The effects of internalized prejudice on African Americans

Vita.Previous research has found evidence that, despite their objective attainments in professional life, members of minority groups may continue to be perceived and evaluated less favorably than their majority counterparts. Evidence also suggests that minority members themselves may accept these negative stereotypes and expectations from society. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of internalized prejudice on African Americans by ascertaining whether African American college students show evaluative biases according to their understanding of an individual's gender or ethnicity, and whether or not that evaluation is influenced by the level of the student's self-esteem. Specifically, the study sought to determine whether a professional article, with varied authorship, would be evaluated differentially by students when it was presented in Black- and White-authored versions, and with both male and female ''authors." A sample of 335 students enrolled at two historically Black state universities was administered a brief professional article and instructed to read and evaluate the article on various aspects of worth. Authorship of the article was varied by inclusion of an appropriate photograph of an African American or White man or women. At a subsequent class period a brief self-esteem scale was used to obtain a measure of the subjects' level of self-esteem. Findings do not support the notion that today's African American college students have internalized prejudice to the extent that they will devalue work perceived to have been produced by a member of a minority group. Students who participated in this study gave significantly more favorable evaluations to the journal article when it was presented as being written by an African American author. The gender of the purported author also had a significant influence on the evaluations given to the article, with female authors receiving significantly more favorable ratings than male authors. Respondents' levels of self-esteem had no significant influence on the evaluations given to the article. No statistically significant interaction effects were revealed for the independent variables under investigation. The implications of these findings are discussed and recommendations for future research are made