Examining the asymmetry in judgments of racism in self and others

Across three experiments, participants were provided with a list of racist behaviors that purportedly were enacted from a fellow student but in fact were based on the participants' own behaviors. People consistently evaluated themselves as less racist than this comparison other, even though thi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of social psychology 2019-09, Vol.159 (5), p.611-627
Main Authors: Bell, Angela C., Burkley, Melissa, Bock, Jarrod
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Behavior
Better than average effect
Court decisions
Female
Humans
Judgment
Male
Racial bias
Racism
Robustness
Self-Assessment
self-enhancement
self-other differences
self-perception
Social Perception
Social pressure
Young Adult
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Summary:Across three experiments, participants were provided with a list of racist behaviors that purportedly were enacted from a fellow student but in fact were based on the participants' own behaviors. People consistently evaluated themselves as less racist than this comparison other, even though this other's racist behaviors were identical to their own. Studies 2a and 2b demonstrate this effect is quite robust and even occurs under social pressure and social consensus conditions in which participants were free to express their racial biases. Thus, it appears that people are less likely to base their racist trait ratings on behavioral evidence when evaluating themselves compared to when they are evaluating another. Taken together, this work provides evidence for the consistency and robustness of self-enhanced social comparisons as applied to the trait domain of racism. Further, this work sheds insight into why people deny they are racist when they act racist.
ISSN:0022-4545
1940-1183
DOI:10.1080/00224545.2018.1538930