How can we reduce interracial prejudice? A new study in The Journal of Positive Psychology has developed a novel approach using ideas about virtue. Their findings are preliminary but encouraging.
Led by William B. Whitney, a psychologist at Azusa Pacific University, a team of researchers gathered data from 292 white undergraduate students who completed surveys at two different times one month apart from each other. At time one, all the students were asked to read a series of stories, and then write a reflection in response to those stories. Which stories they read, though, depended on which of four groups they were randomly assigned to:
- Virtue Condition: “…stories modeled how college students approached difficult interpersonal relationship dynamics through courage and patience with no mention of race. The focus was to help students develop courage and patience by focusing on achievable goals and encouraging them to reflect on why they are motivated to act virtuously in interpersonal encounters.”
- Virtue/Race Salient Condition: The stories were similar to the first condition, but with race mentioned in two of the five stories.
- Race Salient/No Virtue Condition: The stories were about race, with no mention of virtue.
- Control Condition: The stories were about improving study skills, with no mention of virtue or race.
This was the focus at time one. Four weeks later, the same students were given self-report measures to complete for courage, patience, and “internal motivation to respond without prejudice.” An example of an item from this last survey is, “I attempt to act in non-prejudiced ways toward people of color because it is personally important to me.”
What do you expect the results to show? Will the two interventions which mention virtue both lead to increases in virtue at time two? Will they also decrease motivation to respond with prejudice at time two? And what about the intervention which mentions race only but not virtue?
Things did not turn out as the researchers (or I) expected. Starting with courage:
- There was no statistically significant increase at time two for the Virtue Condition, the Virtue/Race Condition, and the Control Condition.
- There was a statistically significant decrease in courage at time two for the Race Condition.
What about patience?
- No statistically significant change in any of the conditions.
Finally, and most importantly, what about motivation to respond without prejudice? Only two of the four conditions showed a significant change:
- There was a statistically significant increase at time two in motivation to respond without prejudice for the Virtue/Race Condition.
- There was a statistically significant decrease at time two in motivation to respond without prejudice for the Race Condition.
What should we make of all this?
One upshot is that Whitney found centering virtue by itself, without drawing connections to race, did not appear to move the needle. As he says, “the intervention was ineffective when it did not contextualize courage and patience in interracial contexts.”
Another thing to focus on is the Race Condition. Here Whitney remarks that the finding, “aligns with the corpus of research showing that race-based anxiety causes White people to avoid or limit interracial interactions…introducing race-related topics without activating positively framed approach goals may undermine White people’s motivation to respond without prejudice across time. This condition was designed to approximate the DEI training that seeks to educate without providing actionable strategies…which has led to critiques that DEI trainings do not work or can backfire…”
Having said all this, it is important to note that there are several limitations to this study which, to their credit, Whitney and his colleagues acknowledge. For instance, we do not know if the Virtue/Race intervention continues to be efficacious beyond one month. Nor do we know to what extent people’s self-report on a survey about their motivation to respond without prejudice, tracks their actual motivation? Not to mention whether the impact of the Virtue/Race intervention in increasing this motivation, will lead to any changes in actual behavior. And of course we need the findings to be replicated, especially with students outside of the U.S. and also participants in other age groups.
One question we are left with is how an intervention similar to the Virtue/Race Condition could be implemented in a concrete way in our ordinary lives. Whitney references two areas where it might be helpful practically – DEI training and a “virtue curriculum.” In both cases it would be great to hear more about what the details of such a practical implementation would look like.
Additionally, Whitney chose to focus on two specific virtues – courage and patience. In retrospect, the choice of patience might not have been the wisest. But another question we are left with is what Virtue/Race interventions would find if they focused on other virtues, such as justice or compassion or humility or love.
Whitney and his colleagues have given us a new approach to combatting prejudice. It is worth following their work moving forward as the virtue-based approach continues to (hopefully!) be developed in the future.
