Detecting Prejudice From Egalitarianism: Why Black Americans Don’t Trust White Egalitarians’ Claims

Abstract

Although White Americans increasingly express egalitarian views, how they express egalitarianism may reveal inegalitarian tendencies and sow mistrust with Black Americans. In the present experiments, Black perceivers inferred likability (Experiments 1-2), allyship (Experiment 1a), and trustworthiness (Experiments 1b-2), and accurately inferred underlying racial attitudes and motivations from White writers’ declarations that they are nonprejudiced and egalitarian (Experiments 1 and 2). White writers believed that their egalitarianism seemed more inoffensive than was perceived by Black Americans (Experiment 1a). Linguistic analysis revealed that, when inferring racial attitudes and motivations, Black perceivers accurately attended to language emphasizing humanization, support for equal opportunity, personal responsibility, and the idea that equality already exists (Experiment 1b). We found causal evidence that these linguistic cues informed Black Americans’ perceptions of White egalitarians (Experiment 2). Suggesting societal costs of these perceptions, White egalitarians’ underlying racial beliefs negatively predicted Black participants’ actual trust and cooperation in an economic game (Experiment 3). Our experiments (N = 1,335 adults) showed that White Americans’ insistence that they are egalitarian itself perpetuates mistrust with Black Americans.

Keywords

intergroup relations minority groups prejudice social perception open data open materials preregistered

Americans increasingly present themselves as egalitarian (Barreto & Ellemers, 2005a, 2005b). However, White and Black Americans have starkly divergent views of how egalitarian America is: Whereas 50% of White Americans say race relations have improved since the 1960s, only 32% of Black Americans agree (Frankovic, 2019). This discrepancy may be due, in part, to how Black people perceive White people’s egalitarianism (Major et al., 2013). In particular, the manner in which White people express egalitarianism may belie inegalitarian attitudes and motivations, undercutting Black people’s willingness to trust them.

Contemporary forms of prejudice persist despite egalitarian intentions and motivations (e.g., Agerström & Rooth, 2011; Dovidio et al., 2002). Research on aversive racism shows that although White individuals often wish to appear unbigoted, prejudiced behavior nevertheless “leaks out” (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000; Penner et al., 2010). White Americans are often sensitive to norms against expressing prejudice (Crandall & Eshleman, 2003; Crandall et al., 2013; Zitek & Hebl, 2007) but exhibit discriminatory behavior in ambiguous situations (Blanken et al., 2015). These signs of prejudice are often subtly expressed. For example, White Americans with higher prejudice often exhibit minute, negative nonverbal behaviors toward Black people (e.g., less eye contact, fewer smiles, greater physical distance; Goff et al., 2008; Word et al., 1974). Prejudice is also subtly expressed via linguistic channels. For example, White liberals—who are ideologically motivated to present themselves as nonprejudiced—nonetheless choose language indicating lower competence when speaking to Black audiences than to White audiences (Dupree & Fiske, 2019). Thus, White individuals who believe themselves to be egalitarian may signal prejudice in ways that are less direct than one might first expect.

Racial minorities are particularly attentive to these subtle cues. They infer White individuals’ level of prejudice (Shelton et al., 2005) and motivation to be nonprejudiced (LaCosse et al., 2015) through both direct and observed interracial interaction. Such inferences have ramifications for the quality and likelihood of future interracial encounters. In particular, Black Americans are known to be less trusting and more avoidant of White individuals with greater prejudice and lower motivation to be nonprejudiced (Kunstman et al., 2016; LaCosse et al., 2015; Major et al., 2016; Plant, 2004). The present work tested the boundary of such effects by examining whether White people’s overt claims of nonprejudice signal their underlying racial attitudes and motivations to Black people, thereby affecting interracial trust and cooperation.

We first assessed White Americans’ lay beliefs about whether Black Americans might infer inegalitarianism from their claims of being egalitarian (preliminary study). We then tested our central hypothesis that Black perceivers accurately discern White Americans’ inegalitarian attitudes and motivations using only their written egalitarian claims (Experiments 1a and 1b). We simultaneously examined whether White and Black people agree about how offensive and indicative of allyship behaviors White writers’ egalitarian language seems (Experiment 1a) and which linguistic cues Black perceivers used to infer White egalitarians’ racial attitudes and motivations (Experiment 1b). Next, we experimentally manipulated these linguistic cues to identify their causal influence on Black people’s perceptions of White egalitarians’ underlying beliefs, likeability, and trustworthiness (Experiment 2). Finally, we tested whether White egalitarians’ underlying inegalitarianism negatively predicted Black participants’ trust behavior in an economic game (Experiment 3).

Data and materials for the preliminary study and all experiments are available on OSF (https://osf.io/hdq7a/), and all were preregistered. All research reported was approved by an institutional review board. All measures collected, including those unreported in the article, are detailed in full in our preregistrations and the Supplemental Material available online.

Statement of Relevance

White Americans’ claims that they are unprejudiced are increasing. Yet the manner in which White Americans express that they are egalitarian can undermine Black Americans’ willingness to trust them. We found that Black Americans detect White Americans’ underlying racial attitudes from White Americans’ written declarations that they are unprejudiced. Black Americans subsequently like and trust White self-avowed egalitarians with more underlying prejudice to a lesser degree. Detecting White Americans’ underlying prejudice affects economic behavior, as Black Americans trust their money less to White self-avowed egalitarians with greater, compared with lower, underlying prejudice. This work offers insights into why interracial interactions can be fraught and why even fervent claims that one is not prejudiced are not enough to produce meaningful interracial trust. Our research speaks to why Black and White Americans continue to hold divergent views of the health of interracial dynamics and suggests that progress requires more than mere egalitarian sentiment.

