Why are people surprised at racial bias feedback, such as test results from Implicit Association Tests (IATs), even though they can predict their IAT racial bias scores prospectively? The present research tested three hypotheses: People are surprised at racial bias feedback due to (1) the feedback wording, (2) implicit evaluations often being preconscious and unattended, or because (3) pretending to be surprised at racial bias feedback is socially desirable. One pilot, four preregistered studies, and a mini-meta-analysis supported hypothesis (2): Although racial biases such as those reflected on IAT scores are observable, people rarely pay attention to them. Specifically, predicting IAT results (Studies 2-4b) and encouragement to pay attention to one's biased reactions before IAT completion (Study 3) reduced surprise, independent of explanation of “implicit bias” (Study 4b). Contradicting the social-desirability hypothesis (3), neither encouragement to admit to bias in the form of abstract predictions (Study 3), nor non-threatening explanations of implicit bias (Study 4b), reduced surprise in the absence of encouragement to pay attention to one's own biases. Speaking against hypothesis (1), surprise was independent of feedback severity (Studies 1–3); and the prediction effect was mediated by recognition of bias, but not correspondence of predictions and feedback (Study 3). These studies suggest that surprise is a consequence of the preconscious nature of automatic social cognitions: People may be motivated to keep consciously accessible racial biases out of awareness. Implications for theories of implicit social cognition and the generality of these effects beyond research on implicit bias are discussed.

为什么人们对种族偏见反馈感到惊讶，例如隐式关联测试 (IAT) 的测试结果，即使他们可以前瞻性地预测他们的 IAT 种族偏见分数？本研究测试了三个假设：人们对种族偏见反馈感到惊讶，因为 (1) 反馈措辞，(2) 隐性评估通常是有意识的和无人注意的，或者因为 (3) 假装对种族偏见反馈感到惊讶是社会需要的. 一项试点、四项预注册研究和一项小型荟萃分析支持假设 (2)：尽管可以观察到诸如 IAT 分数所反映的种族偏见，但人们很少关注它们。具体来说，预测 IAT 结果（研究 2-4b）并鼓励在 IAT 完成之前注意自己的偏见反应（研究 3）减少了意外，独立于“隐含偏见”的解释（研究 4b）。与社会期望假设 (3) 相矛盾的是，无论是鼓励以抽象预测的形式承认偏见（研究 3），还是对隐性偏见的非威胁性解释（研究 4b），在没有鼓励关注的情况下都减少了惊喜对自己的偏见。反对假设（1），惊喜与反馈的严重程度无关（研究 1-3）；并且预测效果是通过识别偏见来调节的，但不是预测和反馈的对应关系（研究 3）。这些研究表明，惊讶是自动社会认知的前意识性质的结果：人们可能会被激励在意识之外保持有意识的种族偏见。