University students’ attitudes towards different races

Abstract

Race is a concept which is used to differentiate one group of people from another. As individuals we are inclined to form attitudes towards anything that can be evaluated, this includes racial groups. The purpose of this study was to examine whether university students expressed any implicit biases and whether there is an association between their implicit and explicit attitudes towards different races. The participants recruited for this study were Maltese university students, whose implicit and explicit attitudes were measured through an R-IAT and a questionnaire. A total of 60 participants (males = 22, females = 38) were recruited for this quantitative study, in which the data was analysed using SPSS. The findings indicated that the students expressed implicit biases towards Whites. No association was found between the students’ implicit and explicit attitudes. The majority of the students’ RIAT scores suggested that they implicitly preferred Whites over Blacks, despite explicitly reporting little or no favouritism towards these two races. All of the students happened to be of a White/ Caucasian race, thus their automatic White preferences tend to reveal in-group biases. Other possible reasons for the findings include reporting information which is social desirable, familiarity with Whites, the negative portrayal of Blacks by the social media, and one’s direct and indirect experiences.