Psychology Commons^™

The Effect Of Empathy On Implicit Bias, Chelsea Beckford

Senior Projects Spring 2016

The current study, investigates the influence of media on implicit biases through the mediating factor of empathy. The hypothesis was that participants that read passages that invoked empathy for either Blacks or police would experience a change in their implicit bias towards both groups (Blacks and police). Bard undergraduates read one of three passages (Black empathy, police empathy or control). The passages were created to manipulate empathy in the participants for Blacks, police or for neither group. Then they completed three Implicit Association Tests that measured their implicit biases towards flowers compared to insects, Black people compared to White people …