Raising awareness of bias risk can either reduce discrimination or sharpen scrutiny of evidence

Evidence

The race salience findings stem from aversive racism theory, the theory that making people aware of their potential to express bias can reduce their tendency to make discriminatory decisions (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986). Complicating the moderating effects of race salience even further, the watchdog hypothesis suggests that raising the potential for prejudice may cause jurors to evaluate evidence more thoroughly (Sargent & Bradfield, 2004), which could potentially benefit minority defendants (or disadvantage them) depending on the strength of the evidence in the case. There is a need for a more thorough exploration of what constitutes making race salient (Hunt, 2015; Sommers & Ellsworth, 2009). Although the role of race salience in juror decisions is not fully understood, mock jurors’ concerns about appearing racist may sometimes motivate them to avoid expressing biased responses. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 871

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces aversive racism theory (awareness reduces bias) and the watchdog hypothesis (awareness deepens evidence scrutiny) as distinct mechanisms.
• XREF: Both mechanisms bear on the reader’s question of whether professed egalitarian conviction actually predicts measured bias or diverges — awareness can change measured outcomes regardless of underlying conviction. — connects to: Blinding audits cannot undo accumulated experiential advantages from past discrimination. — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 257
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 871