Date of Award

6-2025

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology

First Advisor

Kelly A. McDonnell, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Samuel T. Beasley, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Janet S. Hahn, Ph.D.

Fourth Advisor

Ya Zhang, Ph.D.

Keywords

Affective racial attitudes, colorblind racial attitudes, multicultural education, racial attitudes, video interventions, white undergraduate students

Abstract

In this experimental study, a pretest posttest between-groups design was utilized to investigate the efficacy of two brief multicultural educational video interventions in improving the colorblind and affective racial attitudes of White undergraduate students. Ninety-eight self-identified White undergraduate students from a large, Midwestern university were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (a) viewing a video on the pervasiveness of individual racism and White privilege in the United States (True Colors); (b) viewing a video on institutional racism in the United States (Segregated by Design); (c) viewing a study tips video as the neutral control condition. Participants’ colorblind and affective (i.e., White empathy, White guilt, White fear) racial attitudes were measured utilizing the Colorblind Racial Attitudes scale (CoBRAS) and the Psychosocial Costs of Racism to Whites (PCRW) scale, respectively. Additionally, this study controlled for socially desirable responding by assessing social desirability at pretest. It was hypothesized that participants in the two experimental conditions would demonstrate significantly lower scores of colorblind racial attitudes and White fear and higher scores of White empathy and White guilt as compared to the control condition at posttest. To investigate the hypotheses for this study, a multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was performed. Findings indicated that both brief multicultural educational video interventions were effective in reducing participants’ colorblind racial attitudes, thus increasing their racial awareness. However, neither brief video intervention was effective in improving participants’ affective racial attitudes. Results suggest that brief multicultural educational video interventions can be effective in reducing racial colorblindness, a cognitive dimension of White undergraduate students’ racial attitudes, but may be insufficient for eliciting an emotional response that improves the affective racial attitudes of White undergraduate students today. Implications for research, teaching, clinical practice, and policy, and future directions for research are discussed. The overarching goal of this study was to identify specific brief multicultural educational video interventions that university educators may be able to incorporate into their courses to improve the racial attitudes of their White students.

Access Setting

Dissertation-Open Access

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