Although most research on the control of automatic prejudice has focused on the efficacy of deliberate attempts to suppress or correct for stereotyping, the reported experiments tested the hypothesis that automatic racial prejudice is subject to common social influence. In experiments involving actual interethnic contact, both tacit and expressed social influence reduced the expression of automatic prejudice, as assessed by two different measures of automatic attitudes. Moreover, the automatic social tuning effect depended on participant ethnicity. European Americans (but not Asian Americans) exhibited less automatic prejudice in the presence of a Black experimenter than a White experimenter (Experiments 2 and 4), although both groups exhibited reduced automatic prejudice when instructed to avoid prejudice (Experiment 3). Results are consistent with shared reality theory, which postulates that social regulation is central to social cognition.

Social scientists have traditionally argued that whiteness-the attribute of being recognized and treated as a White person in society-is powerful because it is invisible. On this view, members of the racially dominant group have the unique luxury of rarely noticing their race or the privileges it confers. This article challenges this "invisibility thesis," arguing that Whites frequently regard themselves as racial actors. We further argue that whiteness defines a problematic social identity that confronts Whites with 2 psychological threats: the possibility that their accomplishments in life were not fully earned (meritocratic threat) and the association with a group that benefits from unfair social advantages (group-image threat). We theorize that Whites manage their racial identity to dispel these threats. According to our deny, distance, or dismantle (3D) model of White identity management, dominant-group members have three strategies at their disposal: deny the existence of privilege, distance their own self-concepts from the White category, or strive to dismantle systems of privilege. Whereas denial and distancing promote insensitivity and inaction with respect to racial inequality, dismantling reduces threat by relinquishing privileges. We suggest that interventions aimed at reducing inequality should attempt to leverage dismantling as a strategy of White identity management.

The present experiments suggest that the desire to benefit the in-group drives dominant-group members' policy preferences, independent of concern for out-groups' outcomes. In Experiment 1, the effect of a manipulation of affirmative action procedures on policy support was mediated by how Whites expected the policy to affect fellow Whites, but not by the expected effect on minorities. In Experiments 2 and 3, when focused on losses for the White in-group, Whites' racial identity was negatively related to support for affirmative action. However, when focused on gains for the Black out-group or when participants were told that Whites were not affected by the policy, racial identity did not predict attitudes toward the policy. In Experiments 2 and 3, perceived fairness mediated these effects.

Consistent with the affiliative social tuning hypothesis, this study showed that the desire to get along with another person shifted participants' automatic attitudes toward the ostensible attitudes of that person. In Experiment 1, the automatic racial attitudes of women but not men emulated those of an experimenter displaying race-egalitarian attitudes or attitudes neutral with respect to race. Mediational analysis revealed that the gender difference in social tuning was mediated by liking for the experimenter. In Experiment 2, the likability of the experimenter was manipulated. Individuals who interacted with a likable experimenter exhibited social tuning more so than did those who interacted with a rude experimenter. These findings suggest that affiliative motives may elicit malleability of automatic attitudes independent of manipulations of social group exemplars.

The authors propose that the content of certain sociopolitical ideologies can be shaped by individuals in ways that satisfy their social motivations. This notion was tested in the context of color-blind ideology. Color blindness, when construed as a principle of distributive justice, is an egalitarian stance concerned with reducing discrepancies between groups' outcomes; as a principle of procedural justice, however, color blindness can function as a legitimizing ideology that entrenches existing inequalities. In Study 1, White people high in antiegalitarian sentiment were found to shift their construal of color blindness from a distributive to a procedural principle when exposed to intergroup threat. In Studies 2, 3A, and 3B, the authors used manipulations and a measure of threat to show that antiegalitarian White people endorse color blindness to legitimize the racial status quo. In Study 3B, participants' endorsement of color-blind ideology was mediated by increases in their preference for equal treatment (i.e., procedural justice) as a response to threat. In the Discussion section, the authors examine implications of the present perspective for understanding the manner in which individuals compete over the meaning of crucial ideologies.

Racial inequity was theorized to threaten Whites' self-image when inequity is framed as White privilege but not when framed as anti-Black discrimination. Manipulations of Whites' need for self-regard were hypothesized to affect their perceptions of White privilege but not of anti-Black discrimination. In Experiment 1, White participants reported less privilege when given threatening (vs. affirming) feedback on an intelligence or personality test; in contrast, perceptions of anti-Black discrimination were unaffected by self-concept manipulations. In Experiment 2, threatening (vs. affirming) feedback decreased privilege perceptions only among Whites high in racial identity. Using a value-based self-affirmation manipulation, Experiment 3 replicated the effect of self-image concerns on Whites' perceptions of privilege and provided evidence that self-concerns, through their effect on perceived privilege, influence Whites' support for redistributive social policies.

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Two studies examined unconscious racial stereotypes of decision makers in the juvenile justice system. Police officers (Experiment 1) and juvenile probation officers (Experiment 2) were subliminally exposed to words related to the category Black or to words neutral with respect to race. In a presumably unrelated task, officers read 2 vignettes about a hypothetical adolescent who allegedly committed either a property crime (shoplifting from a convenience store) or an interpersonal crime (assaulting a peer). The race of the offender was left unstated and the scenarios were ambiguous about the causes of the crime. Respondents rated the hypothetical offender on a number of traits (e.g., hostility and immaturity) and made judgments about culpability, expected recidivism, and deserved punishment. They also completed a self-report measure of conscious attitudes about race. As hypothesized, officers in the racial prime condition reported more negative trait ratings, greater culpability, and expected recidivism, and they endorsed harsher punishment than did officers in the neutral condition. The effects of the racial primes were not moderated by consciously held attitudes about African Americans. The implications of the findings for racial disparity in the juvenile justice system and for changing unconscious stereotypes were discussed.