Friendships with Blacks Relate to Lessened Implicit Preferences for Whites Over Blacks

The present study examines the relationship between self-reported friendships with Blacks and implicit preferences for Whites relative to Blacks. There is considerable evidence that friendships relate to more favorable attitudes toward outgroups, however, the bulk of this evidence comes from explicit self-report measures. Using a sample of 123,445 participants that completed a Black-White IAT on the Project Implicit website, results indicate that participants reporting either childhood or post-childhood friendships with Blacks demonstrated weaker implicit preferences for Whites over Blacks. The size of this relationship was substantially smaller than found for explicit evaluations of Blacks.