Contemporary Racism in the Workplace: The Integrated Model of Racism and White Subordinate Perceptions of Black Supervisors

Abstract

The Integrated Model of Racism (Dovidio & Gaertner, 1986) suggests liberals and conservatives react differently to African Americans in between-subjects designs when race is salient and the situation is ambiguous. Participants read a vignette describing a performance appraisal of either a moderately qualified or unqualified supervisor who was either European American (EA) or African American (AA). Participants reported their political affiliation and completed items from the Reysen Likability Scale (RLS), Leadership Effectiveness measure (LE) and General Leadership Impression measure (GLI). A 2 (Political Orientation) x 2 (Supervisor Race) x 2 (Supervisor Qualifications) between-subjects design was used. On these measures, it was hypothesized that conservatives would rate both the moderately qualified and unqualified AA supervisors equally unfavorably, and liberals would express their aversive racial bias by rating the moderately qualified AA (vs. EA) supervisor more harshly. Moderate qualifications leave room for liberals to justify their racist attitudes on the uncertainty of the supervisor’s qualifications. However, this was not supported. Main effects of race on the RLS, LE, and GLI were opposite of expectations; AA (vs. EA) supervisors were rated more favorably. Limitations and ideas for future research are discussed.