Implicit and Explicit Racial Attitudes Changed During Black Lives Matter.

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Social Movements
• Racial Bias

Background:

• Lab-based interventions show limited success in altering implicit racial attitudes.
• Exposure to high-status Black individuals has not shifted societal racial attitudes.
• Antiracist social movements present a potential avenue for broad-scale bias reduction.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement on implicit and explicit racial attitudes.
• To assess changes in racial bias before, during, and at high-intensity periods of the BLM movement.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of implicit and explicit racial attitudes from 1,369,204 participants.
• Longitudinal study design examining data from 2009 to 2016.
• Statistical controls for demographic shifts within the participant pool.

Main Results:

• Overall implicit racial attitudes became less pro-White during the BLM movement compared to pre-BLM periods.
• Implicit attitudes showed a progressive decrease in pro-White bias throughout the BLM movement.
• White participants exhibited a significant reduction in implicit pro-White bias, while Black participants showed minimal change.
• Explicit attitudes shifted towards egalitarianism, with White participants becoming less pro-White and Black participants becoming less pro-Black.

Conclusions:

• The Black Lives Matter movement was associated with a reduction in implicit pro-White racial bias.
• Societal-level movements, rather than individual interventions, may be more effective in altering racial attitudes.
• Both implicit and explicit racial attitudes demonstrated a trend toward egalitarianism during the BLM movement.