS

We conducted a systematic review by searching ERIC, PUBMED and PSYCHINFO for peer-reviewed studies conducted on adults between May 2005 and April 2015, testing interventions designed to reduce implicit bias, with results measured using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) or sufficiently similar methods.

RESULTS

30 articles were identified as eligible. Some techniques, such as engaging with others' perspective, appear unfruitful, at least in short term implicit bias reduction, while other techniques, such as exposure to counterstereotypical exemplars, are more promising. Robust data is lacking for many of these interventions.

CONCLUSIONS

Caution is thus advised when it comes to programs aiming at reducing biases. This does not weaken the case for implementing widespread structural and institutional changes that are multiply justified.

The Australian Racism, Acceptance, and Cultural-Ethnocentrism Scale (RACES): item response theory findings

BACKGROUND

Racism and associated discrimination are pervasive and persistent challenges with multiple cumulative deleterious effects contributing to inequities in various health outcomes. Globally, research over the past decade has shown consistent associations between racism and negative health concerns. Such research confirms that race endures as one of the strongest predictors of poor health. Due to the lack of validated Australian measures of racist attitudes, RACES (Racism, Acceptance, and Cultural-Ethnocentrism Scale) was developed.

METHODS

Here, we examine RACES' psychometric properties, including the latent structure, utilising Item Response Theory (IRT). Unidimensional and Multidimensional Rating Scale Model (RSM) Rasch analyses were utilised with 296 Victorian primary school students and 182 adolescents and 220 adults from the Australian community.

RESULTS

RACES was demonstrated to be a robust 24-item three-dimensional scale of Accepting Attitudes (12 items), Racist Attitudes (8 items), and Ethnocentric Attitudes (4 items). RSM Rasch analyses provide strong support for the instrument as a robust measure of racist attitudes in the Australian context, and for the overall factorial and construct validity of RACES across primary school children, adolescents, and adults.

CONCLUSIONS

RACES provides a reliable and valid measure that can be utilised across the lifespan to evaluate attitudes towards all racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious groups. A core function of RACES is to assess the effectiveness of interventions to reduce community levels of racism and in turn inequities in health outcomes within Australia.

Traditional prejudice remains outside of the WEIRD world

Dixon et al. accurately describe subtle mechanisms of discrimination that inhibit minorities' collective action in modern democratic societies. This commentary suggests that in contemporary non-Western societies, where ethnic conflicts are more violent, traditional overt forms of prejudice still exist and predict discrimination of ethnic and racial minorities. Thus, prejudice reduction models should and do improve intergroup relations in such contexts.

Automatic evaluation of body-related words among young women: an experimental study

Background

Previous research has demonstrated that exposure to images depicting the thin female ideal has negative effects on some females' levels of body dissatisfaction. Much of this research, however, has utilised relatively long stimulus exposure times; thereby focusing on effortful and conscious processing of body-related stimuli. Relatively little is known about the nature of females' affective responses to the textual components of body-related stimuli, especially when these stimuli are only briefly encountered. The primary aim of the current research was to determine whether young women automatically evaluate body-related words and whether these responses are associated with body image concerns, including self-reported levels of appearance schematicity, thin internalisation, body dissatisfaction, and dietary restraint.

Methods

An affective priming task was used to investigate whether females automatically evaluate body-related words, and whether this is associated with self-reported body image concerns. In a within-participants experimental design, the valence congruence of the prime and target pairs was manipulated. Participants selected body words as primes in Experiment 1 (N = 27), while normatively selected body words were primes in Experiment 2 (N = 50). Each prime was presented briefly, followed by a target word which participants judged as "good" or "bad". The dependent variable was response latency to the target.

Results

Automatic evaluation was evident: responding to congruent pairs was faster than responding to incongruent pairs. Body image concerns were unrelated to automaticity.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that brief encounters with body words are likely to prompt automatic evaluation in all young women, and that this process proceeds unintentionally and efficiently, without conscious guidance.