The relation between racial attitudes and interracial behavior

Two experiments investigated the effect of implicit racial attitudes on employment decisions. In Experiment 1, participants took part in a bogus hiring process, followed by an ostensibly unrelated study involving “cognitive processing.” In reality the studies were, respectively, the behavioral and attitude measurement components of Experiment 1. Experiment 2 expanded upon the first experiment by examining whether implicit racial attitudes moderated participants' evaluations of job candidates, depending on the status of the target job. In Experiment 1, implicit attitudes did not predict race-relevant behavior. However, in Experiment 2 implicit racial attitudes did predict biases, but for female participants only. Specifically, high prejudiced women discriminated against Black job applicants when hiring for the high-status job but not for the low-status job. Possible reasons for these findings as well as future directions are discussed.