Overcoming the threat of anti-bias interventions: Combining self-report and psychophysiological measures to capture the process of change.
Anti-bias interventions do not always have the intended results and can even backfire. In light of research on the psychology of morality, we examined whether confronting people with evidence of their own (group's) bias causes a (psychophysiological) threat response, and how to overcome this. W...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2025-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314813 |
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| author | Félice van Nunspeet Esmee M Veenstra Beatriz Monteiro Graça Casquinho Naomi Ellemers Daan Scheepers Miriam I Wickham Elena A M Bacchini Jojanneke van der Toorn Organizational Behaviour Group |
| author_facet | Félice van Nunspeet Esmee M Veenstra Beatriz Monteiro Graça Casquinho Naomi Ellemers Daan Scheepers Miriam I Wickham Elena A M Bacchini Jojanneke van der Toorn Organizational Behaviour Group |
| author_sort | Félice van Nunspeet |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Anti-bias interventions do not always have the intended results and can even backfire. In light of research on the psychology of morality, we examined whether confronting people with evidence of their own (group's) bias causes a (psychophysiological) threat response, and how to overcome this. We focused on an intervention addressing gender bias in teacher evaluations. After assessing their own teaching evaluations, we presented student research participants (N = 101; 71.3% female), in Part 1 of the intervention, with evidence of bias displayed in such teaching evaluations. This evidence either did (self-implied condition) or did not (self not-implied condition) include participants' own ostensibly biased evaluations. In Part 2 of the intervention, we asked participants to reflect on the issue of gender bias, and compared the impact of two experimental instructions. In the promotion condition, instructions referred to emphasizing how the university could try to achieve the ideal of promoting fair and just evaluations of teachers. In the prevention condition, instructions referred to highlighting the university's obligation to prevent unfair and unjust teacher evaluations. While participants verbally reflected on the intervention, during both phases (in Part 1 and Part 2) we measured their psychophysiological responses using indices of cardiovascular 'threat vs. challenge'. Then, we used self-report measures to examine participants' explicit responses to the different parts of the intervention. Results revealed that implicating the self in the occurrence of bias (Part 1) raises a psychophysiological threat response. However, emphasizing the future ideal of promoting fair evaluations of teachers (rather than the obligation of preventing biased evaluations; Part 2) resulted in a psychophysiological challenge response and increased perceived coping abilities to combat such bias. The implications of these findings are discussed. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-caedd1e706674b97b7998ba500d09031 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj-art-caedd1e706674b97b7998ba500d090312025-02-05T05:31:30ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032025-01-01201e031481310.1371/journal.pone.0314813Overcoming the threat of anti-bias interventions: Combining self-report and psychophysiological measures to capture the process of change.Félice van NunspeetEsmee M VeenstraBeatriz Monteiro Graça CasquinhoNaomi EllemersDaan ScheepersMiriam I WickhamElena A M BacchiniJojanneke van der ToornOrganizational Behaviour GroupAnti-bias interventions do not always have the intended results and can even backfire. In light of research on the psychology of morality, we examined whether confronting people with evidence of their own (group's) bias causes a (psychophysiological) threat response, and how to overcome this. We focused on an intervention addressing gender bias in teacher evaluations. After assessing their own teaching evaluations, we presented student research participants (N = 101; 71.3% female), in Part 1 of the intervention, with evidence of bias displayed in such teaching evaluations. This evidence either did (self-implied condition) or did not (self not-implied condition) include participants' own ostensibly biased evaluations. In Part 2 of the intervention, we asked participants to reflect on the issue of gender bias, and compared the impact of two experimental instructions. In the promotion condition, instructions referred to emphasizing how the university could try to achieve the ideal of promoting fair and just evaluations of teachers. In the prevention condition, instructions referred to highlighting the university's obligation to prevent unfair and unjust teacher evaluations. While participants verbally reflected on the intervention, during both phases (in Part 1 and Part 2) we measured their psychophysiological responses using indices of cardiovascular 'threat vs. challenge'. Then, we used self-report measures to examine participants' explicit responses to the different parts of the intervention. Results revealed that implicating the self in the occurrence of bias (Part 1) raises a psychophysiological threat response. However, emphasizing the future ideal of promoting fair evaluations of teachers (rather than the obligation of preventing biased evaluations; Part 2) resulted in a psychophysiological challenge response and increased perceived coping abilities to combat such bias. The implications of these findings are discussed.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314813 |
| spellingShingle | Félice van Nunspeet Esmee M Veenstra Beatriz Monteiro Graça Casquinho Naomi Ellemers Daan Scheepers Miriam I Wickham Elena A M Bacchini Jojanneke van der Toorn Organizational Behaviour Group Overcoming the threat of anti-bias interventions: Combining self-report and psychophysiological measures to capture the process of change. PLoS ONE |
| title | Overcoming the threat of anti-bias interventions: Combining self-report and psychophysiological measures to capture the process of change. |
| title_full | Overcoming the threat of anti-bias interventions: Combining self-report and psychophysiological measures to capture the process of change. |
| title_fullStr | Overcoming the threat of anti-bias interventions: Combining self-report and psychophysiological measures to capture the process of change. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Overcoming the threat of anti-bias interventions: Combining self-report and psychophysiological measures to capture the process of change. |
| title_short | Overcoming the threat of anti-bias interventions: Combining self-report and psychophysiological measures to capture the process of change. |
| title_sort | overcoming the threat of anti bias interventions combining self report and psychophysiological measures to capture the process of change |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314813 |
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