The feedback withholding bias: Minority students do not receive critical feedback from evaluators concerned about appearing racist

Suspicion of motives predicts minorities' responses to positive feedback in interracial interactions

“…Although these social norms have been instrumental in reducing pervasive and overt racism, they have also had unintended consequences on interracial dynamics. To avoid the appearance of prejudice, many Whites carefully monitor their actions in interracial interactions, and amplify positive and conceal negative responses toward racial and ethnic minority group members (Croft & Schmader, 2012; Mendes & Koslov, 2013; Shelton et al, 2005). Surprisingly, almost no research has examined how perception of these social norms relates to ethnic minorities’ reactions to evaluations within interracial interactions.…”

“…In trying to act or appear nonprejudiced, Whites sometimes “over-correct” in their treatment of ethnic minorities (Vorauer & Turpie, 2004), acting overly friendly toward Blacks (Plant & Devine, 1998) and evaluating the same work more favorably when it is believed to be written by Blacks than Whites, especially when responses are public (Carver, Glass, & Katz, 1978; Harber, 1998, 2004). Furthermore, external concerns with avoiding the appearance of prejudice can lead Whites to amplify positive and conceal negative responses toward Blacks (Croft & Schmader, 2012; Mendes & Koslov, 2013). Thus, strong anti-prejudice norms may function as a double-edged sword, potentially leading Whites (at least those externally motivated to appear unprejudiced) to give minorities overly positive feedback and withhold useful negative feedback (Crosby & Monin, 2007).…”

Suspicion of White people's motives relates to relative accuracy in detecting external motivation to respond without prejudice

“…Many Whites therefore focus on hiding their biases during interracial interactions to avoid penalties for appearing prejudiced (e.g., Apfelbaum, Sommers, & Norton, 2008;Plant, Devine, & Peruche, 2010;Shelton, 2003). Although Whites motivated by strong internalized endorsement of egalitarianism are friendly and approach-oriented in interracial interactions (Plant et al, 2010), when social concerns with appearing prejudiced are salient, Whites externally motivated by normative concerns also try to impress minorities by inflating positivity and concealing negativity (Croft & Schmader, 2012;Mendes & Koslov, 2013). As a result, it may be unclear to minorities whether White people's positive behavior reflects internal motivations to be nonprejudiced or external motivations to appear nonprejudiced.…”

Enhancing the salience of free speech rights increases differential perceived free speech protections for criminal acts against Black versus White targets

“…Importantly, beyond the previous research, we further hypothesized that the experimental manipulation designed to enhance the salience of freedom of speech protections would moderate the effects of anti‐Black prejudice and target race. Situational cues that make a particular concept salient tend to have a particularly strong influence among individuals already predisposed to act in in a relevant way (Croft & Schmader, ; Moore et al, ). Thus, we predicted that heightening the salience of freedom of speech situationally (by having participants read the First Amendment) would enhance the degree to which participants, primarily those high in anti‐Black prejudice assessing a harmful act perpetrated by a White person toward a Black person, would apply freedom of speech protections to the incident.…”