Individual-level discrimination is often attributed to deep-seated prejudice that is difficult to change. But at the societal level, we sometimes observe rapid reductions in discriminatory preferences, suggesting that social interactions and the communication they entail might drive such shifts. I examine whether discrimination can be reduced…

Although intergroup contact is effective at reducing prejudice, avoidance of intergroup contact often creates a barrier to prejudice reduction. The present study aimed to reduce majority members desire to avoid intergroup interactions by devising an intervention aimed at altering cognitive appraisals. Majority group participants (156 Anglo…

Anti‐Indigenous racism is a pressing issue in Canada. Education on historical and contemporary Indigenous topics is a common strategy to challenge such racism. Despite the existence of education‐based programmes intended to address anti‐Indigenous racism, there is limited evidence that they are effective. To this end, we report the results of…

This work addresses the study of factors that increase the persuasive efficacy of testimonial messages aimed at improving

Stress has been implicated in causing people to be more reliant on the use of stereotypes. Mindfulness has been shown to reduce stress, in addition to its promise as a method to reduce negative judgments of members from historically disadvantaged groups. The current study examined the possibility that a brief mindfulness meditation could reduce…

U.S. police departments have attempted to address racial inequities in policing with diversity training. However, little research has evaluated whether these trainings are effective at changing officers' beliefs, motivations, and actions. To examine their efficacy, we tested a day-long implicit-bias-oriented diversity training designed to…

Numerous empirical findings have shown biased judgments of (future) teachers depending on students’ ethnic and social background. Furthermore, research has indicated that (future) teachers’ stereotypes and attitudes differ depending on students’ backgrounds and appear to influence (future) teachers’ judgments. Based on theories of stereotype…

We study whether and to what extent social media information can reduce (ethnic) discrimination in a two-sided market characterized by asymmetric information. We analyze whether information that breaks with prevailing ethnic stereotypes might induce the uninformed side of the market to update its probabilistic beliefs on a desired, but hidden…

Research on persuasion has shown that for attitudes to change people need to take into consideration not only the thoughts message recipients generate in response to proposals but also how people think about their own thoughts (metacognition). In the present research, we introduce a new perspective for improving outgroup attitudes focused on…