Reducing White Juror Bias: The Role of Race Salience and Racial Attitudes
Abstract
Both Black and White jurors exhibit a racial bias by being more likely to find defendants of a different race guilty than defendants who are of the same race. Sommers & Ellsworth (2000, 2001) found that salient racial issues in a trial reduced White juror racial bias toward a Black defendant. We examined if race salience could reduce White juror racial bias, even for individuals who reported high levels of racism. Making race salient reduced White juror racial bias toward a Black defendant. Jurors' racist beliefs were only associated with the verdict when the defendant's race was not made salient. This finding suggests that the effects of individual prejudice toward a Black defendant can be reduced by making the defendant's race salient.
Department
Psychology
Publication Date
7-28-2009
Journal Title
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
Publisher
Wiley
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Cohn, E.S., Bucolo, D., Pride, M., & Sommers, S. R. (2009). Reducing White Juror Bias: The Role of Race Salience and Racial Attitudes. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 39, 1953-1973.
Rights
© 2009 Copyright the Authors. Journal compilation © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.