Recent findings published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology suggest there are biases in how personal diversity statements are evaluated based on the race of the applicant. The study found that White evaluators are more likely to perceive Black applicants as committed to egalitarian goals and likely to contribute positively to organizational diversity, leading to a higher likelihood of their admission into hypothetical graduate programs.
Personal diversity statements are increasingly used in academic and employment contexts to assess candidates’ experiences with and commitments to diversity. These statements are intended to provide insight into an applicant’s ability to contribute to a diverse and inclusive environment. The current political climate in the United States, with nearly half of the states introducing legislation that opposes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, makes the effectiveness of these statements as evaluative tools particularly relevant.
Given the lack of empirical data on the impact of these statements on application evaluations, particularly concerning the race of the applicant, the new study aimed to fill that gap. In a series of three studies, the researchers sought to understand if and how the disclosed race of an applicant influences evaluator perceptions and decisions.
In the first study, the researchers designed an experiment to investigate how race and the disclosure of race in a personal diversity statement influenced the perceptions of White evaluators. The study involved 273 White participants, who were a mix of undergraduate students and individuals recruited from an online platform known as Prolific Academic.
Each participant was assigned to evaluate a diversity statement that included an image of the applicant. The statements varied only in terms of the applicant’s race (Black or White) and whether the race was explicitly disclosed in the text of statement.
The participants reviewed these diversity statements and then rated the applicant based on perceived egalitarian motivations and likely contributions to diversity and inclusivity. They also assessed their likelihood of recommending the applicant for admission to a hypothetical graduate program.
The researchers conducted a second study to further examine the impact of race disclosure by introducing a more pronounced disclosure condition. This study replicated the basic design of the first but expanded the design to a 2×3 format. Here, the race of the applicant (Black or White) was again tested, but with three levels of race disclosure: no disclosure, subtle disclosure (similar to Study 1), and strong disclosure, where the race was mentioned several times throughout the diversity statement.
This experiment involved 318 participants, all of whom were White and recruited from the same online platform as in Study 1. The researchers sought to determine if a stronger emphasis on race within the diversity statement would more significantly impact the evaluators’ perceptions. The participants again evaluated the diversity statements on similar metrics as in the first study, assessing perceived motivations, potential contributions to diversity, and their recommendations for admission.
The third study sought to deepen the exploration into how race and race disclosure affect perceptions by adding a new dimension: racial identity centrality. This condition was designed to see if making race a central part of the applicant’s identity narrative influenced perceptions more strongly than mere race disclosure. The study employed a 2×3 experimental design similar to Study 2 but replaced the subtle disclosure condition with a race centrality condition, where the applicant not only disclosed their race but emphasized its importance to their personal identity.
Additionally, Study 3 introduced an exploratory variable—diversity and inclusion essentialism—to test whether beliefs about inherent racial qualities related to diversity and inclusion could moderate perceptions. This variable was measured using a scale that assessed participants’ beliefs about racial groups’ natural inclinations towards diversity and inclusion efforts.
This study used a larger sample of 502 participants to ensure adequate power for analyzing the interaction effects and the new exploratory variable. The methodology was consistent with the previous studies, with participants evaluating based on the same criteria, but with the addition of assessing how the evaluators’ own beliefs might influence their judgments.
The researchers found that White evaluators perceived Black applicants as more committed to egalitarian goals than White applicants, regardless of whether the applicants disclosed their race in the diversity statements. Evaluators also rated Black applicants as more likely to contribute positively to the university’s diversity and inclusivity.
This trend was consistent even though the content of the diversity statements was identical across different racial portrayals. Importantly, Black applicants were more likely to be recommended for admission compared to White applicants.
However, introducing a more explicit race disclosure did not significantly change the outcomes. This suggests that the mere visual or known racial identity of an applicant may trigger biased perceptions, overshadowing the actual content of the diversity statements regarding how race is addressed or emphasized.
“The implications of these findings are somewhat mixed,” the researchers wrote. “On the one hand, our results may appear to highlight a positive diversity statement evaluation outcome — Black applicants were rated higher in perceived internal motivation to be nonprejudiced, and being viewed as someone with highly internalized egalitarian values should ostensibly increase one’s likelihood of being selected for a position. Black applicants also received more positive evaluations on their perceived contributions to diversity and inclusivity after admission.”
“On the other hand, these results may allude to prior research demonstrating that White people tend to react positively in intergroup interactions by overcorrecting their biased responses in attempts to appear nonprejudiced toward the minority group.”
The researchers also found that higher levels of essentialism beliefs strengthened the positive bias toward Black applicants regarding their intrinsic motivations and contributions. In other words, evaluators who agreed with statements such as “Black people are naturally motivated to promote diversity in their communities and workplaces” and “Black people are naturally welcoming of individuals from diverse backgrounds” exhibited a stronger positive bias towards Black applicants.
This essentialist belief could lead to a kind of stereotyping where Black individuals are pigeonholed as natural carriers of diversity, the researchers warned, which might influence not only admissions decisions but also their roles and responsibilities once admitted or hired.
“Viewing Black applicants as more committed to egalitarianism compared to White applicants could serve as a mechanism to justify overburdening Black individuals with an institution’s diversity and inclusion initiatives rather than holding Whites responsible for advancing these efforts,” they wrote.
The study, “Race matters more than racial identity disclosure when evaluating applicant diversity statements,” was authored by Fiona Nguyen, Ellen M. Carroll, Ciara Atkinson, Tammi D. Walker, and Alyssa Croft.