3 - (SYM 143) Moral Elevation as a Cognitive Micro-intervention to Foster Allyship After Witnessing Anti-black Racism

Racism manifests in social contexts, ranging from trauma and violence to microaggressions that intentionally or unintentionally “other” individuals of color. Recent theorizing and research on “allyship” have focused on ways that third-party individuals can respond when witnessing racist social behavior. Sue et al. (2019) proposed a framework for “micro-intervention” strategies as potential responses for third parties witnessing microaggressions. However, little is known about how positive emotions spur on allyship and antiracism in outgroup members. Moral elevation, the positive social emotion experienced when witnessing acts of goodness or virtue (e.g., generosity), may serve as a relevant candidate emotion given experimental findings that it activates prosocial motivation.

The present study investigated whether, after exposure to an upsetting display of anti-Black racism, moral elevation induction would cause higher prosocial responses and allyship motivations relative to neutral and amusement (positive emotion without socio-moral features) control conditions. We also tested whether elevation feelings and hopeful cognitions about humanity mediated group differences. We examined these questions in both White and Asian samples to determine whether effects would replicate across different non-Black outgroups.

Asian American (N = 300) and White (N = 300) participants watched a video depicting anti-Black racism by a White woman toward a Black man, then were randomly assigned to elevating, amusing, or neutral video stimuli matched on race and gender. Subsequently, participants completed measures of motivations toward prosocial and antiracist responses, including both self-reports and behavioral tasks.

In both samples, elevation stimuli caused strong feelings of elevation and hopeful cognitions about humanity. In the White sample, supporting hypotheses, the elevation condition led to higher levels than the amusement condition for support-seeking (95%CI [.04, .75]), compassion toward outgroup members (95%CI [.19, 1.61]), motivation toward individual allyship (95%CI [.14, .78]), institutional advocacy (95%CI [.09, .73]), and awareness of racism (95%CI [.01, .68]), whereas effects on prosocial outcomes did not reach significance in the Asian American sample. However, mediation tests showed that elevation cognitions and/or feelings mediated effects of condition on prosocial outcomes in both samples. Implications for antiracist allyship and working with underserved communities will be discussed.