Preliminary Study: White Americans’ Lay Beliefs About Their Egalitarian Claims

We first explored whether self-avowed White egalitarians anticipated our hypothesis that Black people might be skeptical of their expressed egalitarianism. We predicted that White egalitarians primarily believe that Black perceivers would trust their egalitarian statements. We preregistered this preliminary study on OSF (https://osf.io/rmhw6/).

Method

Participants

We preregistered our intention to recruit 100 White Americans. A G*Power (Version 3.1; Faul et al., 2007) analysis determined that this sample size would provide 95% power to detect a small to medium effect size (d = 0.36) using a one-sample two-tailed t test. In total, 103 participants (65 men; age: M = 43.95 years, SD = 11.15) from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) completed the study for $0.40.

Procedure and measures

Participants indicated their agreement (“yes” or “no”) with two questions, which were presented in random order: (a) “Do you believe that all people are equal and should have equality of opportunity?” and (b) “Are you prejudiced towards Black people?” We modeled the first question—the egalitarianism prompt—on the definition of egalitarianism (Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, n.d.).¹ We created the second question—the prejudice prompt—to be a face-valid solicitation of anti-Black attitudes. We identified self-avowed egalitarians on the basis of participants’ responses to both questions, thereby making our findings more conservative.

We then asked participants, “If you explained that you are not prejudiced, would a Black person trust you less than they would trust the average nonprejudiced White person?” (“Yes, they would trust me less” or “No, they would not trust me less”).

Results

Ninety-three (90%) participants agreed with the definition of egalitarianism and stated that they were not prejudiced toward Black people. Of these, only 28.0% (n = 26) indicated that a Black person would trust them less than the average nonprejudiced White person if they explained their egalitarian values. A binomial test revealed that this percentage was significantly less than chance (N = 93, K = 72, p < .001).² This result aligns with the “better-than-average” effect (Alicke et al., 1995; Alicke & Govorun, 2005; Vazire & Carlson, 2010), which shows that evaluating oneself on a highly socially desirable dimension increases motivation to enhance one’s attributes (Brown, 2012; Pedregon et al., 2012). This tendency is prevalent in interracial contexts: People often see themselves as egalitarian and nonprejudiced even when they act contrary to this self-image (Augoustinos et al., 2005; Monin & Miller, 2001; Moss-Racusin et al., 2010). We expected that Black people’s actual inferences would both contradict White participants’ lay beliefs and determine interracial trust.

Experiment 1a: Detecting Racial Attitudes and Motivations From Egalitarian Statements

We tested our main hypothesis that Black perceivers infer White writers’ racial attitudes and motivations from writers’ claims of egalitarianism and that these inferences predict interracial trust. Furthermore, we explored whether White writers overestimate the degree to which Black perceivers find their egalitarian statements inoffensive and characteristic of allyship behavior. We preregistered Experiment 1a on OSF (https://osf.io/bv5g4/).

Method

Participants

The experiment involved two preregistered stages. In the first stage, 131 White Americans wrote whether they were egalitarian and nonprejudiced. Three independent coders (all women; White, East Asian, Middle Eastern), who were unaware of the hypotheses, excluded writers on the basis of preregistered criteria: writers who provided unintelligible answers or copied and pasted from a website (n = 14) and those who explicitly stated that they were prejudiced against Black people or did not believe in equality of opportunity (n = 12). This produced a final stimulus set of 105 writers (50 men; age: M = 34.63 years, SD = 10.33) who self-identified as both egalitarian and nonprejudiced.

In the second stage, we preregistered our intention to recruit 420 Black American perceivers to read the statements, giving us an average of four Black perceivers for each White writer in the stimulus set. In total, 427 Black Americans from MTurk (212 men; age: M = 32.89 years, SD = 8.67) completed the study for $0.70. A G*Power (Version 3.1; Faul et al., 2007) analysis determined that this sample size would provide 80% power to detect a two-tailed bivariate correlation (|r|) of .14 and an effect size (d) of 0.27.

Procedure

In the first stage of the experiment, White participants wrote open-ended responses to the same two prompts used in our preliminary study: “Do you believe that all people are equal and should have equality of opportunity? Why or why not?” and “Are you prejudiced towards Black people? Why or why not?” Both prompts enabled us to elicit naturalistic expressions of egalitarian and nonprejudice ideals. For example, the egalitarian prompt allowed participants free rein to emphasize whichever aspects of egalitarianism they preferred. For example, writers chose the degree to which they emphasized whether people are inherently equal, whether society should have equality of opportunity, or both. We expected that such linguistic choices would shape Black perceivers’ judgments. In allowing this breadth of expression, we intended a greater degree of ecological validity with our White writer stimulus set so that our findings would accurately reflect the important real-world phenomena in which we were interested.

After answering each prompt, White writers indicated their racial attitudes and motivations. White writers also estimated how offensive and allyship-oriented Black Americans would perceive their statements. We edited each White writer’s egalitarian statements for spelling and grammatical errors to remove writing mistakes as a possible signal of underlying attitudes and motivations.

In the second stage of the experiment, each Black perceiver was randomly assigned to read one White writer’s response to both open-ended prompts. Using these written claims as their only information, Black perceivers then estimated the writers’ racial attitudes and motivations and evaluated the writers’ trustworthiness, offensiveness, and allyship.

Measures

Racial attitudes and motivations

We presented both the Modern Racism Scale (MRS; McConahay, 1986; six items) and Internal Motivation to Respond Without Prejudice Scale (IMS; Plant & Devine, 1998; five items)³ to both White writers (Stage 1) and Black perceivers (Stage 2) but with different instructions. White writers were asked to indicate their own agreement with all items (MRS: α = .90; IMS: α = .87). Black perceivers were asked to guess how writers responded to all items in each measure (MRS: α = .88; IMS: α = .79). All items were measured using a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). Higher scores indicate greater racial prejudice (MRS) and greater internal motivation to be nonprejudiced (IMS).

