“A new psychology paper finds that people’s subconscious racial biases worsen when they are made to feel that economic resources are scarce.

The researchers studied what are called “implicit” racial biases: Uncontrolled prejudices that manifest themselves in our split-second reactions to images or in other cognitive tests. According to one estimate, for instance, 75 percent of whites harbor these subtle, subconscious biases in favor of other whites, and against blacks.

The study adds a new twist to this large and well established literature on unconscious biases. It finds that when people are made to think about economic scarcity—as they inevitably are during a stressful recession—their subconscious perceptions of race change as well. In particular, they are more likely to internally visualize African American faces as being darker in color and more “stereotypically black”—perceptions related, in prior research, to the expression of higher levels of discrimination. The study even found that when asked to divvy up money between two people, white study participants allocated less money to an individual who was perceived as being more stereotypically black.”

Read more by Chris Mooney at Mother Jones here: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/david-amodio-race-economy-recessions

Cenk Uygur (http://www.twitter.com/cenkuygur) and Gina Grad (http://www.twitter.com/ginagrad) break down the study conclusions. Were you surprised by these results? Tell us what you think in the comment section below.