Outside the box
The Changing Misrepresentation of Race and Crime on Network and Cable News
Travis Dixon & Charlotte Williams
Journal of Communication, forthcoming
Abstract:
Prior research found that stereotypical media content shapes the perception of racial groups and social policy. Using the UCLA Communication Studies Digital News Archive, we sampled 146 cable and network news programs aired between 2008 and 2012. Findings revealed that Blacks were actually “invisible” on network news, being underrepresented as both violent perpetrators and victims of crime. However, Whites were accurately represented as criminals. Moreover, Latinos were greatly overrepresented as undocumented immigrants while Muslims were greatly overrepresented as terrorists on network and cable news programs. The implications of these findings are contextualized using the “guard dog” media coverage theory, structural limitations/economic interest of media, ethnic blame discourse, and the community philanthropy perspective.
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Exposure to Racial Out-Groups and Implicit Race Bias in the United States
James Rae, Anna-Kaisa Newheiser & Kristina Olson
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
The industrialized world is becoming more ethnically diverse. Research in several disciplines has suggested that exposure to racial out-groups may be associated with more positive and more negative intergroup attitudes. Given that U.S. states are often at the center of debate regarding diversity-related public policy, we examined how exposure to out-groups is associated with state-level implicit and explicit race bias among White and Black Americans. We found that larger proportions of Black residents across U.S. states were associated with stronger implicit and explicit in-group bias among both White and Black respondents. State-level bias was predicted by proportions of Black residents even when controlling for (a) state-level demographic control variables (e.g., median income), (b) proportions of non-Black minorities, and (c) historical membership in the Confederacy. Our results convey the importance of investigating why diversity may not always have the positive impact on intergroup relations that one might hope it to have.
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Perceiving a Presidency in Black (and White): Four Years Later
Sarah Gaither, Leigh Wilton & Danielle Young
Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, December 2014, Pages 7–21
Abstract:
When Barack Obama became the “first Black President” of the United States in 2008, researchers examined how his election impacted Americans’ views of racial progress. When he was reelected in 2012, the minority status of the president had become less novel. In the present study, we investigated whether perceptions concerning racial progress varied: (1) before and after President Obama's reelection; (2) by whether President Obama was labeled as biracial or Black; and (3) among White and Black individuals. We replicated past findings to demonstrate that after Obama's reelection, White participants reported that our country had made racial progress and decreased their support for equality programs (e.g., affirmative action). Our results also revealed that labeling President Obama as either biracial or Black did not affect views of racial progress. Additionally, Black participants categorized President Obama as Black more than White participants, while White participants categorized President Obama as White more than Black participants. We discuss these results in terms of the impacts of racial beliefs that stem from exposure to a minority leader.
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Implicit Attitude Generalization From Black to Black–White Biracial Group Members
Jacqueline Chen & Kate Ratliff
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigated whether Black–White biracial individuals are perceived as Black in the domain of evaluation. Previous research has documented that White perceivers’ negative evaluation of one Black person leads to a negative implicit evaluation of another Black person belonging to the same minimal group. We built upon this out-group transfer effect by investigating whether perceivers also transferred negative implicit attitudes from one Black person to a novel Black–White biracial person. In three experiments, participants learned about a Black individual who performed undesirable behaviors and were then introduced to a new group member. White perceivers formed negative attitudes toward the original individual and transferred these attitudes to the new group member if she was Black or Biracial, but not if she was White (Experiment 1) or Asian (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 demonstrated that only White participants exhibited transfer to the new Black and Biracial group members; Black participants did not.
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Bilingualism changes children's beliefs about what is innate
Krista Byers-Heinlein & Bianca Garcia
Developmental Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Young children engage in essentialist reasoning about natural kinds, believing that many traits are innately determined. This study investigated whether personal experience with second language acquisition could alter children's essentialist biases. In a switched-at-birth paradigm, 5- and 6-year-old monolingual and simultaneous bilingual children expected that a baby's native language, an animal's vocalizations, and an animal's physical traits would match those of a birth rather than of an adoptive parent. We predicted that sequential bilingual children, who had been exposed to a new language after age 3, would show greater understanding that languages are learned. Surprisingly, sequential bilinguals showed reduced essentialist beliefs about all traits: they were significantly more likely than other children to believe that human language, animal vocalizations, and animal physical traits would be learned through experience rather than innately endowed. These findings suggest that bilingualism in the preschool years can profoundly change children's essentialist biases.
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Exposure to Racial Ambiguity Influences Lay Theories of Race
Diana Sanchez, Danielle Young & Kristin Pauker
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Biological lay theories of race have proven to have pernicious consequences for interracial relations, yet few studies have examined how intergroup contact itself (particularly with those who naturalistically challenge these conceptions) affects beliefs about race. Three studies (a correlational study, an interaction study, and an experimental study) examine whether exposure to racially ambiguous individuals reduces Whites’ biological lay theories of race across time. Study 1 demonstrates that increased exposure to racial ambiguity across 2 weeks reduced White individuals’ biological lay theories. Study 2 shows that Whites who interacted in a laboratory setting with a racially ambiguous individual were less likely to endorse biological lay theories, an effect that sustained for 2 weeks. Study 3 finds that the reduction in biological lay theories after exposure to racial ambiguity is mediated by the tendency for Whites’ lay theories of race to conform to beliefs they presume racially ambiguous individuals hold.
