Reducing Acceptability of Racial Microaggressions Using Online Videos:The Role of Perspective-Taking and White Guilt

Growing evidence suggests a positive association between perceiving racial microaggressions as acceptable and endorsing negative attitudes toward Black, Indigenous and other People of Color (BIPOC). Yet,researchers have not yet examined whether it is possible to change acceptability attitudes and if so, whichpsychological factors may help to explain this change. Thus, the goals of this paper are to extend theliterature on racial microaggression perpetration by (a) testing the effectiveness of a brief video interventionon changing White students’ attitudes related to the acceptability of racial microaggressions and(b) examining possible mechanisms through which this change might occur. Across two studies, Whiteundergraduate students were randomly assigned to watch either a series of videos about the impact of racialmicroaggressions (experimental condition) or about the environment (control condition). In Study 1 (n =86), we found that those in the experimental condition had significantly lower acceptability attitudes relatedto color evasion, power evasion, victim blaming, and exoticization microaggressions. In Study 2 (n = 196),we found that perspective-taking, but not White guilt, helped to explain the impact of the video onacceptability attitudes related to power evasion, exoticizing, and victim-blaming microaggressions. Theseresults suggest that vicarious contact using video interventions may reduce the degree to which Whitestudents perceive racial microaggressions as acceptable; thus laying a foundation for future video-basedintervention strategies in higher education to reduce racial microaggressions on college campuses