Abstract
People commonly reference minority friendships when expressing conceivably prejudiced attitudes. The prevalence of this strategy suggests a widespread belief that having minority friends makes one look less racist, but to date, there is little research demonstrating whether or not this is the case. White and Asian participants were presented with a Facebook profile depicting a White target who posted an anti-Asian statement. Being depicted with Asian friends (Study 1) or even verbally claiming that they had Asian friends (Study 2) reduced attributions of racism irrespective of whether they were being evaluated by White or Asian observers. Furthermore, the presence of Asian friends made the conceivably racist comments seem relatively benign, and observers were less offended and upset by them. The data suggest that minority friendships can partially offset costs associated with expressing prejudice.
People often use the disclaimer “some of my best friends are X … ” when expressing conceivably prejudiced attitudes, presumably to deflect any consequential imputations of racism (Bradley-Geist, King, Skorinko, Hebl, & McKenna, 2010; Jackman & Crane, 1986). To date, however, there has been little empirical investigation into whether actors who have minority friendships are seen by observers as less prejudiced generally or whether minority friendships buffer actors from the negative social consequences associated with expressing prejudice. In this article, we provide the first answers to these questions, offering a novel contribution to the growing literature on moral licensing as well as practical insights into how visual cues and conversational hedges influence attributions of racism in everyday discourse.
Moral Credentials as Cues to Nonprejudice
Being considered a “racist” is heavily stigmatizing; people strive to distance themselves from that label and maintain an egalitarian image, even if they may hold prejudiced attitudes (Sommers & Norton, 2006). This means that much contemporary racism has taken on a subtle, ambiguous form (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986). As a result, recognizing racism has become increasingly challenging: In the absence of overt prejudicial behavior, people are required to make complex moral judgments about discrimination (or lack thereof) by drawing inferences from what contextual information they are presented with (see Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Inman & Baron, 1996; Marino, Negy, Hammons, McKinney, & Asberg, 2007).
People who fear their behavior will be construed as prejudiced may strategically display certain information, termed moral credentials (Monin & Miller, 2001), to signal an impression of nonprejudice. If effective, moral credentials should protect actors from attributions of prejudice and reframe their potentially incriminating actions in a more benevolent light (Effron & Monin, 2010). Although research demonstrates that people use moral credentials to license conceivably prejudiced behavior, and are personally convinced of their effectiveness (Effron, Cameron, & Monin, 2009; Merritt et al., 2012; Monin & Miller, 2001), little research has looked into how effective moral credentials actually are in shifting observers’ interpretation of the behavior in question.
One vignette study indicated that having moral credentials (e.g., voicing support for gay marriage or having gay friends) reduced perceptions of discrimination for straight observers but not gay observers (Krumm & Corning, 2008). These findings were inconclusive, however, as participants read different vignettes describing different types of credentials and discriminatory behaviors in the licensed and unlicensed conditions. Furthermore, the authors collapsed over multiple vignettes and were not able to ascertain the differential effectiveness of the various types of moral credentials. In the present article, we focus on one source of moral credentials that we propose should be relatively effective in inoculating majority group actors against charges of prejudice from both majority and minority group observers: minority friendships.
Minority Friendships as Moral Credentials?
One of the most common disclaimers used to establish a moral safety net to protect against attributions of prejudice is reference to minority friendships (Bradley-Geist et al., 2010; Jackman & Crane, 1986). The prevalence of the “minority friends” disclaimer indicates a widespread belief, at least among majority group members, that minority friendships signal nonprejudice. To date, however, there is little evidence that actors who have minority friendships are perceived by observers as less prejudiced, let alone whether minority friendships effectively license conceivably prejudiced behavior.
