Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-05-05
Source: The Conversation – in French– By Oyenike Balogun, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Bentley University
In several African countries, the practice of skin lightening is widespread, sometimes affecting more than50% of womenaccording to estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) in a regional fact sheet on Africa. In South Africa, this rate is 32%, while in Nigeria, it reaches 77%. These figures far exceed those observed in other regions of the world.
The health consequences are not negligible. Over-the-counter lightening creams and pills have beenassociatedSevere skin depigmentation, organic lesions, neurological disorders, and dangerous surgical complications.
However, researchers still have not identified the reasons that lead women to use these products. Understanding these reasons is essential to guide policies that need to find solutions to this public health problem.
An intuitive explanation is that women lighten their skin because they are dissatisfied with their skin color. This hypothesis is paradoxically difficult to confirm.
Most research on body image relies on direct questionnaires. Participants are asked what they think about their appearance. But my work as a counseling psychologist and researcher using mixed methods suggests that this approach has limitations. The responses are not always sincere.
In cases where preferring lighter skin may be perceived as a form of self-rejection, strong social pressures can influence responses to these direct questions.
Read more:
Colorism and lightening creams: these invisible legacies of colonization
To work around this problem, my co-authors and I approached the question differently. In ourrecently published study, we sought to find out whether the Implicit Association Test on skin color orSkin Implicit Association Test(Skin IAT) could reveal elements that self-report scales fail to capture. It allows detecting automatic associations of self-assessments that go unnoticed.
This test, adapted fromImplicit association testby social psychologist Anthony Greenwald and his colleagues, measures how quickly participants associate images of light and dark skin tones with positive or negative words. The principle is simple: if a person automatically associates light skin with positive words and dark skin with negative words, this association is reflected in their response time — even if they would never admit it directly in a questionnaire.
Implicit test designers suggest that they bypass biases related to self-assessment. They evaluate automatic and instinctive associations without directly questioning participants about their beliefs, attitudes, or behavior.
Implicit association tests have also been used to study other related implicit preferences, notably race, weight, religion, and age.
Our results highlighted a striking gap: nearly 79% of the participants showed an automatic preference for lighter skin during the implicit test. The standard surveys in our study detected only a third.
These results are important because they highlight the fact that the forces driving skin bleaching across the African continent cannot be reduced to a single psychological cause. The phenomenon is linked to a long colonial history spanning several centuries. It is also influenced by beauty standards centered on Europe. It is rooted in economic systems that associate social capital with light skin. It is also fueled by media environments that relentlessly reinforce these hierarchies.
To understand this complexity, varied research methods are necessary. It is essential to combine implicit and explicit tests with qualitative approaches that allow women to express, in their own words, how skin color affects their lives.
Read more:
The Gambian dilemma on depigmenting cosmetics and its resonance with the Black Lives Matter movement
Measuring unconscious responses
Our study focused on a sample of 221 black women, mainly South African. This sample represented the largest portion of participants in this online survey, which targeted African black women across the continent.
The participants were invited to complete two self-assessment questionnaires regarding satisfaction with their skin color, as well as the implicit association test related to skin. To be eligible for the study, participants had to identify as African black women, be at least 18 years old, and be willing to answer questions about their physical appearance.
The implicit test shows a preference for light skin in 78.5% of the participants. This corresponds to the highest rate of skin whitening observed on the continent (the 77% recorded in Nigeria). The two self-assessment questionnaires give much lower figures: 18.5% and 29.8%.
This measurement gap is significant. It could suggest that for many black African women, certain preferences for lighter skin exist without being fully conscious. Or that they are difficult to admit openly. A woman may declare being satisfied with her skin while having different automatic associations.
Towards better research
As researchers, we do not advocate abandoning tests based on self-assessment. They allow capturing elements such as attitudes, values, and conscious beliefs. They remain indispensable for many research topics.
Our conclusions rather emphasize the necessity of using multiple methods to study what the respondents think and feel.
Implicit tests examine associations that may elude conscious reflection.
In-depth interviews, focus groups, and community-centered methods can reveal experiences that no evaluation, implicit or otherwise, can fully capture. Mixed methods are therefore not a compromise between imperfect tools. They are the appropriate response to a phenomenon that is simultaneously structural, cultural, and deeply personal.
Faced with public health challenges linked to this common but poorly understood practice, the scientific community has a duty to do better. This involves investing in measurement tools developed specifically for and with Black African women. Regional differences must be taken into account. Finally, this reality must be taken seriously: what women say about their bodies does not necessarily reflect what they actually feel.
This article is based on a study funded by the Bentley University Research Council.
–ref. Why do so many African women lighten their skin? A study investigates their responses –https://theconversation.com/why-do-so-many-african-women-lighten-their-skin-a-study-questions-their-responses-281786