Internal conflict and prejudice-regulation: Emotional ambivalence buffers against defensive responding to implicit bias feedback.

ABSTRACT: Becoming aware of bias is essential for prejudice-regulation. However, attempts to make people aware of bias through feedback often elicits defensive reactions that undermine mitigation efforts. In the present article, we introduce state emotional ambivalence-the simultaneous experience of positive and negative emotions "in the present moment"-as a buffer against defensive responding to implicit bias feedback. Two studies (N = 507) demonstrate that implicit bias feedback (vs. no feedback) increases defensiveness (rating the test as less valid, credible, and objective). However, high (vs. low) state emotional ambivalence, which was independent of bias feedback, attenuates this relationship between bias feedback and defensiveness, accounting for a larger share of the variance than negative e

SUBMITTER: Rothman NB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8929642 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature