Beyond bias: response bias and interpersonal (in)sensitivity as a contributors to race disparities

ABSTRACT In the present work, we review a growing programme of research identifying deficits in race-based interpersonal sensitivity, specifically emotion detection, as a route to creating pitfalls in interracial interactions and generating race-based disparities. Most existing research examining race disparities takes a bias perspective – focusing on how stereotypes and prejudice can make judgements more positive or negative as a mechanism underlying race-based inequality. We review this literature, while also providing evidence that differential sensitivity – more accurately reading cues and signals of ingroup and majority group members than outgroup and minority group members – can also serve as a mechanism underlying race-based discrimination. We propose that an integrated perspective encompassing sensitivity and response bias as routes to intergroup inequality may offer researchers a novel approach to existing intergroup questions as well as a generative perspective on intergroup research programmes.