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. Statement of Relevance The majority of biased comments people hear are from friends (Dickter & Newton, 2013), and 40% of Americans report confronting a friend or family member for a biased comment (Horowitz et al., 2019). Yet, how people think about confronting a friend (or not) is unknown. Relationship quality can be improved by mutual understanding (Reis et al., 2017), and confronting can provide an opportunity to express oneself and establish understanding with close others. Further, a proposed starting point for healing racial division is to start a conversation and talk to one’s friends (Song, 2019). Thus, it is essential to understand how racial minorities expect their interracial relationships to be impacted when they confront others about bias. Ultimately, our research helps explain why minority-group members might choose to confront bias from a close friend—namely, that they expect it to be less detrimental for their friendship than to stay silent.