Reducing prejudice by enhancing the other rather than the self

ABSTRACT

Self-enhancement may exacerbate ingroup favoritism. What if, rather than self-enhancement, individuals focused on enhancing others? Could this reduce prejudice? Three studies tested the impact of self-enhancement versus ‘other-enhancement’ on prejudice. In Study 1 (N=95), a repeated measures design showed that participants demonstrated less implicit bias after reflecting on another person’s positive traits relative to their own. In Study 2 (N=169), participants who reflected on an outgroup strength showed less racism than those who reflected on an ingroup strength and those in a comparison condition. In Study 3 (N=380), other-enhancement negatively linked to racism and sexism, whereas self-enhancement did not. Additionally, Study 3 examined an antecedent of other-enhancement – humility. We discuss the importance of enhancing others in reducing prejudice.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-enhancement
• humility
• other-enhancement
• other-focus
• prejudice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We tested whether order of presentation of the task affected implicit bias. We did not find an order effect on implicit bias in either the self-enhancement or other-enhancement condition (F=.343 and F=.568, respectively).

2. We also recalculated this analysis with non-white participants (including two Black, two East Asian, and two South Asian participants) removed, since the IAT measured white vs. Black preference. This did not change the pattern or significance of results, F(1, 81)=23.304, p<.0001, η_p²= .223 (for affect), and F(1, 81)=8.301, p=.005, η_p²= .093 (for race bias).

3. Although we tested two models – one for each outcome (racism and sexism), we present them together here for ease of interpretation. Note that estimates of the links between the predictors and mediators were identical across models.