These measures enabled us to capture two important facets of White writers’ interracial orientations—their underlying racial animus toward Black people and their internal motivations to act in an egalitarian fashion. Both measures have been internally and externally validated, widely employed throughout the intergroup literature, and connected to important interracial outcomes, such as trust, intergroup anxiety, desire for intergroup contact, and interpersonal distancing (e.g., Devine et al., 2002; Goff et al., 2008; Stanley et al., 2011).

Trust

Black perceivers indicated their agreement with the item, “I would trust this person” (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree).

Offensiveness

White writers answered the question, “How offensive would a Black American find the responses you wrote?” Black perceivers answered the question, “How offensive did you find the responses you read?” (1 = very inoffensive, 4 = neither offensive nor inoffensive, 7 = very offensive).

Perceived allyship

We created a seven-item measure of allyship behaviors deemed meaningful by Black Americans (for details, see the Supplemental Material). The items were “Educate yourself on matters of racial injustice,” “Encourage elected officials to support racial justice policies,” “See Black hires as qualified rather than Affirmative Action recipients,” “Do not call the police on Black people unless necessary,” “Show Black people that you care about their wellbeing,” “Respect Black people as equals,” and “Believe Black people when they talk about racial discrimination.”

White writers answered the question, “Based on your previous answers, how likely would a Black American think you are to do each of the following?” (α = .94). Black perceivers answered the question, “How likely do you think it is that the person who wrote the statements you just read does each of the following?” (1 = very unlikely, 7 = very likely; α = .92).

Results

Racial attitudes and motivations

Bivariate correlations revealed that the correlation between Black perceivers’ guess of White writers’ MRS scores and writers’ actual MRS scores approached but did not reach the conventional level of statistical significance (r = .080, p = .100), while Black perceivers’ guess of White writers’ IMS scores was significantly correlated with writers’ actual IMS scores (r = .106, p = .029; see Table 1).⁴ Thus, Black participants were able to detect White egalitarians’ underlying racial attitudes and motivations using only their written statements claiming to be egalitarian.

Table 1.

Correlations Between Key Variables in Experiment 1a

Variable	1	2	3	4	5	6
1. White writers’ MRS scores	—
2. White writers’ IMS scores	−.69***	—
3. Black perceivers’ guesses about White writers’ MRS scores	.08^†	−.08	—
4. Black perceivers’ guesses about White writers’ IMS scores	−.09^†	.11*	−.52***	—
5. Black perceivers’ trust	−.03	.04	−.12^*	.46***	—
6. Black perceivers’ offensiveness ratings	.10^†	−.06	.66***	−.39***	−.13**	—
7. Black perceivers’ allyship ratings	−.10 *	.10*	−.31***	.60***	.76***	−.24***

Note: White writers’ Modern Racism Scale (MRS) and Internal Motivation to Respond Without Prejudice Scale (IMS) scores signify White participants’ actual racial attitudes and motivations. Black perceivers’ guesses about White writers’ MRS and IMS scores signify Black participants’ perceptions. Black perceivers’ trust, offensiveness ratings, and allyship ratings signify Black perceivers’ ratings of the White writer.

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001 (all two-tailed).

Trust

Bivariate correlations revealed that White writers’ MRS scores (r = −.026, p = .586) and IMS scores (r = .040, p = .412; see Table 1) did not predict Black perceivers’ trust.

Offensiveness

Whereas White writers rated their statements as being very inoffensive (M = 1.98, SD = 1.46), a paired-samples t test revealed that Black perceivers rated the statements as significantly higher in offensiveness (M = 3.65, SD = 2.24), t(426) = −13.67, p < .001, d = 0.88 (see Fig. 1). Bivariate correlations revealed that the correlation between White writers’ MRS scores and Black perceivers’ offensiveness ratings approached but did not reach the conventional level of statistical significance (r = .095, p = .051); Black perceivers rated statements from writers with higher MRS scores as being more offensive. White writers’ IMS scores were not significantly correlated with Black perceivers’ offensiveness ratings (r = −.061, p = .210; see Table 1).

Fig. 1.

Mean perceived offensiveness of White writers’ egalitarian statements in Experiment 1a, rated separately by White writers and Black perceivers. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.

Perceived allyship

A paired-samples t test revealed that Black perceivers’ ratings of White writers’ likely allyship behaviors (M = 5.31, SD = 1.30) were not significantly different than White writers’ beliefs of how Black Americans would perceive them (M = 5.43, SD = 1.32), t(426) = 1.33, p = .184, d = 0.13. Bivariate correlations revealed that White writers’ underlying attitudes and motivations predicted Black perceivers’ allyship rating; Black perceivers rated White writers with lower MRS scores (r = −.100, p = .039) and higher IMS scores (r = .098, p = .044) as more likely to enact allyship behaviors (see Table 1).

Experiment 1b: Linguistic Cues of White Egalitarians’ Underlying Attitudes and Motivations

We sought to replicate our findings that Black perceivers infer White egalitarians’ racial attitudes and motivations, and to further determine if these inferences affect Black perceivers’ trust and liking of them. We also explored which linguistic cues Black perceivers attend to when determining White egalitarians’ underlying attitudes and motivations. We preregistered Experiment 1b on OSF (https://osf.io/jtm8n/).

Method

Participants

Like Experiment 1a, this experiment involved two preregistered stages. In the first stage, 107 White Americans answered whether they were egalitarian and nonprejudiced using the same two prompts from Experiment 1a. The same three independent coders excluded writers on the basis of preregistered criteria: writers who provided unintelligible answers or copied and pasted from a website (n = 20) and those who explicitly stated being prejudiced against Black people or not believing in equality of opportunity (n = 14). This produced a final stimulus set of 73 writers (37 men; age: M = 36.60 years, SD = 13.94) who self-identified as both egalitarian and nonprejudiced.

