Sean Last on Anti-White Liberal Bias

Sean Last, in perhaps one of his best works, has compiled a quick table of academic articles on anti-White liberal bias:

I went ahead and dug up the abstracts and full citations for these so they are more easily available in one place.

Uhlmann (2009) is Greenwald, A. G., Poehlman, T. A., Uhlmann, E. L., & Banaji, M. R. (2009). Understanding and using the Implicit Association Test: III. Meta-analysis of predictive validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(1), 17–41. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015575

This review of 122 research reports (184 independent samples, 14,900 subjects) found average r = .274 for prediction of behavioral, judgment, and physiological measures by Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures. Parallel explicit (i.e., self-report) measures, available in 156 of these samples (13,068 subjects), also predicted effectively (average r = .361), but with much greater variability of effect size. Predictive validity of self-report was impaired for socially sensitive topics, for which impression management may distort self-report responses. For 32 samples with criterion measures involving Black-White interracial behavior, predictive validity of IAT measures significantly exceeded that of self-report measures. Both IAT and self-report measures displayed incremental validity, with each measure predicting criterion variance beyond that predicted by the other. The more highly IAT and self-report measures were intercorrelated, the greater was the predictive validity of each.

Tetlock (2000) is Tetlock, P. E., Kristel, O. V., Elson, S. B., Green, M. C., & Lerner, J. S. (2000). The psychology of the unthinkable: Taboo trade-offs, forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(5), 853–870. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.5.853

Five studies explored cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to proscribed forms of social cognition. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that people responded to taboo trade-offs that monetized sacred values with moral outrage and cleansing. Experiments 3 and 4 revealed that racial egalitarians were least likely to use, and angriest at those who did use, race-tainted base rates and that egalitarians who inadvertently used such base rates tried to reaffirm their fair-mindedness. Experiment 5 revealed that Christian fundamentalists were most likely to reject heretical counterfactuals that applied everyday causal schemata to Biblical narratives and to engage in moral cleansing after merely contemplating such possibilities. Although the results fit the sacred-value-protection model (SVPM) better than rival formulations, the SVPM must draw on cross-cultural taxonomies of relational schemata to specify normative boundaries on thought.

Goldberg (2019) is Zach Goldberg’s “America’s White Saviors” article in Tablet, though the original study being referred to is the American National Elections Studies 2018 Pilot Survey. The graph in question is already quite famous on Twitter:

Kuhn (2023) is a working paper, “When is Discrimination Unfair?” by Peter J. Kuhn & Trevor T. Osaki, published through the National Bureau for Economic Research. A popular summary, “Evaluating Hiring Discrimination” is available at City Journal. Here is the paper abstract:

Using a vignette-based survey experiment on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, we measure how people’s assessments of the fairness of race-based hiring decisions vary with the motivation and circumstances surrounding the discriminatory act and the races of the parties involved. Regardless of their political leaning, our subjects react in very similar ways to the employer’s motivations for the action, such as the quality of information on which statistical discrimination is based. Compared to conservatives, moderates and liberals are much less accepting of discriminatory actions, and consider the discriminatee’s race when making their fairness assessments. We describe four pre-registered models of fairness – (simple) utilitarianism, race-blind rules (RBRs), racial in-group bias, and belief-based utilitarianism (BBU) – and show that the latter two are inconsistent with major aggregate patterns in our data. Instead, we argue that a two-group framework, in which one group (mostly self-described conservatives) values employers’ decision rights and the remaining respondents value utilitarian concerns, explains our main findings well. In this model, both groups also value applying a consistent set of fairness rules in a race-blind manner.

Winegard (2023) is Winegard, B.M., Clark C. J., Hasty, C. R., & Baumeister, R. F. (2023). Equalitarianism: A source of liberal bias. Journal of Open Inquiry in the Behavioral Sciences DOI:10.58408/issn.2992-9253.2023.01.01.00000008 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325033477_Equalitarianism_A_Source_of_Liberal_Bias

Recent scholarship has challenged the long-held assumption in the social sciences that Conservatives are more biased than Liberals, yet little work deliberately explores domains of liberal bias. Here, we demonstrate that Liberals (some might call them Progressives) are particularly prone to bias about victims’ groups (e.g. women, Black people) and identify a set of beliefs that consistently predict this bias, termed Equalitarianism. Equalitarianism, we believe, stems from an aversion to inequality and a desire to protect relatively low status groups, and includes three interrelated beliefs: (1) demographic groups do not differ biologically; (2) prejudice is ubiquitous and explains existing group disparities; (3) society can, and should, make all groups equal in society. This leads to bias against information that portrays a perceived privileged group more favorably than a perceived victims’ group. Eight studies and twelve mini meta-analyses (n=3,274) support this theory. Liberalism was associated with perceiving certain groups as victims (Studies 1a-1b). In Studies 2-7 and meta-analyses, Liberals evaluated the same study as less credible when the results portrayed a privileged group (men and White people) more favorably than a victims’ group (women and Black people) than vice versa. Ruling out alternative explanations of normative reasoning, significant order effects in within-subjects designs in Study 6 and Study 7 (preregistered) suggest that Liberals believe they should not evaluate identical information differently depending on which group is portrayed more favorably, yet do so. In all studies, higher equalitarianism mediated the relationship between liberalism and lower credibility ratings when privileged groups were portrayed more favorably. Although not predicted a priori, meta-analyses also revealed Moderates to be the most balanced in their judgments. These findings do not indicate whether this bias is morally justifiable, only that it exists.