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Gendered Facial Cues Influence Race Categorizations
Colleen Carpinella et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Race and gender categories, although long presumed to be perceived independently, are inextricably tethered in social perception due in part to natural confounding of phenotypic cues. We predicted that target gender would affect race categorizations. Consistent with this hypothesis, feminine faces compelled White categorizations, and masculine faces compelled Asian or Black categorizations of racially ambiguous targets (Study 1), monoracial targets (Study 2), and real facial photographs (Study 3). The efficiency of judgments varied concomitantly. White categorizations were rendered more rapidly for feminine, relative to masculine faces, but the opposite was true for Asian and Black categorizations (Studies 1-3). Moreover, the effect of gender on categorization efficiency was compelled by racial phenotypicality for Black targets (Study 3). Finally, when targets’ race prototypicality was held constant, gender still influenced race categorizations (Study 4). These findings indicate that race categorizations are biased by presumably unrelated gender cues.
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Shopping While Nonwhite: Racial Discrimination among Minority Consumers
Aronté Marie Bennett, Ronald Paul Hill & Kara Daddario
Journal of Consumer Affairs, forthcoming
Abstract:
“Shopping While Black” refers to negative experiences that African American consumers endure in the marketplace. The term was coined before the turn of the century and the tabulation of the 2000 census. However, this term may be antiquated — not because African Americans no longer have disparate consumer experiences, but because these experiences impact all American minorities. This study examines the prevalence of racially motivated discriminatory experiences across consumer contexts. Specifically, it offers an empirical look at ways that racial minorities believe they are treated in a variety of consumption environments. Results show that minority groups experience similar levels of perceived discrimination: Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans are as frequently victims of marketplace discrimination as are African Americans. Interestingly, these shared experiences do not necessarily translate into similar beliefs in the continued existence of discrimination as a derogatory force for American minority consumers.
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Jason Gwinn, Jamie Barden & Charles Judd
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, May 2015, Pages 1–10
Abstract:
Perceivers usually recognize the faces of members of their own racial group more accurately than the faces of other races --- a difference which is called the Cross-Race Effect (CRE). When showing this effect, research has typically used facial stimuli with neutral emotional expressions. A few studies have examined the effect with faces showing angry expressions (Ackerman et al. 2006; Krumhuber & Manstead, 2011; Young & Hugenberg, 2012), and these have generally shown enhanced recognition of outgroup angry faces, an effect that Ackerman et al. (2006) attributed to greater attention paid to threatening outgroup members. However, these studies suffer from stimulus confounds, in that the Black angry faces were particularly unusual, as revealed in our pretest data. Additionally, only White participants were used in these studies, raising the question of whether the reported effects are truly ingroup-outgroup effects. Reported here are two studies, using first White and then Black participants, that used a novel stimulus set that avoided earlier confounds. Participants studied and later attempted to recognize White and Black faces, varying in their emotional expression (angry versus neutral) both at encoding and testing. Both experiments showed a pro-ingroup CRE. However, contrary to prior research, both participant races had relatively more difficulty recognizing angry Black faces, such that when the faces were angry, the pro-ingroup CRE was strengthened for White participants and weakened for Black participants. We discuss theoretical explanations for these results which substantially qualify past conclusions about the role of facial emotions in cross-race facial recognition.
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Color-Blind and Color-Visible Identity Among American Whites
Monica McDermott
American Behavioral Scientist, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many signs point to the contemporary period as a color-blind era, one in which Whites purport to be unaware of race in social or political life. At the same time, White ethnic and racial identity continues to be measured in official government statistics such as the decennial U.S. Census and the annual American Community Survey (ACS). To adjudicate between the two, the ACS ancestry question response can be used not just as a means to measure the actual size of national origin populations but can also be a way to understand what it means to be “White” in an era of color blindness and optional ethnicity. White identities can provide the mechanisms by which color-blind ideologies are understood and expressed. Whites whose primary identity is “American” will understand race in a different way than a White respondent who identifies with a European ethnicity — yet each identity can lead to the same color-blind beliefs. To assess the appeal of different varieties of White identity, the responses of 16,632 non-Hispanic Whites to the ancestry question on the 2011 ACS are used. Based on these data, one can discern four primary types of White identity prevalent in the United States today: “White” (6%), “American” (10%), “ethnic” (62%), and “none” (12%). Each identity is most appealing to a different segment of the population — for example, older, urban Whites are most likely to claim an ethnic identity, while younger Whites living in rural areas with larger Hispanic populations are most likely to claim simply that their ethnic ancestry is “White.” Each identity also suggests a different pathway to color blindness.