In the second stage of the experiment, we preregistered our intention to recruit 300 Black American perceivers to read both statements from one White writer, providing an average of four Black perceivers for each White writer in the stimulus set. In total, 302 Black Americans from MTurk (101 men; age: M = 36.20 years, SD = 10.91) completed the study for $1.25. A G*Power (Faul et al., 2007) analysis determined that this sample size would provide 80% power to detect a two-tailed bivariate correlation (|r|) of .16.

Procedure

As in Experiment 1a, in Stage 1, White writers wrote open-ended responses to the same two prompts and then completed measures of racial attitudes and motivations. We again edited each writer’s statements for spelling and grammatical errors. In Stage 2, each Black perceiver was then randomly assigned to read one White writer’s statements, estimate the writer’s racial attitudes and motivations, and indicate their trust and liking of the writer.

Measures

Racial attitudes and motivations

As in Experiment 1a, we assessed White writers’ racial attitudes and motivations with the MRS (α = .91) and IMS (α = .79) and asked Black perceivers to estimate the writers’ racial attitudes and motivations (MRS: α = .89; IMS: α = .86).

Interracial trust

Black perceivers indicated interracial trust using eight items: “I would trust this person to help me if I was being discriminated against,” “I would confide in this person about a time I was discriminated against,” “I would feel comfortable talking about race-related issues with this person,” “This person cares about matters of racial justice,” “This person feels uncomfortable around Black people” (reverse-scored), “I would feel authentically myself around this person,” “This person would confront another White person’s racism,” and “This person would acknowledge systemic racism” (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree; α = .92).

Liking

Black perceivers indicated liking of the White writer using two items: “I would want to become friends with this person,” and “I would get along with this person” (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree; α = .88).

Independent-coder rating

We developed separate sets of content codes for the two open-ended prompts to explore which linguistic cues signaled writers’ MRS and IMS scores. Three independent coders (two women; one White, one East Asian, one Hispanic), who were unaware of the hypotheses and writers’ racial attitudes and motivations, evaluated the content of each statement. Table 2 provides definitions and scale anchors of each code.

Table 2.

Definitions of Independent-Rater Codes

Code label	Definition	Scale anchors
1. Authenticity	Did writers’ words seem to match what they really believe?	1 (inauthentic) to 5 (authentic)
2. Colorblindness	Did writer express being colorblind (i.e., not paying attention to race)?	1 (not at all) to 5 (strongly)
3. Learning orientation	Did writer express trying to learn to be less biased/more about Black people?	1 (not at all) to 5 (strongly)
4. Out-group contact	Did writer mention their personal contact with Black people?	0 (does not mention contact) to 1 (mentions contact)
5. Moral imperative	Did writer express moral or injunctive rationales for nonprejudice?	1 (does not moralize) to 5 (strongly moralizes)
6. Humanization	Did writer humanize Black people?	1 (least humanizing) to 5 (most humanizing)
7. Defensiveness	Did writer exhibit defensiveness?	1 (not at all defensive) to 5 (very defensive)
8. Equality support	Did writer express support that people are equal?	1 (not at all) to 5 (strongly)
9. Equal-opportunity support	Did writer express support for equality of opportunity?	1 (not at all) to 5 (strongly)
10. Inequality exists	Did writer express that inequality exists?	1 (not at all) to 5 (strongly)
11. Equal opportunity exists	Did writer express that equal opportunity already exists?	1 (not at all) to 5 (strongly)
12. Equity focus	Did writer support equity of process more than equality of outcome?	1 (not at all) to 5 (strongly)
13. Personal responsibility	Did writer express that personal responsibility/choices individuals make matter in shaping their life outcomes?	1 (not at all) to 5 (strongly)

Note: Example responses and code frequencies can be found in the Supplemental Material available online.

For the prejudice prompt, we included codes on the basis of existing literatures linking prejudice expression to dehumanization (α = .82; Haslam, 2006; Haslam & Loughnan, 2014), intergroup contact (α = .96; Pettigrew, 1998), learning mindsets (α = .90; Dweck, 2008; Sassenberg & Moskowitz, 2005), moral obligation (α = .90; Monteith & Walters, 1998), and colorblindness (α = .78; Apfelbaum et al., 2012). These factors are consequential to intergroup relations. Both colorblindness and dehumanization predict increased stereotyping and decreased intentions to initiate intergroup contact (Lewis et al., 2000; Tynes & Markoe, 2010; Vezzali et al., 2012). Increased intergroup contact increases positive feelings toward out-groups and advocacy for policies that benefit out-group members (Dovidio et al., 2003; Enos, 2014). Greater feelings of moral obligation to reduce prejudice predict holding higher personal standards for interracial behavior (Monteith & Walters, 1998). Similarly, learning mindsets predict more positive perceptions of intergroup relations (Rattan & Dweck, 2018). Thus, higher ratings of colorblind and dehumanizing language might correlate with higher MRS scores and lower IMS scores, whereas higher ratings of moral obligation and learning mindset language might correlate with lower MRS scores and higher IMS scores. We thought that greater use of intergroup contact language might ironically correlate with higher MRS scores and lower IMS scores because previous research has found that groups accused of prejudice invoke their out-group contact as a means of denying prejudicial beliefs (Conley et al., 2002; Winslow, 2004). Lastly, we included codes of authenticity (α = .76) and defensiveness (α = .90) as a priori dimensions of interest. Although we did not have strong predictions for these codes, we suspected that statements rated as more authentic or less defensive might correlate with lower MRS scores and higher IMS scores.

