Explaining Bias against Black Leaders: Integrating Theory on Information Processing and Goal-Based Stereotyping

Approaches related to inference-based processing (e.g., romance-of-leadership theory) would suggest that black leaders are evaluated positively after success. In contrast, approaches related to recognition-based processing (e.g., leader categorization theory) would suggest that, because of stereotyping, black leaders are evaluated negatively regardless of their performance. To reconcile this discrepancy, we predicted that evaluators would engage in goal-based stereotyping by perceiving that black leaders—and not white leaders—fail because of negative leader-based attributes and succeed because of positive nonleader attributes (i.e., compensatory stereotypes). Multilevel analyses of archival data in the context of college football in the United States supported our predictions.