Internal Conflict and Bias Awareness: Emotional Ambivalence Buffers Against Defensive Responding to Implicit Racial Bias Feedback

We introduce emotional ambivalence - the simultaneous experience of positive and negative emotions – as a buffer against defensive responding to implicit racial bias feedback. Three studies (N=2000) demonstrate that inducing emotional ambivalence causes reductions in defensive responding, which increased bias awareness and more favorable attitudes towards anti-bias interventions.