We developed all codes for the egalitarian prompt using a grounded coding approach. Without being aware of targets’ underlying racial attitudes and motivations, we reviewed a test set of 10 randomly selected prompt responses and identified the most prominent dimensions of variance. These egalitarian-prompt codes ultimately enabled us to capture nuanced differentiations between writers’ statements. Namely, we distinguished between writers who stated that equality already exists and writers who stated that equal opportunity already exists (i.e., inequality exists, α = .84; equal opportunity exists, α = .80), those who expressed support for the principle of equality and those who expressed support for equal opportunity (i.e., equality support, α = .86; equal-opportunity support, α = .87), and the writers’ emphasis on equity over equality (i.e., equity focus, α = .72). Furthermore, we identified writers who expressed the belief that one’s life outcomes are influenced by one’s personal choices rather than one’s surrounding societal context (i.e., personal responsibility, α = .84).

These linguistic codes thus enabled us to identify how writers with different underlying racial attitudes would emphasize different aspects of egalitarianism and nonprejudice and the extent to which Black perceivers would identify these cues.

Results

Racial attitudes and motivations

Bivariate correlations revealed that Black perceivers’ guess of White writers’ MRS scores significantly correlated with writers’ actual MRS scores (r = .171, p = .003). The correlation between Black perceivers’ guess of writers’ IMS scores and writers’ actual IMS scores approached but did not reach the conventional level of statistical significance (r = .098, p = .089; see Table 3). Replicating Experiment 1a, results showed that Black perceivers discerned White writers’ underlying racial attitudes and motivations using writers’ egalitarian claims as their only information.

Table 3.

Correlations Between Key Variables in Experiment 1b

Variable	1	2	3	4	5
1. White writers’ MRS scores	—
2. White writers’ IMS scores	−.66***	—
3. Black perceivers’ guesses about White writers’ MRS scores	.17**	−.05	—
4. Black perceivers’ guesses about White writers’ IMS scores	−.18**	.10^†	−.72***	—
5. Black perceivers’ liking	−.19***	.14*	−.57***	.59***	—
6. Black perceivers’ trust	−.16**	.08	−.67***	.63***	.84***

Note: White writers’ Modern Racism Scale (MRS) and Internal Motivation to Respond Without Prejudice Scale (IMS) scores signify White participants’ actual racial attitudes and motivations. Black perceivers’ guesses about White writers’ MRS and IMS scores signify Black participants’ perceptions of White writers. Black perceivers’ liking and trust signify Black participants’ ratings of the White writer.

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001 (all two-tailed).

Trust and liking

Bivariate correlations revealed that Black perceivers trusted White writers with higher MRS scores significantly less (r = –.163, p = .005), but not writers with lower IMS scores (r = .082, p = .155). Black perceivers liked White writers with higher MRS scores (r = –.185, p = .001) and lower IMS scores (r = .144, p = .012) significantly less (see Table 3).

Linguistic cues used by Black perceivers

We employed Brunswik’s (1956) lens model of human perception to identify which cues White writers displayed and which cues Black perceivers used to infer writers’ underlying beliefs (e.g., see Hall et al., 2014; Hartwig & Bond, 2011). A significant correlation between writers’ actual MRS or IMS scores and coder ratings indicates that writers’ underlying racial attitudes or motivations predict the display of that cue. A cue is used by Black perceivers if there is a significant correlation between coder ratings and perceivers’ estimation of writers’ underlying racial attitudes and motivations (see Figs. 2 and 3 for MRS and IMS lens models, respectively).

Fig. 2.

Combined Brunswik lens model for the Modern Racism Scale (MRS) in Experiment 1b. The model shows correlations between coder ratings and White writers’ MRS scores (left) and Black perceivers’ guesses about White writers’ MRS scores (right). Black solid lines indicate significant relationships (^†p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001); gray dashed lines indicate nonsignificant relationships (ps > .10).

Fig. 3.

Combined Brunswik lens model for the Internal Motivation to Respond Without Prejudice Scale (IMS) in Experiment 1b. The model shows correlations between coder ratings and White writers’ IMS scores (left) and Black perceivers’ guesses about White writers’ IMS scores (right). Black solid lines indicate significant relationships (^†p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001); gray dashed lines indicate nonsignificant relationships (ps > .10).

As indicated by correlations in the left-hand section of the lens models, White writers’ MRS and IMS scores predicted the display of several of the same cues: Writers with higher MRS scores and writers with lower IMS scores were less likely to humanize Black people, support equal opportunity, and articulate a learning orientation. These writers were also more likely to emphasize that equal opportunity already exists and that personal responsibility determines life outcomes. Additionally, writers with higher MRS scores were less likely to be defensive or emphasize that inequality exists and were more likely to emphasize the importance of equity compared with equality. While it approached but did not reach the conventional level of statistical significance, writers with lower IMS scores were directionally less likely to employ moral rationales for egalitarian values. Neither MRS nor IMS scores predicted support for colorblindness, suggesting that this value was equally emphasized by writers with high and low scores on those measures.

As indicated by correlations in the right-hand section of the lens models, four cues in particular accurately informed perceptions: Black perceivers inferred that greater use of humanizing language and emphasis on support for equal opportunity indicated lower MRS scores and higher IMS scores. Black perceivers also inferred that emphasizing personal responsibility and the idea that equal opportunity already exists indicated higher MRS scores and lower IMS scores.

Black perceivers failed to use learning-orientation and inequality-exists language as indicators of writers’ MRS or IMS scores. Ironically, perceivers incorrectly interpreted authenticity cues: Although higher IMS scores predicted more authentic language, perceivers inferred that authentic language indicated that writers’ had lower IMS scores. This result echoes prior findings that Black people perceive White individuals’ attempts to appear nonprejudiced as cold, ill meaning, or ingenuine (Kervyn et al., 2012; Shelton et al., 2005; Zou & Cheryan, 2015). Likewise, this finding suggests that White people’s earnestness may sometimes backfire.

