Researchers are amazed by the fact that the level of racist prejudice sharply decreased in the United States in the Fall of 2008, especially after Barack Obama was designated as the Democratic Party's nominee for President. Psychology professor E. Ashby Plant, from Florida State University, together with professor Patricia Devine, from University of Wisconsin-Madison, conducted a scientific study in the period between the nomination and the election, and found out that most white people they questioned had a drastic change of perception about Blacks altogether.
“The unprecedented drop in implicit bias observed in our studies indicates that the impact of Obama's historic campaign went beyond his winning the election. It appears to have produced a fundamental change in at least the minds of the American public. Although the full impact of this historic election will play out over time, we are encouraged by the early returns,” the researchers say in a paper published ahead of the the study itself.
“If his presidency is highly successful, he would activate positive traits, thoughts and feelings for most people. However, the result may be less positive, should his presidency prove to be less successful,” they add. For the study, the two investigators analyzed the behavior of more than 300 non-White students, and found out that approximately 50 percent of them displayed automatic preference for White people, even though they themselves were Blacks, Asians, or Hispanics.
This is a major regression from other studies, which clearly showed that more than 80 percent of participants suggested that they preferred Whites. The research team then asked their subjects to compile a list of prominent Blacks they could think of, as well as one of the other participants. The goal was to determine if watching Obama's electoral campaign had any influence on their earlier response. More than 22 percent of them listed the new President at least on one list, while others added other positive Black names, such as Martin Luther King Jr.
“The fact that close to a quarter of our participants listed Obama indicates that he had permeated many people's consciousness to the point that he was highly accessible. We were able to demonstrate that the accessibility of positive exemplars in people's minds was related to their degree of implicit bias,” Plant states.
Speaking about the 51 percent of participants who still proved to be biased against Blacks, the researcher adds that “Our findings suggest that these people are less likely to have positive exemplars and words related to Obama's campaign come to mind when they think of black people. However, it is not clear why they responded this way. It is possible they were less exposed to the campaign media blitz. Alternatively, the strength and stability of their racial attitudes may have resulted in a resistance to change.”
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