Description
This project examined the manifestation of mechanisms of resistance in majority (i.e., White) students against interventions designed to increase student diversity in science education. Social Psychology’s account of diversity resistance highlights two specific foundations of resistant attitudes: racial bias and beliefs surrounding resource allocation. Participants were 73 majority students from the San Diego State University Human Subject Pool. Implicit racial biases were measured with the Multi-cultural Implicit Associations Test (MC-IAT). Participants were randomly assigned and exposed to an intervention prompt with an additional statement that fell into one of three conditions: a neutral control, one which primes racial biases, and one which primes beliefs surrounding resource allocation. Attitudinal resistance was measured through participant responses to surveys surrounding their perceptions of the intervention, as well as their willingness to financially support its implementation. Multiple regression analyses were used to evaluate racial bias as a predictor of resistant attitudes, as well as the moderative effect the intervention’s conditional statement has on the relationship between racial bias and resistant attitudes against diversity. While no significant relationships were found for the main effects of implicit racial bias or conditional assignment, there was a significant moderative relationship between the two predictors. This study is one component of a collection of works intended to inform researchers, educators, and policy makers how to craft, implement, and disseminate diversity-enhancement interventions in ways that will be most effective while garnering the least resistance from the racial majority. For these stakeholders, the data suggest that diversity-enhancement interventions will work best and garner the least resistance when framed with a neutral approach.