These results also reveal that Black perceivers’ accuracy is not merely due to how ardently White writers avow their egalitarianism. Were this the case, one might expect that Black perceivers would primarily attend to writers’ emphasis on overall support for equality, their moralistic rationales for avoiding prejudice, or how earnest they seemed. Instead, perceivers distinguished between cues such as writers’ emphasis on inherent equality over equal treatment. This suggests that Black perceivers’ inferences are driven by a nuanced reading of White writers’ focus on specific aspects of egalitarianism.

Experiment 2: Causal Evidence That Linguistic Cues Shape Perceptions

We tested the causal influence of the linguistic cues accurately used by perceivers in Experiment 1b (i.e., humanization, equal-opportunity support, personal responsibility, and equal-opportunity-exists language) on Black perceivers’ inferences of White writers’ underlying racial attitudes and motivations, likeability, and trustworthiness. We preregistered Experiment 2 on OSF (https://osf.io/nzeq8/).

Method

Participants

Following our preregistration, we recruited 200 Black perceivers. In total, 203 Prolific participants (85 men; age: M = 31.54 years, SD = 9.98) completed the study for $1.90. A G*Power (Faul et al., 2007) analysis determined that this sample size would provide 80% power to detect an effect size (d) of 0.20 using a two-tailed paired-samples t test.

Procedure

We used a 4 (linguistic cue: humanization, personal responsibility, equal opportunity exists, equal-opportunity support) × 2 (emphasis: high, low) within-subjects experimental design. We created two unique statements for each cue, producing eight different templates. We then manipulated each template to be more or less indicative of each linguistic cue. For example, the statements for equal opportunity exists varied as follows:

Yes, I absolutely believe that all people are equal. I [think/don’t think] everyone has an equal amount of opportunity in our society. It is clear that people [have/don’t have] an equal amount of opportunity under the law, regardless of race, gender, or national origin. We [all start/don’t all start] in the same place.

Pretesting confirmed that manipulations of all eight templates significantly affected perceivers’ perceptions of the cue in the intended direction.⁵ Each participant in the experiment read and rated eight randomly selected statements—one high- or one low-emphasis version of each cue. No participant saw both the high and low versions of any cue template. Participants were told that statements were written by past White participants. After reading each statement, participants estimated the ostensible writers’ racial attitudes and motivations and indicated how much they would like and trust the writers.

Measures

Racial attitudes and motivations

Perceivers again estimated writers’ MRS and IMS scores. To minimize the length of the experiment, we shortened each scale by using the three items that loaded most highly on each primary factor (MRS: α = .94; IMS: α = .95).

Trust and liking

Participants answered the questions, “How much would you trust the person who wrote this response?” (1 = I would not trust them at all, 7 = I would trust them very much) and “How well would you get along with the person who wrote this response?” (1 = I would not get along with them at all, 7 = I would get along with them very well).

Results

We predicted that a higher degree of humanization or equal-opportunity-support language and a lower degree of personal-responsibility or equal-opportunity-exists language would lead Black perceivers to rate the writers as having lower MRS scores, higher IMS scores, more likeability, and more trustworthiness. We conducted paired-samples t tests to determine the influence of the emphasis manipulation on perceiver judgments. The manipulation of each code significantly affected all dependent variables (ps < .001; see Table 4). Black perceivers rated egalitarian statements with greater humanizing and equal-opportunity-support language as indicative of lower MRS and higher IMS scores, trustworthiness, and likeability (all ps < .001). Black perceivers rated greater personal-responsibility and equal-opportunity-exists language as indicative of higher MRS and lower IMS scores, trustworthiness, and likeability (ps < .001; see Table 4). The results confirm that these linguistic cues causally predict Black perceivers’ inferences of White writers.

Table 4.

Black Perceivers’ Ratings of White Writers for High Versus Low Versions of Each Linguistic Code in Experiment 2

Measure and linguistic code	High		Low
Measure and linguistic code	M	SD	M	SD	t
Modern Racism Scale
Humanization	2.81	1.56	3.82	1.67	−8.11***
Equal-opportunity support	2.92	1.65	4.21	1.71	−9.28***
Equal opportunity exists	4.07	1.97	2.41	1.50	9.52***
Personal responsibility	3.89	1.80	2.60	1.59	9.17***
Internal Motivation to Respond Without Prejudice Scale
Humanization	5.67	1.40	4.43	1.69	8.95***
Equal-opportunity support	5.41	1.55	4.10	1.49	10.49***
Equal opportunity exists	4.67	1.70	5.65	1.31	−6.92***
Personal responsibility	4.75	1.59	5.47	1.46	−5.58***
Trust
Humanization	4.87	1.56	3.62	1.86	8.74***
Equal-opportunity support	4.83	1.57	3.38	1.71	11.34***
Equal opportunity exists	3.86	1.99	5.04	1.45	−7.36***
Personal responsibility	3.96	1.89	4.92	1.54	−6.71***
Liking
Humanization	5.02	1.58	3.80	1.91	8.33***
Equal-opportunity support	5.01	1.60	3.48	1.72	11.54***
Equal opportunity exists	3.95	2.01	5.33	1.38	−8.56***
Personal responsibility	4.12	1.86	5.03	1.62	−6.07***

Note: N = 203 for all analyses. df = 202 for all t tests.

***

p < .001.

Experiment 3: White Egalitarians’ Underlying Racial Attitudes and Motivations Impact Black Perceivers’ Trust Behavior

We tested the behavioral implications of the observed perceptual process by engaging Black participants in an economic trust game with White egalitarians. We hypothesized that Black perceivers would financially cooperate less with White egalitarians who had greater underlying anti-Black attitudes and motivations. We preregistered Experiment 3 on OSF (https://osf.io/gprq3/).