It is possible that beliefs held by majority group actors about the moral credentialing value of minority friendships are unfounded; minority friendships may simply not translate to nonprejudice in the eyes of observers, especially minority group observers. Indeed, actors who are motivated to moral credential often overestimate how credentialed observers will perceive them as being (Effron, 2014). Research also shows that transgressing in the same domain as that in which moral credentials have been established may provoke backlash from observers due to perceptions of hypocrisy (Effron & Monin, 2010). Disparaging a particular minority group from which one possesses friends may similarly be deemed hypocritical and consequently incite more negative attributions. Thus, minority friendships may not effectively convince observers of an actor’s nonprejudice in the presence of incriminating behavior.
A second possibility is that minority friendships do serve as effective moral credentials. Here too, past research provides some support. For example, actors who have moral credentials are let off the hook by observers for their transgressions, irrespective of domain, if those transgressions are ambiguous enough to allow for reconstrual (Effron & Monin, 2010). This ambiguity caveat may be especially relevant in the context of racism. Given contemporary antiracist norms, prejudice in the real world is often masked by ambiguity. Thus, observers’ interpretation of conceivably racist events may be quite malleable and may shift, given the presence of appropriate moral credentials. The prevalence of the minority friends disclaimer suggests that the concepts of minority friendships and nonprejudice are ubiquitously linked, perhaps even in the minds of observers. It is therefore possible that observers, especially majority group observers, may pay special attention to minority friendship information when making moral judgments about actors displaying conceivably prejudiced behavior.
Although preliminary work suggests that minority group observers may be less convinced by moral credentials in general (Krumm & Corning, 2008), research into intergroup dynamics suggests they too may be persuaded by minority friendship cues. Being aligned with minority group members via friendship may give majority group actors the benefit of being perceived as embedded within the minority group. This embeddedness may confer advantages with respect to convincing both majority and minority observers of the actor’s nonprejudice. The extended contact literature, for example, shows that minority group members feel more positively about majority group members if they know of minority/majority friendships (Gómez, Tropp, & Fernández, 2011). Furthermore, people who criticize a particular group are evaluated more positively by members of that group, if they themselves are also part of that group (Hornsey & Imani, 2004; Hornsey, Oppes, & Svensson, 2002). It is possible, then, that majority group actors who have minority friends, and are therefore seen to be embedded within the group, are more likely to be exonerated by minority group observers after an apparent display of prejudice than those who do not have minority friends.
The extant literature thus provides two competing possibilities regarding the effectiveness of minority friendships as a source of moral credentials. On one hand, minority friendships may not convey nonprejudice nor license prejudiced expressions, despite what majority group actors may believe. On the other hand, minority friendships may effectively license conceivably prejudiced behavior, given their ubiquitous use as moral credentials and their cues to embeddedness within the minority group. We test these competing possibilities in two experiments.
Study 1
In Study 1, White and Asian observers studied a Facebook profile belonging to a White target who was visually depicted as being surrounded by no, few, or many Asian friends. The profile contained an anti-Asian (or baseline control) statement posted by the target. We hypothesized that, if minority friendships cue nonprejudice, targets would generally be rated more positively the more minority friends they were surrounded by. Furthermore, if minority friendships are effective moral credentials, this effect of minority friendships should hold even when targets have posted a conceivably prejudiced anti-Asian statement. Specifically, observers should evaluate a target making an anti-Asian statement while surrounded by Asian friends as less racist in comparison to a target making an anti-Asian statement while surrounded by only White friends. Observers should also assume the anti-Asian statement was made with more benign intentions, find it less offensive, and be less upset by it. Finally, in line with past research, we expected these moral credentialing effects (if present) might be more pronounced for majority than minority group observers.
Method
Participants
A power analysis (GPower: Faul, Erfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007) determined that the approximate number of participants required for an 80% chance of detecting a significant small-moderate effect of size f = .15 (Cohen, 1992) was 432. We decided to collect roughly this number of participants. The final sample comprised 203 White Americans and 254 Asian Americans (56.7% male and Mage = 29.41) recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk; see Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling, 2011). The data were collected in two MTurk batches—one general batch was used to collect White Americans and one targeted batch was advertised specifically for Asian Americans. Race was also checked within the survey. We only included data from the relevant majority and minority group, and so 31 non-White and non-Asian participants were excluded from the analyses (19 Black Americans and 17 “Other”).
