The process of racial bias awareness in White Americans: Qualitative themes of bias, justifications, and emotions across the lifespan.

Abstract

In this study, we use a mixed methods approach to analyze how age-diverse White Americans (N = 344) make meaning of specific instances of personal racial bias. We used a postpositivist research paradigm (Ponterotto, 2010; Ryan, 2006) to better understand how White adults assigned meaning to their past experiences of perpetuating racial bias. By integrating and expanding models of emotions (Ekman, 1992; Ford et al., 2022; Grzanka et al., 2020; Stephan & Stephan, 1985) and bias justifications (Condor et al., 2006; Crandall & Eshleman, 2003; Ford et al., 2022), we examined how White adults reflected on their bias by spontaneously using bias justifications and emotions. Regarding themes of bias, 87% of participants displayed beliefs that a person's racial group provides information about how dangerous or criminal they are. Age-diverse adults offered a range of bias justifications, including attributing their bias to various intergroup processes, like intergroup anxiety. In addition, participants most frequently indicated forms of sadness (including self-conscious emotions such as shame) about their bias. These types of justifications and emotions interrupt motivations to seek out interracial contexts or regulate their bias in the future. Specific types of bias, emotions, and justifications only differed moderately by age. Qualitative analysis demonstrated that most individuals' bias recognition was disconnected from a critical examination of how their racial bias justifications and emotions may help them maintain bias. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).