Feedback to minorities: evidence of a positive bias

This research tested the prediction that Whites supply more lenient feedback to Blacks than to fellow Whites. In Study 1, White undergraduates were led to believe that they were giving feedback on essays written by either a Black or a White fellow student. As predicted, feedback was less critical wh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of personality and social psychology Vol. 74; no. 3; p. 622
Main Author Harber, K D
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.03.1998
Subjects
Adult
African Americans - psychology
European Continental Ancestry Group - psychology
Feedback
Female
Humans
Male
Race Relations
Social Perception
Stereotyping
Students - psychology
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Summary:This research tested the prediction that Whites supply more lenient feedback to Blacks than to fellow Whites. In Study 1, White undergraduates were led to believe that they were giving feedback on essays written by either a Black or a White fellow student. As predicted, feedback was less critical when the supposed feedback recipient was Black rather than White. It was also predicted that the feedback bias would be selective for subjective evaluative domains (i.e., essay content) in contrast to objective evaluative domains (i.e., essay mechanics). An interaction between recipient race and evaluative domain confirmed this prediction. The domain-specific quality of the feedback bias suggests that the bias may arise from social motives rather than from more automatic processes. Study 2 replicated these results.
ISSN:0022-3514
DOI:10.1037/0022-3514.74.3.622