Design and Procedure
The study used a 2 (statement: anti-Asian vs. control) × 3 (minority friends: none vs. few vs. many) × 2 (observer race: White vs. Asian) between-groups design. Participants were informed that the present study required them to determine how much they could tell about somebody based on their Facebook profile. Participants were then presented with the Facebook profile of a White, male target named Jake Miller. This profile contained the independent manipulations (described earlier). After reading the Facebook profile, participants evaluated the target on a series of dimensions. 1
Manipulations
Statement
The Facebook profile contained a public statement ostensibly posted by the target. Depending on the condition to which participants were randomly assigned, the statement was manipulated such that it was conceivably racist and directed toward Asian people (e.g., “way too many Asians around”) or toward squirrels, as a control (e.g., “way too many squirrels around”). For generalizability reasons, participants viewed one of four anti-Asian statements (or their control equivalents) that we collapsed together for analyses (i.e., “so sick of Asians right now,” “Asians are annoying,” “can’t stand Asians” and, “way too many Asians around”).
Minority friendships
The Facebook profile contained visual information pertaining to the close friendships the target possessed. Depending on the condition, the cover photo on the profile depicted the target as being surrounded by no (0 Asian, 5 White), few (1 Asian, 4 White), or many Asian friends (4 Asian, 1 White); see Figure 1.
Experimental manipulation of minority friendships: Study 1.
Measures
Perceived target racism was measured with 1 item: “To what extent do you believe that Jake Miller is racist?”(1 = not at all to 7 = very much so; M = 2.63, SD = 1.96).
Perceived negative intent was measured by asking participants whether they believed the statement was (a) “probably a joke” (reverse scored) and (b) “malicious” (1 = not at all to 7 = very much so; r = .49, p < .001, M = 5.06, SD = 1.67).
Perceived offensiveness was measured by asking participants whether they believed the statement was “offensive,” “acceptable” (reverse scored), “harmless” (reverse scored), “fine” (reverse scored), “nothing to get caught up over” (reverse scored), and “went too far” (1 = not at all to 7 = very much so; α = .95, M = 3.38, SD = 1.94).
Negative affect toward statement was measured by asking participants whether the statement made them feel “angry,” “sad,” “happy” (reverse scored), “anxious,” “calm” (reverse scored), and “uneasy” (1 = not at all to 7 = very much so; α = .83, M = 3.31, SD = 1.20).
Results
Means and standard deviations for all variables can be seen in Table 1. Correlations between all variables can be seen in Table 2. A 2 (statement) × 3 (minority friends) × 2 (observer race) between-groups, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed significant multivariate effects of statement, F(4, 442) = 185.79, p < .001, η p 2 = .63, and minority friends, F(8, 884) = 4.77, p < .001, η p 2 = .04, that were qualified by a significant multivariate interaction between statement and minority friends, F(8, 884) = 3.68, p < .001, η p 2 = .03. No multivariate three-way interaction with observer race emerged, indicating that the previous Statement × Minority friend interaction was consistent across White and Asian participants, F(8, 884) = 0.76, p = .640, η p 2 = .01.
Means and Standard Deviations: Study 1.
Note. Means within the same row that do not share the same subscripts are significantly different at p < .05. Standard deviations are shown in parentheses.
Intercorrelations: Study 1.
*p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.