Method

Participants

We preregistered our intention to recruit 300 participants, in line with previous research related to race and economic trust games (Jenkins et al., 2018). In total, 300 Black Americans (110 men; age: M = 35.74 years, SD = 11.79) from MTurk completed the study for $1.00, plus incentives. A power analysis using a multilevel-modeling effect-size calculator (Westfall et al., 2014) determined that this sample size would provide 80% power to detect a correlation (|r|) of .16 and effect size (d) of 0.26 in a two-level random factor multilevel modeling design.

Procedure

Participants first read the rules of an economic game used in previous research to capture trust and cooperation behaviors (Jenkins et al., 2018; Stanley et al., 2011). Participants were endowed with money ($0.20) and then told that they would see information about 20 different White people and were to decide how much money to share with each of them.⁶ Participants were told that the amount of money they shared would be tripled, and their counterpart would decide how much of this tripled amount to send back to the participant. Thus, it was most advantageous for Black participants to share larger amounts of money with White counterparts they trusted more and share smaller amounts of money with those they trusted less. Participants completed a comprehension check after reading the instructions.

Participants then read egalitarian and nonprejudice statements from 20 randomly assigned White writers. This statement pool consisted of 55 stimuli used in Experiment 1b.⁷ Each writer was identified as being White to ensure that partner race was salient. After reading each White writer’s statements, participants indicated how much of their bonus they would share with each partner. After participants completed the study, we randomly selected one trial as the basis for payment and paid participants according to how much money they shared with the writer and how much money the writer indicated they would return to the participant.

Measures

To rate trust sharing, we asked participants to read the following (Stanley et al., 2011):

You decide how to split $0.20 with the other person. The amount you give the other person will be tripled, and they will decide how much of that amount to split with you. How much of the $0.20 would you give to this person?

Participants provided an amount between $0.00 and $0.20, with $0.02 increments.

Results

Following our preregistration, we used the lmerTest package (Version 3.1-3; Kuznetsova et al., 2017) in the R programming environment (Version 3.6.1; R Core Team, 2019) to analyze the data via multilevel modeling. We tested MRS and IMS scores as predictors of trust sharing in separate models, specifying participant and writer as random factors. All variables were mean-centered and standardized to range from 0 to 1. As predicted, Black perceivers exhibited less trust sharing with White egalitarians who had higher MRS scores, b = −0.143, SE = 0.040, t(53) = −3.59, p < .001, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [−0.221, −0.064], partial R² = .20 (see Fig. 4), or lower IMS scores, b = 0.121, SE = 0.041, t(53) = 2.96, p = .005, 95% CI = [0.040, 0.201], partial R² = .14 (see Fig. 5).⁸ Whereas the previous experiments identified that Black perceivers’ inferences of racial bias shape their evaluations of White egalitarians, the current results indicate that these inferences translate directly into worse cross-race dynamics. Therefore, the perceptual process observed across our experiments may have important societal consequences.

Fig. 4.

Effect of White writers’ Modern Racism Scale (MRS) score on Black perceivers’ trust sharing in Experiment 3. The shaded area around the regression line represents 95% confidence intervals.

Fig. 5.

Effect of White writers’ Internal Motivation to Respond Without Prejudice Scale (IMS) score on Black perceivers’ trust sharing in Experiment 3. The shaded area around the regression line represents 95% confidence intervals.

General Discussion

Although White Americans increasingly claim to be egalitarian, the manner in which they make these claims may speak volumes to Black Americans about their underlying beliefs. Three experiments demonstrated that Black perceivers detected underlying racial attitudes and motivations solely on the basis of White writers’ proclamations of their egalitarian beliefs (Experiments 1a, 1b, and 2). Furthermore, Black perceivers evaluated White egalitarians whose underlying attitudes and motivations were more anti-Black as relatively more offensive, less likely an ally (Experiment 1a), less likeable (Experiments 1b, 2), and less trustworthy (Experiments 1b, 2, and 3).

We found that Black perceivers identified White egalitarians’ underlying racial attitudes and motivations from particular linguistic cues (Experiments 1b and 2). Black perceivers accurately inferred that humanizing language and emphasizing support for equal opportunity indicated lower MRS and higher IMS scores and that emphasizing personal responsibility and that equal opportunity already exists indicated higher MRS and lower IMS scores. These findings align with evidence that Black Americans interpret dehumanizing language as indicative of prejudice (Winslow et al., 2011) and that White Americans’ beliefs about the causes of inequality are indicative of their underlying prejudice (Kluegel & Smith, 2017; Monteith & Spicer, 2000; Powell et al., 2005). In sum, this research demonstrates that Black Americans closely attend to whether White egalitarians acknowledge them as fully human or acknowledge the societal obstacles that they face.

Our work elucidates how racial attitudes and motivations are communicated in intergroup settings. Research on implicit bias and aversive racism has suggested that automatic or nondeliberative processes produce subtle expressions of racial bias (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2000; Dovidio & Gaertner, 2004; Olson & Fazio, 2008). For example, implicit bias “leaks out” via subtle nonverbal behaviors (McConnell & Leibold, 2001). Our work identifies that even deliberative processes (i.e., writing egalitarian avowals) signal bias to out-group members and occur in the face of explicit egalitarian norms (Crandall et al., 2002) and social-desirability concerns (Axt, 2017). Thus, even as White Americans deliberatively cloak themselves in egalitarian language, racial bias persists and is readily perceived.

This work suggests that one important source of interracial mistrust may be the disparate conceptions that different racial groups hold of what constitutes egalitarianism. We found that White Americans’ claims of egalitarianism were perceived by Black people as being less inoffensive than White Americans expected and influenced Black Americans’ perceptions that they would undertake allyship behaviors. These results suggest that although White Americans believe that their prejudice is low or nonexistent, Black Americans believe that it is simply repackaged. This effect may contribute to larger, persistent societal differences between White and Black Americans’ perceptions of the health of interracial relations (Frankovic, 2019).

