The Anticipated Relational Effects of Confronting Bias (or not) in Interracial Friendships

Most biased comments people experience are from friends. However, little is known about how people process experiences in which a friend expresses bias and how the relationship might be affected. The current research examines the anticipated relational effects of confronting (vs. not confronting) a friend's bias, using adult participants in the United States. Asian participants who imagined confronting a White friend's biased comment (or a stranger's: see Study 1) anticipated higher friendship or relationship quality compared with those who imagined not having that confrontation. This effect remained regardless of whether bias was directed toward participants' in-group or toward an out-group (see Study 2). The closer people felt to their friend, the more confronting (vs. not confronting) elicited higher friendship quality. Experimentally testing for mechanism demonstrated that the effect of confronting is driven by greater anticipated understanding (see Study 3). This work reveals that Asian people expect that confronting a friend's bias will elicit greater understanding and buffer against negative interpersonal effects.[Box: see text].