Cark (2024) is a typo for Clark et al. (2024). The real citation is Cory J Clark, Matias Fjeldmark, Louise Lu, Roy F Baumeister, Stephen Ceci, Komi Frey, Geoffrey Miller, Wilfred Reilly, Dianne Tice, William von Hippel, Wendy M Williams, Bo M Winegard, Philip E Tetlock, “Taboos and Self-Censorship Among U.S. Psychology Professors” in Perspectives in Psychological Sciences 2024 May 16;20(5):941–957. doi: 10.1177/17456916241252085

We identify points of conflict and consensus regarding (a) controversial empirical claims and (b) normative preferences for how controversial scholarship—and scholars—should be treated. In 2021, we conducted qualitative interviews (n = 41) to generate a quantitative survey (N = 470) of U.S. psychology professors’ beliefs and values. Professors strongly disagreed on the truth status of 10 candidate taboo conclusions: For each conclusion, some professors reported 100% certainty in its veracity and others 100% certainty in its falsehood. Professors more confident in the truth of the taboo conclusions reported more self-censorship, a pattern that could bias perceived scientific consensus regarding the inaccuracy of controversial conclusions. Almost all professors worried about social sanctions if they were to express their own empirical beliefs. Tenured professors reported as much self-censorship and as much fear of consequences as untenured professors, including fear of getting fired. Most professors opposed suppressing scholarship and punishing peers on the basis of moral concerns about research conclusions and reported contempt for peers who petition to retract papers on moral grounds. Younger, more left-leaning, and female faculty were generally more opposed to controversial scholarship. These results do not resolve empirical or normative disagreements among psychology professors, but they may provide an empirical context for their discussion.

Aneja (2023) is Aneja, Abhay, Michael Luca, and Oren Reshef. 2025. “The Benefits of Revealing Race: Evidence from Minority-Owned Local Businesses.” American Economic Review 115 (2): 660–89.

Is there latent demand to support Black-owned businesses? We explore this question by analyzing a new feature that made it easier to identify Black-owned restaurants on an online platform. We find that labeling restaurants as minority-owned increased customer engagement and firm performance, as measured by online traffic, calls, orders, and in-person visits. These effects were more pronounced in areas characterized by greater support for the Democratic Party and lower implicit bias against racial minorities. Labeled restaurants also see an increase in the fraction of reviews that are written by White customers.

Kirigios (2022) is Edward H. Chang, Erika L. Kirgios, Rosanna K. Smith. “Large-scale field experiment shows null effects of team demographic diversity on outsiders’ willingness to support the team”. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology Volume 94, May 2021, 104099.

Demographic diversity in the United States is rising, and increasingly, work is conducted in teams. These co-occurring phenomena suggest that it might be increasingly common for work to be conducted by demographically diverse teams. But to date, in spite of copious field experimental evidence documenting that individuals are treated differently based on their demographic identity, we have little evidence from field experiments to establish how and whether teams are treated differently based on their levels of demographic diversity. To answer this question, we present the results of a preregistered, large-scale (n=9496) field experiment testing whether team demographic diversity affects outsiders’ responses to the team. Participants were asked via email to donate money to support the work of a team that was described and depicted as demographically diverse, or not. Even though the study was well-powered to detect even small effects (i.e., differences of less than 1.5 percentage points in donation rates), we found no significant differences in people’s willingness to donate to a more diverse versus a less diverse team. We also did not find moderation by participant gender, racial diversity of the participant’s zip code, or political leaning of the participant’s zip code, suggesting that the lack of a main effect is not due to competing mechanisms cancelling out a main effect. These results suggest past research on the effects of demographic diversity on team support may not generalize to the field, highlighting the need for additional field experimental research on people’s responses to demographically diverse teams.