Perceived Target Racism
Examination of the univariate effects confirmed, consistent with the manipulation, that the target was seen as more racist if they had made an anti-Asian statement (M = 3.97) than if they had not (M = 1.30), F(1, 445) = 446.16, p < .001, η p 2 = .50. A significant main effect of minority friends, F(2, 445) = 15.60, p < .001, η p = .07, was qualified by an interaction between statement and minority friends, F(2, 445) = 13.53, p < .001, η p 2 = .06. Minority friends did not impact upon perceived target racism when the target made a neutral statement, F(2, 445) = 0.04, p = .965, η p 2 < .01. When the target made an anti-Asian statement, however, there was a significant effect of minority friends on perceived target racism, F(2, 445) = 30.19, p < .001, η p 2 = .12. A White target without Asian friends was rated as significantly more racist than the target with one Asian friend, p < .001, d = .67, who was in turn rated as significantly more racist than the target with many Asian friends, p = .048, d = .24. No significant three-way interaction with observer race emerged, F(2, 445) = 0.21, p = .813, η p 2 < .01.
Perceived Negative Intent, Offensiveness, and Negative Affect
The same pattern of univariate effects emerged across perceived negative intent, offensiveness, and negative affect. There was a significant main effect of statement on all three variables, Fs(1, 445) ≥ 235.71, ps ≤ 001, η p 2s ≥ .35. Participants perceived more negative intent behind anti-Asian statements (M = 3.90) than control statements (M = 1.98). Anti-Asian statements (M = 4.87) were also rated as more offensive than the control statement (M = 1.89). Participants felt greater negative affect toward the anti-Asian statement (M = 4.05) than the control statement (M = 2.57).
Across all variables, consistent and significant main effects of minority friends, Fs(2, 445) ≥ 3.96, ps ≤ .020, η p 2s ≥ .02, were qualified by significant interactions between statement and minority friends, Fs(2, 445) ≥ 4.92, ps ≤ .008, η p 2s ≥ .02. Minority friends did not impact on any of the variables when the target made a neutral statement, Fs(2, 445) ≤ .72, ps ≥ .486, η p 2s < .01. When the target made an anti-Asian statement, however, there was a significant effect of minority friends on all variables, Fs(2, 445) ≥ 8.49, ps < .001, η p 2s ≥ .04. The pattern of effects for perceived negative intent, offensiveness, and negative affect differed slightly from those for perceived target racism, however. The statement of a target without Asian friends was perceived as more likely driven by negative intent, rated more offensive, and responded with more negative affect, than that of a target with either few, ps ≤ .017, ds ≥ .34, or many Asian friends, ps ≤ .001, ds ≥ .57. No significant differences in perceived negative intent, offensiveness, or negative affect emerged between targets who had few or many Asian friends, ps ≥ .077, ds ≤ .23. No significant three-way interaction with observer race emerged on any variable, Fs (2, 445) ≤ 1.18, ps ≥ .308, η p 2s < .01.
Discussion
Supporting the moral credentialing hypothesis of minority friendships, and contrary to the null possibility, White targets who expressed an anti-Asian sentiment were seen as less racist if surrounded by Asian friends. Observers also assumed more benign intentions behind, were less offended by, and experienced less negative affect toward the statement of targets with Asian friends. Although we predicted that minority friendships would make a target seem less racist in general, no difference in racism ratings (or any other variable) emerged for those in the control statement condition. In fact, participants seemed unwilling to pass judgment on the target’s racial attitudes in the absence of evidence of prejudice, leading to floor compression. These baseline data also demonstrated that minority friendships did not completely license an anti-Asian statement; although observers judged targets making an anti-Asian statement less negatively if they were depicted with minority friendships, these targets were still perceived more negatively than those who had not made an anti-Asian statement.
This study extends previous research by demonstrating that minority friendships are somewhat effective in convincing observers that one is less prejudiced when a conceivably prejudiced expression has been made. Importantly, and contrary to past literature, a consistent pattern of effects emerged across majority and minority group observers. This indicates that minority friendships may be a comparatively effective source of moral credentials (see Krumm & Corning, 2008). Study 2 was designed to test boundary conditions of this effect.
