Racial bias is associated with ingroup death rate for Blacks and Whites: Insights from Project Implicit

Research suggests that, among Whites, racial bias predicts negative ingroup health outcomes. However, little is known about whether racial bias predicts ingroup health outcomes among minority populations.

The aim of the current research was to understand whether racial bias predicts negative ingroup health outcomes for Blacks.

We compiled racial bias responses from 250,665 Blacks and 1,391,632 Whites to generate county-level estimates of Blacks' and Whites' implicit and explicit biases towards each other. We then examined the degree to which these biases predicted ingroup death rate from circulatory-related diseases.

In counties where Blacks harbored more implicit bias towards Whites, Blacks died at a higher rate. Additionally, consistent with previous research, in counties where Whites harbored more explicit bias towards Blacks, Whites died at a higher rate. These links between racial bias and ingroup death rate were independent of county-level socio-demographic characteristics, and racial biases from the outgroup in the same county.

Findings indicate that racial bias is related to negative ingroup health outcomes for both Blacks and Whites, though this relationship is driven by implicit bias for Blacks, and explicit bias for Whites.