OBJECTIVE Recently, experimental work on racial bias in legal settings has diverged from real-world field data demonstrating racial disparities, instead often producing null or potential overcorrection effects favoring Black individuals over White individuals. We explored the role of social desirability in these counterintuitive effects and tested whether allowing participants to establish nonracist moral credentials increased their willingness to convict a Black defendant. HYPOTHESES We predicted that establishing nonracist moral credentials would increase convictions of Black defendants-especially for participants likely to harbor racial bias and external motivation to control it. METHOD In two experiments, we randomly assigned White mock jurors (Study 1: N = 1,018; Study 2: N = 1,253) to establish nonracist moral credentials by acquitting a Black defendant in an initial case, acquit a White defendant in the same case, or see no prior case. Next, they judged an ambiguous case against a Black (Studies 1 and 2) or White (Study 2) defendant. After choosing verdicts, they provided open-ended guesses of what the study was about. Participants completed measures of explicit prejudice, motivations to control prejudice, and political orientation. RESULTS Most participants who were asked to judge at least one Black defendant guessed that the study was about racial bias and convicted Black defendants less often than did those who guessed the study was about something else. White participants who established nonracist credentials were significantly more likely to convict Black defendants compared with White participants who did not establish nonracist credentials. Subsequent analyses revealed that conservatives showed this predicted credentialing pattern, whereas liberals did not. Credentialed liberals' convictions of Black defendants remained low; instead, they convicted White defendants more than did noncredentialed liberals. CONCLUSIONS Social desirability plays a clear role in whether White people acquit Black defendants in experiments, which does not align with persistent racial bias in the legal system. Research participants' concern about looking prejudiced might undermine the validity of experiments investigating racial bias in legal settings by artificially inflating pro-Black judgments. The opportunity to credential oneself as nonracist, however, might make conservatives more comfortable making anti-Black legal judgments-whereas credentialed liberals continue to judge Black individuals more favorably than White individuals in legal settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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社会期望和建立非种族主义证书对模拟陪审员关于黑人被告的决定的作用。

目标 最近，关于法律环境中种族偏见的实验工作已经偏离了证明种族差异的真实世界的现场数据，而是经常产生有利于黑人而不是白人的无效或潜在的过度矫正效果。我们探讨了社会期望在这些违反直觉的影响中的作用，并测试了允许参与者建立非种族主义道德证书是否会增加他们对黑人被告定罪的意愿。假设 我们预测，建立非种族主义的道德凭证会增加黑人被告的信念——尤其是对于可能怀有种族偏见和控制它的外部动机的参与者。方法 在两个实验中，我们随机分配白人模拟陪审员（研究 1：N = 1,018；研究 2：N = 1，253）通过在初始案件中宣告一名黑人被告无罪、在同一案件中宣告一名白人被告无罪或未见任何先前案件来建立非种族主义道德凭证。接下来，他们判断了一个针对黑人（研究 1 和 2）或白人（研究 2）被告的模棱两可的案件。选择结论后，他们对研究的内容进行了开放式的猜测。参与者完成了对显性偏见、控制偏见的动机和政治取向的测量。结果 大多数被要求判断至少一名黑人被告的参与者猜测该研究是关于种族偏见的，并且与那些猜测该研究是关于其他事情的人相比，黑人被告被定罪的频率要低。与没有建立非种族主义资格的白人参与者相比，建立了非种族主义资格的白人参与者更有可能将黑人被告定罪。随后的分析表明，保守派显示了这种预测的证书模式，而自由派则没有。有资格的自由主义者对黑人被告的定罪率仍然很低；相反，他们对白人被告的定罪多于对没有资格的自由主义者的定罪。结论 社会期望对白人是否在实验中宣告黑人被告无罪起着明显的作用，这与法律体系中持续存在的种族偏见不符。研究参与者对看起来有偏见的担忧可能会通过人为夸大支持黑人的判断来破坏调查法律环境中种族偏见的实验的有效性。然而，证明自己是非种族主义者的机会可能会让保守派更愿意做出反黑人的法律判决——而有资格的自由主义者继续在法律环境中比白人更有利地判断黑人。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2023 APA，保留所有权利）。