The Surprisingly Limited Malleability of Implicit Racial Evaluations

Implicit preferences for Whites compared to Blacks can be reduced via exposure to admired Black and disliked White individuals (Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2001). In four studies (total N = 4,628), while attempting to clarify the mechanism, we found that implicit preferences for Whites were weaker in the “positive Blacks” exposure condition compared to a control condition (weighted average d = .08). This effect was substantially smaller than the original demonstration (Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2001; d = .82). Factors beyond exposure to admired Blacks may be necessary for the effect, such as making race accessible during exemplar exposure and including negative White exemplars. Our evidence suggests that exposure to known-group members shifts implicit race bias reliably, but weakly.