van Nunspeet Félice, Veenstra Esmee M, Monteiro Graça Casquinho Beatriz, Ellemers Naomi, Scheepers Daan, Wickham Miriam I, Bacchini Elena A M, van der Toorn Jojanneke
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Department of Social, Economic, & Organizational Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2025 Jan 13;20(1):e0314813. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0314813. eCollection 2025.
Anti-bias interventions do not always have the intended results and can even backfire. In light of research on the psychology of morality, we examined whether confronting people with evidence of their own (group's) bias causes a (psychophysiological) threat response, and how to overcome this. We focused on an intervention addressing gender bias in teacher evaluations. After assessing their own teaching evaluations, we presented student research participants (N = 101; 71.3% female), in Part 1 of the intervention, with evidence of bias displayed in such teaching evaluations. This evidence either did (self-implied condition) or did not (self not-implied condition) include participants' own ostensibly biased evaluations. In Part 2 of the intervention, we asked participants to reflect on the issue of gender bias, and compared the impact of two experimental instructions. In the promotion condition, instructions referred to emphasizing how the university could try to achieve the ideal of promoting fair and just evaluations of teachers. In the prevention condition, instructions referred to highlighting the university's obligation to prevent unfair and unjust teacher evaluations. While participants verbally reflected on the intervention, during both phases (in Part 1 and Part 2) we measured their psychophysiological responses using indices of cardiovascular 'threat vs. challenge'. Then, we used self-report measures to examine participants' explicit responses to the different parts of the intervention. Results revealed that implicating the self in the occurrence of bias (Part 1) raises a psychophysiological threat response. However, emphasizing the future ideal of promoting fair evaluations of teachers (rather than the obligation of preventing biased evaluations; Part 2) resulted in a psychophysiological challenge response and increased perceived coping abilities to combat such bias. The implications of these findings are discussed.
反偏见干预措施并不总是能产生预期效果，甚至可能适得其反。鉴于对道德心理学的研究，我们研究了让人们面对自身（群体）偏见的证据是否会引发（心理生理上的）威胁反应，以及如何克服这一问题。我们重点关注了一项针对教师评价中性别偏见的干预措施。在评估了他们自己的教学评价后，在干预的第一部分，我们向参与研究的学生（N = 101；71.3%为女性）展示了此类教学评价中存在偏见的证据。这些证据要么包含（自我暗示条件）要么不包含（自我非暗示条件）参与者自己表面上有偏见的评价。在干预的第二部分，我们要求参与者思考性别偏见问题，并比较了两种实验指导语的影响。在促进条件下，指导语提到强调大学如何努力实现促进对教师进行公平公正评价的理想。在预防条件下，指导语提到突出大学防止对教师进行不公平不公正评价的义务。当参与者对干预进行口头反思时，在两个阶段（第一部分和第二部分）我们都使用心血管“威胁与挑战”指标来测量他们的心理生理反应。然后，我们使用自我报告测量方法来检验参与者对干预不同部分的明确反应。结果显示，在偏见的发生中涉及自我（第一部分）会引发心理生理威胁反应。然而，强调促进对教师进行公平评价的未来理想（而不是防止有偏见评价的义务；第二部分）会导致心理生理挑战反应，并提高应对此类偏见的感知应对能力。我们讨论了这些发现的意义。
