Long-Term Reduction of Racial and Ethnoreligious Bias Through a New, Multi-Session Situational Attribution Training Paradigm

Although some anti-bias interventions have reduced implicit stereotyping, such techniques are often one-session interventions yielding minimal, short-lived effects. In contrast, Situational Attribution Training (SAT), an anti-bias technique developed in part from a previous Russell Sage Foundation grant, reduced both implicit racial stereotyping and the dehumanization of members of underrepresented groups. But some questions remain: Can SAT also impact religious bias? Can it reduce inequalities in hiring? Does it also reduce explicit biases? Social psychologist Tracie Stewart and colleagues will conduct two, six-session, four- week SATs with 140 students, targeting reduction of bias toward Black Americans and Arab Muslim Americans. They will examine the extent to which the SATs impact implicit stereotyping, explicit stereotyping, and processing of job applications and hiring decisions using a resume task and eye-tracking measures. They also examine whether focusing on bias toward one group affects bias for another group and whether it reduces in-group-directed bias for members of often-stigmatized groups?