Study 2
In Study 2, we examined whether the moral credentialing effects observed in Study 1 would hold with a verbal, rather than visual, reference to minority friends. In the real world, majority group members may not always have minority friends on hand to offset fallout from conceivably prejudiced expressions. As such, they may verbally reference these friends. Verbal allusions, however, may lack the persuasive power of hard visual evidence and thus engender disbelief in observers. Furthermore, research demonstrates that verbal disclaimers sometimes backfire (El-Alayli, Myers, Petersen, & Lystad, 2008). It is therefore possible that mere reference to minority friendships, as commonly observed in reality, may be comparatively ineffective in reducing racism attributions.
In Study 2, we tested the same two competing possibilities as in Study 1. To determine whether observers would be persuaded by a verbal disclaimer alluding to minority friends, we measured the extent to which they perceived the actor was integrated with that minority group. We hypothesized that, if observers were convinced by the target’s minority friend disclaimer, they would perceive the target to be more integrated with the minority group and would confer the targets the same moral benefits previously observed.
Method
Participants
Because we were again recruiting from the MTurk pool, we specified that only new participants (those who did not complete Study 1) could participate. A power analysis revealed that we needed a sample size of 85 in Study 2 to detect the same-sized moral credentialing effect on target racism seen in Study 1. Given the possibility of a smaller effect with a verbal reference to minority friends, we decided instead to collect approximately double this number. The final sample comprised 85 White Americans and 76 Asian Americans (61.5% male; Mage = 31.12). Again, observations from non-White and non-Asian participants were excluded from the analyses (14 Black Americans, 8 “Other”).
Design and Procedure
The study used a 4 (friendship disclaimer: see below) × 2 (observerrace: White vs. Asian) between-groups design. As in Study 1, participants evaluated a White, male target whose Facebook profile contained a conceivably racist statement directed toward Asians. Depending on the condition to which participants were randomly assigned, the statement was posted without a disclaimer or was preceded by one of three disclaimers: (1) “one of my best friends is Asian, but … ,” (2) “some of my best friends are Asian, but …” , and (3) “most of my best friends are Asian, but … ”. 2
Measures
Perceived target racism (M = 4.33, SD = 1.82), perceived negative intent (r = .52, p < .001, M = 3.97, SD = 1.58), perceived offensiveness (α = .90, M = 4.75, SD = 1.38), and negative affect toward statement (α = .76, M = 4.01, SD = 1.12) were measured as in Study 1.
Perceived target integration
An adaptation of the Inclusion of Other in the Self-Scale (Aron, Aron, & Smollan, 1992) was used to measure the extent to which participants believed the target was embedded within the minority group (“Please indicate the extent to which you feel that Jake Miller is integrated with Asian people”; 1 = 0% overlapping circles to 7 = 100% overlapping circles; M = 1.92, SD = 1.08).
Results
Means and standard deviations for all variables can be seen in Table 3. Correlations between all variables can be seen in Table 4. A 4 (disclaimer) × 2 (observer race) between-groups MANOVA revealed a significant multivariate effect of disclaimer, F(15, 450) = 2.99, p < .001, η p 2 = .09. No multivariate interaction with observer race emerged such that the effect of disclaimer was consistent across White and Asian participants, F(15, 450) = 0.64, p = .842, η p 2 = .02.
Means and Standard Deviations: Study 2.
Note. Means within the same row that do not share the same subscripts are significantly different at p < .05. Standard deviations are shown in parentheses.
Intercorrelations: Study 2.
*p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001.
Perceived Target Integration
Examination of the univariate effects revealed a main effect of disclaimer, F(3, 152) = 4.97, p = .003, η p 2 = .09. Compared to the target who did not precede their statement with a disclaimer, targets who referenced “one” (marginal), p = .059, d = −.51, “some,” p = .006, d = −.62, or “many” Asian friends, p < .001, d = −.81, were perceived to be significantly more integrated with Asian people. There was no significant difference in perceived target integration for those who referenced one, some, or many Asian friends, ps > .092, ds < −.40. No Disclaimer × Observer race interaction emerged, F(3, 152) = 0.65, p = .585, η p 2 = .01.
