The Influence of Social Norms on the Expression of Anti-Black Bias

The last few years have been a testament to the fact that anti-Black racism is alive and well in America. It manifests not only in macro-level indicators of social inequity (e.g., housing, education) but also manifests within individual organizations. Importantly, individuals in organizations can endorse anti-Black attitudes and other racist sentiments that influence others’ expressions of bias. In the current research, we examine the power of proximal organizational norms in two studies. In Study 1, 269 participants heard a member of their organization condone or condemn anti-Black attitudes and were then asked to give their own attitudes about Black Americans. Results revealed that participants were strongly influenced by the organization member’s stance on anti-Black racism; compared to those in the control condition, those who heard an organizational peer condone anti-Black attitudes were also more likely to condone, and those who heard an organizational peer condemn these attitudes were also more likely to condemn. In Study 2, we continued to examine the impact of norms on expressions of anti-Black bias by investigating the relationship between bias expression and both proximal (within an organization) and distal (within a more socially and physically distant reference group, i.e., country) norms. Consistent with Study 1, results from 183 participants showed that the proximal norms (but not the distal norms) were strongly related to the expression of anti-Black bias. We discuss the results by considering the critical role that both individual workplace allies and collective organizations can play in shaping the expression of anti-Black bias.