Did We Make Prejudice Worse?
Yes, the intrinsic messages reduced prejudice compared to the control group. But what really stood out was that the pamphlet with the then-current anti-prejudice messages—the more coercive approach—actually increased prejudice compared to doing nothing at all.
We didn’t believe the results at first, so we ran a second study and replicated the same pattern: positive effects for the intrinsic approach, but a clear backfiring effect for what we might now recognize (by today’s standards) as mild anti-racism messaging. As far as I know no one has replicated this work, and samples are small as was the custom in pre-replication crisis social psychology; so treat these results as provisional. Nonetheless, when looking back now, I think we accidentally discovered something interesting, man.
Fast forward to 2020, when anti-racism became a dominant framework for addressing racial inequality. At its core, anti-racism makes arguments rooted in the work of scholars like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. As Kendi argues, “One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist.” In this view, passive non-discrimination isn’t enough. The framework requires a commitment to actively fighting racism; if someone chooses the path of non-prejudice or non-racism, they are unwittingly supporting passive racism.