Perceived Target Racism
A main effect of disclaimer emerged on racism ratings, F(3, 152) = 6.67, p < .001, η p 2 = .12. Compared to the target who did not precede their statement with a disclaimer, targets who referenced one, p = .002, d = .75, some, p = .024, d = .50, or many Asian friends, p < .001, d = .87, were perceived to be significantly less racist. There were no significant differences in perceived target racism between the target who referenced only one Asian friend and targets who referenced some or many Asian friends, ps > .299, ds < .23. A target who referenced “many Asian friends,” however, was perceived to be significantly less racist than a target who referenced “some Asian friends,” p = .039, d = .41. No Disclaimer × Observer race interaction emerged, F(3, 152) = 0.98, p = .402, η p 2 = .02. White participants (M = 4.12), however, were marginally less likely than Asian participants (M = 4.57) to evaluate the target as racist overall, F(1, 152) = 3.51, p = .063, η p 2 = .02.
Perceived Negative Intent, Offensiveness, and Negative Affect Toward Statement
The same pattern of effects emerged across perceived negative intent, offensiveness, and negative affect. A main effect of disclaimer emerged for all variables, Fs(3, 152) ≥ 5.59, ps ≤ .001, η p 2s ≥ .10. Compared to the target who did not precede their statement with a disclaimer, targets who referenced Asian friends had their statements perceived to be less driven by negative intent, less offensive, and evoked less negative affect (one: ps ≤ .001, ds ≥ .72, some: ps ≤ .002, ds ≥ .63, and many: ps ≤ .001, ds ≥ .69). There were no significant differences in perceived negative intent, offensiveness, or negative affect for targets who referenced one, some, or many Asian friends, ps > .388, ds < .43. No significant Disclaimer × Observer race interaction emerged on any variable, Fs(3, 152) ≤ 0.54, ps ≥ .657, η p 2s ≤ .01.
Discussion
Study 2 demonstrated that mere verbal reference to minority friendships was sufficient to convince observers that a target was more embedded within the minority group they were disparaging and that the target was less racist. Observers also perceived less negative intent, took less offense, and experienced less negative affect toward anti-Asian statements preceded with a reference to minority friendships. As in Study 1, the means suggested that reference to minority friends did not absolve the target completely of negative perceptions but rather reduced them. Again, the pattern of effects remained consistent across White and Asian participants.
General Discussion
Previous research has shown that people regularly bring up their relationships with minority group members to appear less prejudiced, often when they have demonstrated feasibly prejudiced behavior (Bradley-Geist et al., 2010; Jackman & Crane, 1986). This article is the first to examine whether minority friendships actually protect majority group actors from observers’ attributions of prejudice. We demonstrated that they do, albeit not fully.
Although reluctant to attribute racism to actors who had not engaged in questionable behavior, observers paid special attention to minority friendship cues when making moral judgments about actors displaying conceivably prejudiced behavior. When a majority actor’s minority friends were visually evident (Study 1) or verbally referenced (Study 2) upon making a plausibly racist statement, they were perceived as less racist and more embedded within the minority group (Study 2) compared to an actor making the same statement without minority friends. Additionally, the statement was construed as better intentioned, less offensive, and less upsetting.
Importantly, minority group observers were just as likely as majority group observers to give moral license to the majority group target expressing racism if he displayed or referenced minority friends. 3 This gives credence to the notion that minority friendships may be more effective relative to other forms of moral credentials that have been explored previously (Krumm & Corning, 2008). Minority friendships may contain potent cues to embeddedness that can cultivate a more convincing air of nonprejudice.
