The model of threat-infused intergroup feedback: Why, when, and how feedback to ethnic minority learners is positively biased

Abstract

This article concerns the positive feedback bias, which occurs when White instructors supply selectively more praise and less criticism to ethnic minority learners relative to White learners. The positive bias is reliable and enduring and affects feedback to various ethnic groups in North America and in Europe. The model of threat-infused intergroup feedback (MOTIIF) is introduced to explain the positive bias. MOTIIF integrates research on feedback practices, interracial dynamics, self-image maintenance, and psychosocial resources to explain why and when the bias is expressed. According to MOTIIF the positive bias is driven mainly by racial anxiety, the concern of many White people that they will reveal self-compromising prejudices, to others or to themselves, when engaging with ethnic minority persons. Inflated praise and muted criticism to ethnic minority learners serve, per MOTIIF, to quell racial anxiety. The article reviews evidence of the positive bias and relates it to the MOTIIF framework. It also discusses how the positive bias can affect ethnic minority learners; how it diminishes their trust in feedback, erodes their self-esteem, increases their stress, and potentially, undermines their learning. The article draws on MOTIIF to consider potential solutions to the positive bias and to recommend future research.

Acknowledgments

I thank Carla Herrera and Deborah Russell for their comments and advice.

Notes

1 The positive bias appears to occur mainly among White teachers but as Table 1 shows it may also be expressed by non-White teachers.

2 The literature review was based on internet searches (ERIC, Google Scholar) that used “interracial feedback,” “positive biases,” “interracial praise” and related keywords, with no publication date restriction. It also located relevant research by examining citations to published positive-bias studies. The search focused on peer-reviewed educational psychology and experimental psychology sources.

3 This article focuses on feedback to ethnic minority learners; however, the positive bias may arise whenever feedback is selectively more lenient based on learners’ group membership, for example, ethnicity, nationality, and gender.

4 Schuster et al. (2021) relate these gender-based feedback biases to teachers’ stereotype-based expectancies rather than to racial anxiety.

5 This was primarily the case with low self-esteem instructors.

6 M. C. Taylor’s (1998) finding is based on comprehensive samples drawn from the General Social Survey and the US Census.

7 Some question the efficacy of the growth mindset approach (e.g., Burgoyne et al., 2020).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by Perception Institute (Harber 06.14.18).