Developing and Testing a Video-Based Intervention to Increase White Bystander Confrontations of Online Racism

Abstract Black students attending predominantly White institutions (PWIs) may be at heightened risk of exposure to interpersonal expressions of anti-Black racism, which can be experienced in person and increasingly online. Yet emerging research suggests that some of the harms associated with exposure to online racism may be mitigated when White students confront racist posts. The current manuscript describes the development and evaluation of a video-based online interactive intervention designed to increase White students’ willingness to confront online racism. Study 1 included 522 White students attending one PWI in the Southeast. Study 1 was conducted to identify the relative effectiveness of the various components of the intervention. In Study 2, we tested our full intervention with 824 White students across four geographically diverse PWIs. We randomly assigned White students to receive the full intervention or an implicit bias control condition. Results of Study 1 suggested added value of the combined intervention components. In Study 2, we found that 46% of participants in the intervention condition confronted the racist post compared to only 22% of participants in the implicit bias control condition. Assignment to the intervention condition relative to the control was associated with greater attitudes, social norms, and self-efficacy toward challenging racist posts. In turn, attitudes, social norms, and self-efficacy toward challenging racist posts predicted whether participants challenged a racist post. The findings of this research have implications for efforts to counter racism and other forms of bigotry online as a means to make PWIs more inclusive.