Reducing Contemporary Prejudice: Combating Explicit and Implicit Bias at the Individual and Intergroup Level 1

Due in part to changing norms and to the Civil Rights Act and other legislative interventions that have made discrimination not simply immoral but also illegal, overt expressions of prejudice have declined significantly in the U.S. over the past 35 years (Dovidio & Gaertner, 1986, 1998; Schuman, Steeh, Bobo, & Krysan, 1997). Prejudice and discrimination, however, continue to exist and to affect the lives of people of color and women in significant ways (Dovidio & Gaertner, 1998; see also Stephan & Stephan’s chapter in this volume). Many current approaches to prejudice based on race, ethnicity, or sex acknowledge the persistence of overt, intentional forms of prejudice, but they also recognize the role of more subtle, unintentional, and, possibly, unconscious forms of bias. These approaches often also consider the role of automatic or unconscious processes and the consequent indirect expressions of bias.