Loyd (2017) is another typo, it’s Lloyd. Full citation is E. Paige Lloyd, Kurt Hugenberg, Allen R. McConnell, Jonathan W. Kunstman, and Jason C. Deska. “Black and White Lies: Race-Based Biases in Deception Judgments”. Psychological Science Volume 28, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617705399

In six studies (N = 605), participants made deception judgments about videos of Black and White targets who told truths and lies about interpersonal relationships. In Studies 1a, 1b, 1c, and 2, White participants judged that Black targets were telling the truth more often than they judged that White targets were telling the truth. This truth bias was predicted by Whites’ motivation to respond without prejudice. For Black participants, however, motives to respond without prejudice did not moderate responses (Study 2). In Study 3, we found similar effects with a manipulation of the targets’ apparent race. Finally, in Study 4, we used eye-tracking techniques to demonstrate that Whites’ truth bias for Black targets is likely the result of late-stage correction processes: Despite ultimately judging that Black targets were telling the truth more often than White targets, Whites were faster to fixate on the on-screen “lie” response box when targets were Black than when targets were White. These systematic race-based biases have important theoretical implications (e.g., for lie detection and improving intergroup communication and relations) and practical implications (e.g., for reducing racial bias in law enforcement).

Bernstein (2023) was a conference presentation so it doesn’t have a conventional citation like the others. The result I found was a Substack post titled, “Who Agrees with Hitler?”

We took 3 real anti-Jew quotes from Adolf Hitler, 3 real anti-White quotes from Robin DiAngelo, and 3 real anti-Black quotes from Stephen Douglas. (Douglas was a 19th century American politician who debated Abraham Lincoln). Then, we created anti-Jew, anti-White, and anti-Black variations of each quote, and showed it to 428 college graduates or college students (72% White). This means that 1/3 of participants saw the real quote verbatim, whereas the other 2/3 saw a version of the quote that was manipulated by changing the original (e.g., replace “Jew” with “White” or “Black”, or any other combination thereof). This is shown in the Table below. For each quote, participants were asked to imagine that an intellectual or political leader uttered the statement. They then indicated whether they agreed with the statement by selecting: “definitely no,” “probably no,” “probably yes,” or “definitely yes.” Participants answered this question for all nine quotes, and all were in the same frame (anti-Jew, anti-White, or anti-Black).

Kteily (2019) is Kteily, Nour, Matthew Rocklage, Kaylene McClanahan, Arnold Ho. 2019. “Political Ideology Shapes the Amplification of the Accomplishments of Disadvantaged vs. Advantaged Group Members”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (5)1559-1568.

Recent years have witnessed an increased public outcry in certain quarters about a perceived lack of attention given to successful members of disadvantaged groups relative to equally meritorious members of advantaged groups, exemplified by social media campaigns centered around hashtags such as #OscarsSoWhite and #WomenAlsoKnowStuff. Focusing on political ideology, we investigate here whether individuals differentially amplify successful targets depending on whether these targets belong to disadvantaged or advantaged groups, behavior that could help alleviate or entrench group-based disparities. Study 1 examines over 500,000 tweets from over 160,000 Twitter users about 46 unambiguously successful targets varying in race (white, black) and gender (male, female)—American gold medalists from the 2016 Olympics. Leveraging advances in computational social science, we identify tweeters’ political ideology, race, and gender. Tweets from political liberals were much more likely than those from conservatives to be about successful black (vs. white) and female (vs. male) gold medalists (and especially black females), controlling for tweeters’ own race and gender, and even when tweeters themselves were white or male (i.e., advantaged group members). Studies 2 and 3 provided experimental evidence that liberals are more likely than conservatives to differentially amplify successful members of disadvantaged (vs. advantaged) groups and suggested that this is driven by liberals’ heightened concern with social equality. Addressing theorizing about ideological asymmetries, we observed that political liberals are more responsible than conservatives for differential amplification. Our results highlight ideology’s polarizing power to shape even whose accomplishments we promote, and extend theorizing about behavioral manifestations of egalitarian motives.

Cooley (2019) is Erin Cooley, Jazmin L Brown-Iannuzzi, Ryan F Lei, William Cipolli. “Complex intersections of race and class: Among social liberals, learning about White privilege reduces sympathy, increases blame, and decreases external attributions for White people struggling with poverty”. J Exp Psychol Gen 2019 Dec;148(12):2218-2228. doi: 10.1037/xge0000605. Epub 2019 Apr 29.

White privilege lessons are sometimes used to increase awareness of racism. However, little research has investigated the consequences of these lessons. Across 2 studies (N = 1,189), we hypothesized that White privilege lessons may both highlight structural privilege based on race, and simultaneously decrease sympathy for other challenges some White people endure (e.g., poverty)-especially among social liberals who may be particularly receptive to structural explanations of inequality. Indeed, both studies revealed that while social liberals were overall more sympathetic to poor people than social conservatives, reading about White privilege decreased their sympathy for a poor White (vs. Black) person. Moreover, these shifts in sympathy were associated with greater punishment/blame and fewer external attributions for a poor White person’s plight. We conclude that, among social liberals, White privilege lessons may increase beliefs that poor White people have failed to take advantage of their racial privilege-leading to negative social evaluations.

That’s it. Lots of good research here.

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