Think leader, think white? Capturing and weakening an implicit pro-white leadership bias.

Seval Gündemir, AC Homan, CKW de Dreu, Mark Van Vugt

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

81 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Across four studies, we found evidence for an implicit pro-White leadership bias that helps explain the underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in leadership positions. Both White-majority and ethnic minority participants reacted significantly faster when ethnically White names and leadership roles (e.g., manager; Study 1) or leadership traits (e.g., decisiveness; Study 2 & 3) were paired in an Implicit Association Test (IAT) rather than when ethnic minority names and leadership traits were paired. Moreover, the implicit pro-White leadership bias showed discriminant validity with the conventional implicit bias measures (Study 3). Importantly, results showed that the pro-White leadership bias can be weakened when situational cues increase the salience of a dual identity (Study 4). This, in turn, can diminish the explicit pro-White bias in promotion related decision making processes (Study 4). This research offers a new tool to measure the implicit psychological processes underlying the underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in leadership positions and proposes interventions to weaken such biases.
Original languageEnglish
JournalPLoS One (online)
Volume9
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014

Research programs

  • RSM ORG

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