TY - JOUR
T1 - Does Shared Gender Group Membership Mitigate the Effect of Implicit Bias Attributions on Accountability for Gender-Based Discrimination?
AU - Daumeyer, Natalie M.
AU - Onyeador, Ivuoma N.
AU - Richeson, Jennifer A.
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by an NSF Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (#1809370) awarded to the second author as well as by an NSF Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) Grant (#1941651) awarded to the third author.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
PY - 2021/9
Y1 - 2021/9
N2 - Attributing gender discrimination to implicit bias has become increasingly common. However, research suggests that when discrimination is attributed to implicit rather than explicit bias, the perpetrators are held less accountable and deemed less worthy of punishment. The present work examines (a) whether this effect replicates in the domain of gender discrimination, and (b) whether sharing a group membership with the victim moderates the effect. Four studies revealed that both men and women hold perpetrators of gender discrimination less accountable if their behavior is attributed to implicit rather than explicit bias. Moreover, women held male (Studies 1–3), but not female (Study 4), perpetrators of gender discrimination more accountable than did men. Together, these findings suggest that while shared gender group membership may inform judgments of accountability for gender discrimination, it does not weaken the tendency to hold perpetrators less accountable for discrimination attributed to implicit, compared with explicit, bias.
AB - Attributing gender discrimination to implicit bias has become increasingly common. However, research suggests that when discrimination is attributed to implicit rather than explicit bias, the perpetrators are held less accountable and deemed less worthy of punishment. The present work examines (a) whether this effect replicates in the domain of gender discrimination, and (b) whether sharing a group membership with the victim moderates the effect. Four studies revealed that both men and women hold perpetrators of gender discrimination less accountable if their behavior is attributed to implicit rather than explicit bias. Moreover, women held male (Studies 1–3), but not female (Study 4), perpetrators of gender discrimination more accountable than did men. Together, these findings suggest that while shared gender group membership may inform judgments of accountability for gender discrimination, it does not weaken the tendency to hold perpetrators less accountable for discrimination attributed to implicit, compared with explicit, bias.
KW - bias attribution
KW - discrimination
KW - gender dynamics
KW - implicit versus explicit bias
KW - social identity
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U2 - 10.1177/0146167220965306
DO - 10.1177/0146167220965306
M3 - Article
C2 - 33167751
AN - SCOPUS:85095814493
VL - 47
SP - 1343
EP - 1357
JO - Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
JF - Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
SN - 0146-1672
IS - 9
ER -