This article bridges the gap between the moral licensing and intergroup contact literatures. Previous work on extended contact shows that knowledge of positive minority–majority contact facilitates greater intergroup positivity (Gómez et al., 2011). Our findings extend this literature by demonstrating that contact can also function as a social signal (see also La Macchia, Louis, Hornsey, Thai, & Barlow, 2016). When exposed to an actor’s ambiguously prejudiced behavior, people use the minority makeup of the actor’s social network to inform their judgments about that actor. Actors who surround themselves with or cite minority friends are seen as embedded within that minority group; their actions and attributes viewed through a (potentially biased) lens of positivity.
Having minority friendships is no panacea against prejudice, however. Minority friendships are not necessarily indicative of majority group members’ true prejudicial attitudes (Jackman & Crane, 1986). Prejudices and stereotypes toward broader minority groups may be maintained through the subtyping of minority friends (Aboud, Mendelson, & Purdy, 2003). Furthermore, only people higher in prejudice subsequently discriminate after being credentialed (Effron et al., 2009). It appears observers recognized this; although having minority friends somewhat alleviated negative target attributions, actors who had made conceivably prejudiced comments were still perceived more negatively than those who had not. Still, our findings suggest that minority friendships can potentially be exploited to soften the backlash that is typically expected from observers when prejudice is expressed.
Our studies demonstrated that the presence of minority friendships tempered the negative reactions that overt acts of racism would typically incite: Participants considered the conceivably prejudiced statement to be less offensive and experienced less negative affect. Considering that negative emotions (e.g., anger) felt in response to perceived discrimination are powerful precursors to collective action and social change (van Zomeren, Spears, Fischer, & Leach, 2004), these findings suggest that minority friendships may not only offset social costs associated with expressing prejudice but also suppress the potential social benefits that can be achieved through perceiving greater discrimination.
Limitations and Future Directions
Future research would do well to assess the boundary conditions of our effect. For example, the present studies used negatively valenced statements that were conceivably, but not indubitably, prejudiced. Given that blatant racism is generally nonnormative, this captured the ambiguous nature of contemporary prejudice. One caveat of this approach, however, is the resultant uncertainty surrounding the effectiveness of minority friendships in licensing more disparaging or blatantly racist behavior. Given that past research demonstrates the effectiveness of moral credentials is contingent upon the ambiguity of the incriminating behavior in question (Effron & Monin, 2010), it is possible that the observed moral credentialing effects of minority friendships may be nullified when more overt and unambiguous racist statements are made. Having minority friendships may even backfire and incite more negative perceptions in observers due to perceived hypocrisy (Effron & Monin, 2010).
Future research should also investigate whether our findings generalize to other disadvantaged groups. While we found that Asian observers were convinced by minority friendships to a similar extent that White observers were, work in this area previously demonstrated that gay, but not straight, observers remained unconvinced by a straight target’s moral credentials (Krumm & Corning, 2008). It is unclear whether this disparity was due to differing methodologies or the different minority groups examined. It is possible that the minority friendship effect may vary as a function of the disadvantaged group in question. For example, friendships may not reduce prejudice attributions if the disparaged group experiences more negative intergroup relations with the majority (e.g., Black Americans) or if having friends with members of the disparaged group is commonplace (e.g., sexism attributions and female friends). Exploring various disadvantaged groups may give us a more nuanced understanding of the moral credentialing effect of minority friendships.
Future research could also examine the moral credentialing effects of varying types of relationships with minority group members. Previous research shows that people feel less credentialed by minority acquaintances than minority friends (Bradley-Geist et al., 2010). It would be interesting to examine whether this shift in actors’ perceptions of their own credentials corresponds to external observers’ perceptions. For example, do minority acquaintances (e.g., work colleagues and neighbors) provide less effective moral credentials, and do minority romantic partners provide more effective moral credentials than minority friendships? Such research may help elucidate the magnitude and qualifiers of the moral benefits that can be gained from having minority group members in our social networks and further help us understand the interplay between social connections and social cognition.
Footnotes
Acknowledgment
The authors wish to thank Thomas Norton for agreeing to be the main target stimulus in the present studies.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article: The research contained within this article was in part supported by the third author’s Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award (DE120102068).
Notes
References
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