Acceptance by majority and minority groups

Although colorblindness is intended to be a hierarchy-attenuating ideology that promotes equal treatment of all social group members, it is differently accepted by majority and minority group members. Research shows that the adoption of colorblindness by majority groups is associated with external motivation to control prejudice as it serves the purpose of ego protection. When White participants were concerned about appearing biased or faced normative pressure, they were more likely to avoid talking about race or recognizing race differences, suggesting the strategic use of colorblindness to appear egalitarian.^[19] Colorblindness can also serve as a tool to defend the status quo by majority groups.^[20] When anti-egalitarian White participants were exposed to intergroup threat, they used colorblindness to rationalize inequality and legitimize the racial status quo. From a developmental perspective, children learn to avoid expressing racial prejudice and minimize racial categorization around age 10.^[21][22] On the other hand, minority groups tend to seek more identification with their minority group identities, which is not recognized by the colorblind ideology. Therefore, while White Americans have been shown to be more likely to endorse colorblind ideology, Black Americans are more likely to endorse multicultural ideology where their unique racial identity is acknowledged.^[23][24]

Stereotyping and prejudice

The effects of colorblind ideology on intergroup relations are mixed. In terms of stereotyping and prejudice, colorblindness is associated with decreased stereotyping of minority groups.^[25] People who are primed with colorblind ideology favor counterstereotypical minorities over stereotypical minorities.^[26] These findings suggest that colorblindness increases people's preference for individuals who display attributes atypical of their social groups and cross the group boundary. The colorblind ideology is also found to suppress expression of explicit prejudice in the short term, especially when intergroup conflict is high and more threat is triggered in the dominant group. However, implicit prejudice against minority groups rebounds at a later time point.^[27] The findings suggest that colorblindness may not reliably reduce prejudice, especially implicit prejudice, for sustained period of time.

Intergroup interactions

In terms of intergroup interactions, research suggests that colorblind ideology is associated with worse intergroup attitudes towards minority group members. Colorblindness promotes a prevention orientation in people as it emphasizes not harboring certain perception and performing certain behaviors. Therefore, trying to consciously suppressing bias against outgroups and negativity in intergroup interactions can impair majority group's cognitive ability and executive functions.^[28][29] As a result, inducing majority group members to adopt a colorblind ideology and to ignore racial differences in intergroup interactions, which leads them to consciously exert to appear non-prejudiced, can paradoxically increase their tendency to express more negative attitudes and discriminate against minority groups. Majority group members can exhibit more negative nonverbal behaviors and be perceived as less friendly by their minority interaction partners.^[19] Moreover, in some research colorblindness is linked with greater ethnocentrism and in-group favoritism, i.e. favoring ingroup members and perceiving them in more positive light than out-group members.^[30] However, there are also some studies finding that colorblindness decreases ethnocentrism.^[25]

From minority groups' perspective, evidence suggests that the adoption of colorblind ideology by majority group members also impairs minority performance and their perceived risk of discrimination. As a result, interacting with colorblind majority group members increases minority's cognitive taxation.^[31] This set of findings suggest that colorblindness may be more effective to address explicit bias than implicit unintentional bias in intergroup interactions between majority and minority groups.

Sensitivity to racism

Colorblindness is associated with reduced awareness of racism and sensitivity to microaggressions as well as reports of them among majority group members. In the educational setting, research suggests that in schools advocating for colorblind ideology, White teachers who deemed themselves as being fair still discriminated against Black students, giving Black students more severe punishments and favoring White students in class elections.^[32] Similarly, children who were exposed to the colorblind ideology were less likely to perceive race-biased behaviors as discriminatory.^[21] Therefore, while colorblindness takes the stance of facilitating egalitarianism, it may prevent racism from being recognized and addressed.

