Comparing Brief Antiracism Messages: Empathy-Focused Communication Is More Effective Than Social Norms,Calls to Action,and Self-Awareness

Abstract

Brief messages have the flexibility to reach the public quickly and the potential to ignite social change. We use recent advances in antiracist messaging to create and compare four messages that differ in their focus of intervention. Two experiments randomly exposed participants to messages emphasizing either (a) awareness of personal race bias; (b) empathy for targets of racism; (c) the need for racial justice, or (d) social norms about the unacceptability of racism. Participants exposed to the empathy for targets message reported significantly more allophilia, egalitarianism, and awareness of racism (Study 1; N = 658), as well as more antiracism (Study 2; N = 813) than those exposed to the other messages. Moderation tests showed that the effectiveness of empathy-focused messaging did not depend on trait empathy or trait motivation. This work underscores the effectiveness of encouraging empathy for targets when promoting antiracism.

Keywords

antiracist messaging antiracism empathy perspective-taking

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