The perceptual processes that we identified have potentially profound implications despite relatively small effect sizes (.08 < rs < .17). Phenomena that occur frequently or have important outcomes can have huge implications in aggregate (DiPrete & Eirich, 2006; Greenwald et al., 2015). For instance, implicit bias in hiring discrimination may have large aggregate economic costs and dramatically impact the lives of individuals affected by this discrimination, even despite small effect sizes (.07 < r < .08; Agerström & Rooth, 2011). The present work reveals that Black Americans’ perceptions of egalitarianism translate into diminished interpersonal trust with real economic costs. Specifically, an increase in White egalitarians’ underlying MRS scores or decrease in IMS scores by 1 standard deviation led Black participants to share 8% to 9% less money with them (Experiment 3). This decrease resulted in a 9% to 10% drop in total financial benefit for both parties from sharing. As egalitarian expressions become increasingly prevalent (Barreto & Ellemers, 2005a, 2005b; 88% of White participants in our samples claimed to be egalitarian), perceptions of egalitarianism by racial minorities may substantially determine both economic growth and race relations in America.

Our experiments had some limitations. First, the list of linguistic codes we generated was neither exhaustive nor able to capture all possible nuances of the cues we did measure. For example, because of low usage, we were able to code only whether writers cited language related to out-group contact but not the nature or quality of out-group contact. More focused investigations of particular facets of egalitarian language could provide further insight. Second, our attention on self-identified egalitarians leaves open the question of how willfully inegalitarian White people are perceived. Third, our use of non-Black coders of linguistic content may have influenced our findings. Given prior work showing that Black Americans attend more to prejudice than White Americans (Liao et al., 2016), the strength of our linguistic analyses may have been somewhat muted. Future work could directly compare Black and White Americans’ interpretations of egalitarian expressions and their ability to accurately perceive inegalitarianism. In addition, it is possible that our results may not generalize to non-U.S. populations or to samples obtained from sources other than MTurk and Prolific.

Some inconsistencies in our findings remain for further exploration. Although we found that White writers’ MRS scores predicted Black perceivers’ expected interracial trust in Experiment 1b and their actual trust behavior in Experiment 3, we did not find this effect on our single-item measure of trust in Experiment 1a. However, White writers’ MRS score did predict Black perceivers’ belief that the writer would undertake allyship behaviors in Experiment 1a, a measure which resembles our measure of interracial trust in Experiment 1b. Additionally, we found that the link between White writers’ IMS scores and Black perceivers’ trust in the writers was inconsistent: White writers’ IMS scores correlated with both Black perceivers’ perceptions of writers’ likely allyship behaviors in Experiment 1a and with perceivers’ actual trust behavior in Experiment 3, but was not correlated with Black perceivers general trust in Experiment 1a or their interracial trust in Experiment 1b. Future work should further examine the conditions under which individuals’ prejudice and motivation to be nonprejudiced predict perceptions of their general trustworthiness compared to trust regarding specific interracial dynamics.

Finally, future researchers should explore how divergence between racial attitudes and motivations affects expressions of egalitarianism. For example, a prejudiced individual who is nonetheless motivated to be egalitarian might express themselves and be perceived differently from someone without such motivation. We were unable to address this nuanced question because of the high correlation between MRS and IMS scores across our experiments (–.66 < rs < –.69). However, our data suggest that different linguistic cues are likely indicative of each construct. In terms of expression, we found that emphasizing moralistic rationales and equity over equality predicted MRS but not IMS scores. In terms of perceptions, extant research demonstrates that Black participants perceive more overt racist behavior from people with low IMS scores but not necessarily those with high MRS scores. In contrast, they perceive people with higher MRS scores, but not higher IMS scores, as being more uncomfortable around Black people and more likely to deny racial inequities (Sommers & Norton, 2006). We found similar effects: Black participants perceived moralistic rationales as indicating greater IMS scores but did not associate this language with MRS scores. Conversely, Black participants perceived colorblindness as indicating IMS but not MRS. Future research might further investigate which linguistic cues correspond to which racial attitudes and motivations.

In sum, our work supports the contention by Black Americans that declarations of egalitarianism belie inegalitarianism (Stevens, 2021). This suggests that more positive intergroup relations between White and Black Americans will not be cultivated by individuals simply asserting nonprejudice. Instead, White Americans’ very insistence that they are egalitarian perpetuates mistrust with Black Americans.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-pss-10.1177_09567976211054090 – Supplemental material for Detecting Prejudice From Egalitarianism: Why Black Americans Don’t Trust White Egalitarians’ Claims

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-pss-10.1177_09567976211054090 for Detecting Prejudice From Egalitarianism: Why Black Americans Don’t Trust White Egalitarians’ Claims by Michael Rosenblum, Drew S. Jacoby-Senghor and N. Derek Brown in Psychological Science

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We thank Daniel Stein, Shoshana Jarvis, Sarah de la Vega, Sonya Mishra, Isaac Raymundo, Brianna Blair, Madeline Kushner, Allegra Agabian, Nicole Holder, Laura Zhu, Helena Karnilowicz, and Ming Hsu for their feedback, and we thank the numerous research assistants who aided in data coding and manuscript preparation.

Transparency

Action Editor: Kate Ratliff

Editor: Patricia J. Bauer

Author Contributions

M. Rosenblum and D. S. Jacoby-Senghor generated the idea for the article. M. Rosenblum, D. S. Jacoby-Senghor, and N. D. Brown designed the experiments. M. Rosenblum and N. D. Brown analyzed the data. All the authors wrote the manuscript and approved the final version for submission.

Correction (May 2023):

The online version of this article has been revised and republished. The original version was published online on April 28, 2022. The revised version was published online on May 9, 2023. See for more details.

ORCID iDs

Michael Rosenblum

N. Derek Brown

Supplemental Material

Additional supporting information can be found at

Notes

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