Racial prejudice, intergroup hate, and blatant and subtle bias of whites toward blacks in legal decision making in the united states

Résumé 0

"The present study examined the multidimensional nature of intergroup hate and the potentialroles of hate and prejudice in expressions of White Americans’ treatment of Blacks withinthe context of the U.S. legal system. White participants in the U.S. read about a provokedor unprovoked violent assault perpetrated by a Black assailant on a White victim. Emotionalreactions and recommendations for punishment (prescribed sentencing and support forthe death penalty) were assessed. Supportive of Sternberg’s (2003) duplex model of hate,we found that explicit (self-reported) hate reflected separate components of negation ofintimacy (e.g., disgust and repulsion), passion (anger and fear), and devaluation/commitment(e.g., attributions of evil and inhuman); these components, in turn, differentially mediatedpunitiveness toward the assailant. The results also revealed that although the direct effectof prejudice on retribution was mediated by self-reported hate, more subtle and indirecteffects occurred independently of hate or its affective components. Practical and theoreticalimplications of these findings for biased decision making in legal contexts are considered"