Study shows subconscious racial biases in Americans 

A recent study from the Pew Research Center suggests that subconscious preferences for different racial groups persist, even among multiracial adults.

Researchers at Pew say that “most humans display a bias against out-groups—people who are different from them.” They wanted to find out whether biracial adults were less likely to have implicit racial biases because of their multicultural backgrounds. The study’s findings suggest that biracial adults are “simply more divided in their racial preferences.”

Subconscious racial preferences can alter behavior, according to Pew. For instance, a 2007 study conducted by Harvard Medical School found that white doctors with high levels of implicit bias against blacks were less likely to treat black patients. A Swedish researcher found in 2010 that “implicit bias against Muslims correlated strongly with the way hiring managers decided to interview either Swedes or Arabs for a position.”

“Most of these implicit racial biases are consequence of subtle messages seen in the media, popular culture, that suggest one group is good, and another group is bad–associating one group with crime, another group with accomplishment,” said Rich Morin, senior editor at Pew, according to NBC News.

The study utilized Implicit Association Tests (IAT) to reveal “hidden bias” among whites, blacks, Asian Americans, and biracial black-white and biracial Asian-white adults. The IAT measures how long it takes for a participant to associate positive or negative words with a given term or image.

For example, when someone is prompted with an image of Caucasian face, if he selects the word “good” significantly more quickly than when he is prompted with an Asian-American face, he may have an implicit bias in favor of whites.

Pew conducted two experiments: one experiment took whites, blacks, and biracial black-white adults, and tested implicit bias among each group in favor of either whites or blacks. The other experiment took, whites, Asian Americans, and biracial Asian-white adults, and tested bias in favor of either whites or Asians.

In the study, more biracial Asian-white adults than monoracial whites had some form of implicit racial bias. Only 22 percent of Asian-white biracials were free of racial preference, whereas 30 percent of whites had no racial preference between whites and Asians. Fewer Asian-white biracials displayed implicit bias when compared to Asians, while only 20 percent of Asian Americans did not exhibit any subconscious racial preference.

The study found a 4 percent margin of difference between the percentage of monoracial Asians who favored Asians, and the percentage of monoracial Asians who favored Whites: 38 percent of Asians favored whites over Asians, while 42 percent of Asians favored other Asians over whites.

The highest level of implicit racial preference revealed in the entire study was among whites being tested for bias against Asian Americans, with 50 percent of whites tested in the study revealing a subconscious preference for other whites over Asians. 30 percent of whites had no implicit bias, and 19 percent of whites had a subconscious preference for Asians.

The second highest level of implicit racial preference was among whites tested for bias against blacks: 48 percent of whites in the study have a subconscious preference for other whites over blacks. 27 percent of whites tested had no preference between whites and blacks, and 25 percent of whites preferred blacks.

A higher percentage of biracial black-white adults and biracial Asian-white adults displayed implicit bias in favor of whites, when compared to bias in favor of their respective minority group.

Accounting for background, age, and political beliefs, the study suggests that the frequency and magnitude of racial bias does not significantly differ by age, education level, or political party.

Republicans and Democrats, for example, hold similar levels of implicit bias, the study suggests. Also contrary to some beliefs that younger generations will no longer be racist, the age of survey respondents had no significant effect on levels of implicit bias. Although some previous Pew studies have shown that millennials are more racially tolerant than older generation, the IAT tests imply otherwise.

“Measuring implicit racial bias rather than explicit bias reveals a much higher frequency of prejudice,” wrote Stanford professor Shanto Iyengar, a consultant to the Pew study. “The IAT is useful in detecting views that individuals may be reluctant to divulge to others or even to admit to themselves.”

When asked how to dismantle these implicit biases, Morin said, “Simply knowing that you hold these biases is an important first step [in dismantling implicit bias]. It makes you think twice when making the hiring decision. That way, it keeps these biases in check.”

“I do not know if it’s impossible to lose [biases], but it is certainly true from the literature that it’s possible to contain them…we aren’t race-neutral, but maybe we’re moving in that direction.”