​​It's not all Black and White: implicit racial bias extends to other races as well

Abstract Here we investigated the role of racial attitudes in trait inferences from facial appearance. In two separate experiments we measured implicit racial attitudes using the race Implicit Association Test (IAT), as well as judgments of several traits after brief exposure to strangers’ faces. Results from the first experiment (n=67) suggested that judgement of attractiveness is biased by implicit skin tone preference. The second experiment (n=104) extended this finding by testing four additional personality traits (attractiveness, aggression, competence, likeability, and trustworthiness). In both experiments, implicit racial attitudes predicted differential trait ratings of White and Black faces. Additionally, we found that implicit bias measured with the IAT predicted bias in trait inferences between White and Asian, but not between Black and Asian faces. These findings suggest that an implicit racial attitude could be motivated by a more general tendency to judge White faces differently from non-White faces.