Intergroup attitudes and interactions

Research shows that multiculturalism has positive implications for intergroup attitudes. Individual difference in multiculturalism ideology is related to different intergroup attitudes, such that people who score higher on measure of the ideology and support for multicultural policies are more tolerant of outgroups.^[17] Similarly, a meta-analysis of multicultural education programs indicates that multiculturalism as diversity ideology positively influences intergroup attitudes.^[34] With regard to prejudice, dominant group members who endorse multiculturalism exhibit less explicit and implicit prejudice towards minority members.^[23][17] Moreover, priming a multiculturalism ideology in majority group members is shown to increase their inclusivity, including increased capability of perspective-taking,^[35] more positive perception of minority group members, less ethnocentrism or ingroup bias, and less tendency to discriminate.^[30] From minority groups' perspective, because multiculturalism is more aligned with minority groups' need to identify with their unique group identity, minority groups are more likely than majority group members to support multiculturalism.^[23][24] Minority groups' psychological engagement in the workplace increases when working with colleagues who endorse multiculturalistic attitudes, an effect mediated by the perception of reduced intergroup bias.^[36]

Stereotyping

However, research has also identified some negative effects associated with multiculturalism. While multiculturalism tends to decrease prejudice, some studies suggest that multiculturalism is associated with stronger stereotyping of minority group member, such that stereotypical minorities are viewed as favorable by White participants than counterstereotypical minorities when they are exposed to multicultural ideology.^[23][25] At the same time, multiculturalism, by putting great emphasis on how groups are distinctively different from each other, may be at risk of promoting greater division between groups and foster a more salient “us” versus “them” mindset.^[2] Therefore, the ideology may encourage people to restrict themselves to only their associated group membership rather than cross group boundaries. Some research supports that multiculturalism endorsement is associated with greater beliefs that racial differences are fixed and nonchangeable, which may explain why multiculturalism leads to greater stereotyping^[37]

Majority group resistance

Another weakness of multiculturalism is that when intergroup conflict and perceived threat is high, multiculturalism can backfire and promote more hostility towards minority groups among majority group members.^[2] The more identified they are with their ingroup, majority group members experience more symbolic threat, and thus endorse multiculturalism less.^[38] When White participants perceived greater threat from racial minority groups, they endorsed multiculturalism ideology to a lesser degree, showed less tolerance of outgroups, and expressed more hostility towards their minority interaction partners.^[39][40]

One reason underlying the role of threat in influencing the relationship between multiculturalism and improved intergroup attitudes is that majority groups are likely to perceive multiculturalism as exclusionary to minority groups and feel threatened about their status. Research finds that dominant group members identify with the multiculturalism ideology less than their minority counterparts. White participants were slower to associate multiculturalism with their self-concept than racial minorities, and were faster to pair exclusion with multiculturalism in an implicit association test. However, after being exposed to an "all-inclusive multiculturalism" message that intentionally frames the dominant group as being part of the diversity, the automatic pairing becomes slower.^[41]

Intergroup attitudes and endorsement of equality

Social psychology research on polyculturalism has suggested generally positive effects on intergroup attitudes and endorsement of social equality. Polyculturalism is found to be associated with less support for social dominance and hierarchy, greater willingness to make intergroup contact, and greater support for public policies and institutions that promote social equality, such as affirmative action. It is also linked to improved and more positive intergroup attitudes towards minority groups.^[46][47] When dominant group participants endorsed polyculturalism more, they had less negative attitudes towards the LGBTQ community and less sexual prejudice.^[48] Moreover, preliminary evidence suggests that majority and minority groups are equally likely to support this ideology. The findings indicate that polyculturalism ideology could lead to greater endorsement of social equality, greater interest in and comfort with diversity and differences, and lower evaluative bias.

Openness to change and foreign ideas

One reason why polyculturalism promotes more positivity in intergroup relations is that polyculturalism can encourage greater willingness to learn about different cultures and open to criticize and change one's own culture.^[48][3] As a downstream consequence, research finds that polyculturalism fosters creativity on problems that emphasizes cultural integration, an effect driven by greater propensity for foreign idea inclusion. Colorblindness, on the other hand, impaired creativity in problem-solving tasks that required associations between cultures.^[49]