The Secret Haters

The psychologists studied a group of nurses working in drug clinics and needle exchange programs in and around Sydney. Hardcore drug addicts are not easy people to be around; their lives are chaotic and often unmanageable, and even the most bighearted nurses come under a lot of stress on the job. And most were bighearted toward the addicts—or at least they appeared outwardly to be. But when the psychologists tapped into their unconscious minds, many did indeed harbor deep negative feelings about the very people they professed to care about.

That in itself may not be shocking, but here's where it gets interesting. The psychologists then asked all these nurses about their career plans, specifically whether they planned on sticking with the substance abuse field or switching to another kind of nursing. When they crunched all the data, their findings were strong and unambiguous: as reported in the journal Psychological Science, nurses with an unconscious bias against addicts were much more likely to be planning a career change within the year, regardless of their professed feelings for their unfortunate clients. What's more, the stress of working with difficult clients was not in itself driving people away; they could tolerate the workaday stress. It was only the hidden animosity that was causing these dedicated workers to abandon their own do-gooder commitments.

And what does this have to do with racism? Well, think of it this way: these nurses truly believed that addicts were unfortunate victims of disease. They were as progressive and committed as anyone could be. Yet even they were swayed by the dark biases in their unconsciouses. If submerged and unwanted prejudices are potent enough to make even devoted advocates betray their values, what other unwanted actions might they be influencing?

Wray Herbert writes the "We're Only Human…" blog at www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman.

© 2008