B. Keith Payne

We tested whether contemporary Black–White mortality disparities in the United States may be rooted in the historical legacy of slavery and perpetuated through structural inequalities. Linking county-level data on the proportion of enslaved people in 1860 with structural inequality indicators from 1990 to 2000 and mortality outcomes from 2010 to 2020, we find that historical slavery is robustly associated with contemporary racial mortality gaps. Our model estimates ~22 additional deaths per 100,000 among Black Americans relative to White Americans for every 10% increase in the 1860 enslaved population. Path analysis models showed that segregation, economic inequality, and racial disparities in poverty and education statistically mediated this effect. We test the plausibility of a causal pathway using an instrumental variable analysis and explore the robustness of our theoretical model in multiple supplemental analyses. Our analyses held even after controlling for a comprehensive suite of historical and contemporary covariates. These findings are consistent with a model wherein slavery’s legacy continues to shape present-day Black–White racial health disparities via enduring structural inequities.

Background: Subjective socioeconomic status is robustly associated with many measures of health and well-being. The MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status (i.e., the MacArthur ladder) is the most widely used measure of this construct, but it remains unclear what exactly the MacArthur ladder measures.Purpose: The present research sought to explore the social and economic factors that underlie responses to the MacArthur ladder and its relationship to health.Methods: We investigated this issue by examining the relationship between scores on the MacArthur ladder and measures of economic circumstances and noneconomic social status, as well as health and well-being measures, in healthy adults in the USA.Results: In three studies (total N = 1,310) we found evidence that economic circumstances and social status are distinct constructs that have distinct associations with scores on the MacArthur ladder. We found that both factors exhibit distinct associations with measures of health and well-being and accounted for the association between the MacArthur ladder and each measure of health and well-being.Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the MacArthur ladder’s robust predictive validity may result from the fact that it measures two factors—economic circumstances and social status—that are each independently associated with health outcomes. These findings provide a novel perspective on the large body of literature that uses the MacArthur ladder and suggests health researchers should do more to disentangle the social and economic aspects of subjective socioeconomic status.

The spatial patterning of present-day racial bias in Southern states is predicted by the prevalence of slavery in 1860 and the structural inequalities that followed. Here we extend the investigation of the historical roots of implicit bias to areas outside the South by tracing the Great Migration of Black southerners to Northern and Western states. We found that the proportion of Black residents in each county ( N = 1,981 counties) during the years of the Great Migration (1900–1950) was significantly associated with greater implicit bias among White residents today. The association was statistically explained by measures of structural inequalities. Results parallel the pattern seen in Southern states but reflect population changes that occurred decades later as cities reacted to larger Black populations. These findings suggest that implicit biases reflect structural inequalities and the historical conditions that produced them.

Cesario argues that experiments cannot illuminate real group disparities because they leave out factors that operate in ordinary life. But what Cesario calls flaws are, in fact, the point of the experimental method. Of all the topics in science, we have to wonder why racial discrimination would be uniquely unsuited for investigating with experiments. The argument to give up the most powerful scientific method to study one of the hardest problems we confront is laughable.

Significance: Geographic variation in implicit bias is associated with multiple racial disparities in life outcomes. We investigated the historical roots of geographical differences in implicit bias by comparing average levels of implicit bias with the number of slaves in those areas in 1860. Counties and states more dependent on slavery in 1860 displayed higher pro-White implicit bias today among White residents and less pro-White bias among Black residents. Mediation analyses suggest that historical oppression may be transmitted into contemporary biases through structural inequalities, including disparities in poverty and upward mobility. Given the importance of contextual factors, efforts to reduce unintended discrimination might focus on modifying social environments that cue implicit biases in the minds of individuals.

Implicit bias, which refers to mental associations that can lead to unintentional discrimination, has become a focus as many organizations and institutions try to reduce disparities and increase inclusiveness. Many forms of implicit bias training are aimed at changing individuals’ implicit biases. This approach treats implicit bias as a trait-like attribute of the person. Recent theoretical advances in understanding implicit bias, however, suggest that implicit bias may not be a stable attribute of individuals. Instead, implicit bias may better characterize social environments than people. Understanding implicit bias as a cultural phenomenon, rather than a fixed set of beliefs, has important policy implications. Most notably, the best approaches for reducing the harm of implicit bias should aim at changing social contexts rather than changing people’s minds. Here, we highlight some considerations of this new understanding of implicit bias for policy makers aiming to reduce disparities and increase inclusion.

(2017). Flipping the Script on Implicit Bias Research with the Bias of Crowds. Psychological Inquiry: Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 306-311.

As public awareness of implicit bias has grown in recent years, studies have raised important new questions about the nature of implicit bias effects. First, implicit biases are widespread and robust on average, yet are unstable across a few weeks. Second, young children display implicit biases indistinguishable from those of adults, which suggests to many that implicit biases are learned early. Yet, if implicit biases are unstable over weeks, how can they be stable for decades? Third, meta-analyses suggest that individual differences in implicit bias are associated weakly, although significantly, with individual differences in behavioral outcomes. Yet, studies of aggregate levels of implicit bias (i.e., countries, states, counties) are strongly associated with aggregate levels of disparities and discrimination. These puzzles are difficult to reconcile with traditional views, which treat implicit bias as an early-learned attitude that drives discrimination among individuals who are high in bias. We propose an alternative view of implicit bias, rooted in concept accessibility. Concept accessibility can, in principle, vary both chronically and situationally. The empirical evidence, however, suggests that most of the systematic variance in implicit bias is situational. Akin to the “wisdom of crowds” effect, implicit bias may emerge as the aggregate effect of individual fluctuations in concept accessibility that are ephemeral and context-dependent. This bias of crowds theory treats implicit bias tests as measures of situations more than persons. We show how the theory can resolve the puzzles posed and generate new insights into how and why implicit bias propagates inequalities.